We Blinded Him With Science!
Trump Worries About "Climate Anxiety"
I read The New York Times page by printed page, so you don’t have to—though you should. Lately, I’ve gone back to an old habit and doing so armed with scissors.
My first clip is from the story headlined, “Trump Denies Climate Funds To Researchers At Princeton” in my print edition, but online called Trump Administration Cuts Research Funding, Claiming It Creates ‘Climate Anxiety’1
In pulling funding for the program, the Commerce Department said that the collaboration “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.” The agency also said it would stop funding the program’s educational initiatives targeted at students in kindergarten through high school students.
But they’re wrong about what young people are anxious about. If there is one issue that is motivating younger voters to participate in our creaky and unappealing electoral system that I’ve compared to dog food, it’s the environment.
A post-election poll from CIRCLE found “The top motivation among youth who voted was having an impact on the issues they care about, and less than 1% said they voted because of influencers or celebrities.”
While “cost of living/inflation” was by far the largest reason, at 64%, “Climate change and the environment”tied with “jobs and unemployment” at 26%, ranking just below “healthcare” and “abortion” at 28% and 27%. And before the election, a poll from Gallup found that 88% of voting age Gen Z believed politicians are responsible for addressing issues related to climate change.
Juxtapose that with my next clip, from Trump Administration Opens More Public Land to Drilling and Mining
President Trump maintains that climate change, an established scientific fact, is a hoax. He has directed federal agencies to reverse all policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet. Instead, he wants to increase demand for and production of fossil fuels, including on public lands and in federal waters.
Then, I tore out an entire page of the Times that included these three headlines:
“Trump Cuts Funding and Staff for Congress-Mandated Climate Report”
“Trump Issues Threat to Climate Policies Set by States”
“Musk’s NOAA Staffing Cuts Put Salmon Harvests at Risk”
But it was this clip that summed everything up for me, from a story about Trump’s reversal on tariffs by a Times team that included Maggie Haberman, who last year said the Single Smartest Thing I’ve ever heard about Donald Trump:
“Mr. Trump has treated his own words as disposable commodities, intended for single use, and not necessarily indicative of any deeply held beliefs.”
Although she shared this byline with colleagues, I see the fine hand of my fellow Sarah Lawrence College graduate in this juicy sentence:
Over many years, when he has been presented with statistics that don’t comport with his instincts, he demands that people find him alternative information that backs up his beliefs.
So there we are. We’ve elected a president who thinks climate change is a hoax and has embraced a load of nonsense about it making little kids anxious—and when grownups come to him with scientific facts he demands alternative facts.
What’s a country to do?
I’ll repeat what I’ve said here, and here (and now, here): the only thing that matters is to fulfill what Sabato’s Crystal Ball is now seeing: working for a Democratic takeover of the House in 2026.
That’s the way—the only way—to block Trump’s policies and even pass some bipartisan legislation that many Republicans want to support—if they weren’t under the grip of Trump. Will that hold be loosened after the next 18 months of Trump tariffs, Musk chainsaws and daily failure to do anything that isn’t about helping billionaires?
And will Donald Trump find advisors who can adequately refute basic science and incontrovertible fact? Maybe he needs this guy:
I will concede that despite what I said in the link above about my passion for print, sometimes online headlines are more on the money.