Trump 2.0’s Climate Denial: The First 100 Days.

Donald Trump is an unstable bully, using a shock and awe tactics with friends and foes alike. The President uses the same tactics internally, as his cabinet and senior staff members must pledge absolute allegiance to him and to him alone. Congress sits stunned and afraid to challenge his power, as whimsical executive order after executive order bypasses their constitutional authority. Anyone or any organization that is not exuberant over his despotic actions faces the wrath of the full power of the United States government.

A tactical weapon of the president has been Elon Musk who has lavishly supported the President financially and has used X to spread his disinformation. Musk has, until recently, (unofficially) led the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which ransacked government departments and agencies; a favourite target has been those associated with climate change.

Democracy dies by a thousand lies, and President Trump has already far exceeded this threshold. America will awaken one morning and finally realize that their Republic is in tatters. America’s allies have been humiliated by Trump, while their enemies are lauded, and the world suffers from an increasingly deadly climate crisis.

Canadian Bacon

President Trump has also unintentionally diverted the public’s attention away from the climate crisis by creating chaos and a global economic crisis through his ill-designed tariff campaign of intimidation. No nation has been abused more by Trump’s tariffs than Canada, and adding insult to injury, Trump trolls Canada by insisting that it should become the 51st state. In the mid-1990s, another U.S. president had also sought to make Canada an enemy by spreading disinformation about their northern neighbour (and mentioned Canada as the 51ststate). However, this president was only a fictional character in the Michael Moore comical-satire Canadian Bacon, starring John Candy. The movie released in 1995 has uncanny similarities with the political situation under Trump in 2025. Elbows up Canada, we are not for sale.

Project 2025

Trump’s controversial activities in his first 100 days are allegedly derived from Project 2025, designed by the Heritage Foundation. An in-depth summary of the climate censure and censorship of Project 2025 was prepared by Scott Waldman, and Project 2025 training videos for staff called “Left-Wing Code Words and Language” included the following:

If the American people elect a conservative president, his administration will have to eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.

Project 2025’s policy book reported its general plan for climate change under the section The Real Policy Recommendations, Unleash American Energy:

Stopping collaboration with and funding of progressive foundations, corporations, international institutions, and NGOs that advocate for climate fanaticism.

The early climate-denial actions of Donald Trump have, at least, been inspired by Project 2025.

Climate Denial in American Politics: #ClimateBrawl

In December 2023, the academic publisher Routledge released my peer-reviewed book Climate Denial in American Politics: #ClimateBrawl (for a review see the Climate Crisis Club blog or or Canada’s National Observer). Climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann wrote the following editorial review:

If you’re looking to understand how climate change became so prominent in American politics, look no further than Gerald Kutney’s authoritative, and engaging primer on the topic, "Climate Denial in American Politics”. Having been on the frontlines of the social media “climate brawl” for years, he provides insights from the frontlines that will help you not only understand where denialism comes from, but how to join in the collective effort to fight back against it.

Chapter 3 on Climate Denialism in Washington exposed the climate denial activity of Trump 1.0 in his first term which concluded:

In his one term as president, Donald Trump demolished the climate change initiatives of the previous administration, including the all-important Paris Climate Agreement. By electing a hard-core climate denier to the highest office, America had placed the world on a much more dangerous path.

The section on the American presidents ended with:

Since President Reagan, America’s climate initiatives have been on a wild roller coaster ride between Republican and Democratic administrations. President Biden appears to be following the pattern of his Democratic predecessors, but what will the next Republican president do?

At the time of the writing of the book, I had no idea how destructive and bitter Donald Trump would be if he returned to the White House.  

The First 100 Days of Climate Denial

In his Inaugural Address, Trump 2.0 told America what was coming. He declared the “golden age of America,” “the revolution of common sense,” “a national energy emergency,” “drill, baby, drill,” and “end the Green New Deal.”  

Just four days into office, the White House issued a shocking press release considering the source that included:

At the heart of scientific progress lies the pursuit of truth. But this foundational principle, which has driven every major breakthrough in our history, is increasingly under threat. Today, across science, medicine, and technology, ideological dogmas have surfaced that elevate group identity above individual achievement, enforce conformity at the expense of innovative ideas, and inject politics into the heart of the scientific method. These agendas have not only distorted truth but have eroded public trust, undermined the integrity of research, stifled innovation, and weakened America’s competitive edge.

These haunting words are the most truthful about science ever to come from Donald Trump, but little did the President realize that the ideological dogmas that were a threat to science had been his own and that of the G.O.P., which he soon proved through his executive orders and other actions.

Later, on April 22, the White House issued a press release titled On Earth Day, We Finally Have a President Who Follows Science. This would have been funny title on April 1s but, instead, the press release is a sad, even frightening, statement as to the delusional state of mind of the climate denier leading the most powerful nation in the world who is responsible for the extreme anti-science agenda listed below.

The first defiant action on climate change by Donald Trump upon returning as president was to again withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In Climate Denial and American Politics: #ClimateBrawl, I discussed the world’s outcry when Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement the first time, including the warning from Stephen Hawking:

By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.

Below is a chronology of the first 100 days of the climate-denial actions of President Trump’s second term, starting on day one (some dates are estimates):

•  January 20 – Announcement to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and other commitments to the UNFCCC.
   
•  January 20 – “Disinformation” is protected under freedom of speech.
   
•  January 20 – Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) created.
   
•  January 20 – Declares a national energy emergency to boost oil and gas production.
   
•  January 20 – Revokes several climate initiatives, including 50% target for EVs by 2030.
   
•  January 30 – Trump orders USDA to take down websites mentioning climate change.
   
•  February 3 – climate denier confirmed as energy secretary.
   
•  February 3 – Departments of State, Defense, and Transportation and the White House ordered to remove climate change from their websites.
   
•  February 4 – DOGE enters NOAA.
   
•  February 5 – climate denier runs EPA.
   
•  February 12  – key climate reports removed in the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) website.

•  February 17  – report on Trump’s climate-denial cabinet.
   
•  February 20  – U.S. announces that it is stripping funding of research that mentions the word “climate.”
   
•  February 24  – U.S. scientists and officials have not been attending UNFCCC and IPCC meetings.
   
•  February 24-28  – job cuts at NOAA.
   
•  February 25 – Trump orders EPA to reverse climate endangerment finding.
   
•  March 7  –  U.S. withdraws from COP 28 loss and damage deal for vulnerable nations.
   
•  March 9  – Secretary says DoD does not do “climate change crap.”
   
•  March 10  – Secretary of Energy claims he is not a climate denier but a climate realist.
   
•  March 10  – EPA administrator is working with the FBI and Justice Department to investigate fraud from climate funds given to non-profits.
   
•  April 8 – Trump issues the executive order Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry.
   
•  April 8 – Trump orders the Department of Justice to stop enforcing state climate laws.
   
•  April 8 – U.S. withdraws from talks to decarbonize the shipping sector.
   
•  April 8 – NASA ends funding for USGCRP which organizes the National Climate Assessment.
   
•  April 10 – Trump plans to slash budgets for the climate crisis at NOAA and NASA, if approved by Congress.
   
•  April 24 –  U.S. pushes IEA to stop promoting clean power.
   
•  April 28 –  Trump dismisses the 400 contributors to the National Climate Assessment.
   

In politics, climate denial is the voice of tyranny, not democracy. The early days of the climate purge of President Trump’s second term have already produced the most extreme political science denial in a democracy in history. The last time that such censure and censorship of science took place was during the 1930s in authoritarian governments in Russia and Germany. The most frightening aspect of Trump’s K & K government – kakistocracy (i.e., government by the worst, least qualified, or most unscrupulous) and kleptocracy (i.e., government by leaders who rule for their own personal gain) –  is that it has more than 1350 days to go.

If you wish to have access to the latest news stories on climate denial and the politics of climate change, including the latest antics of Donald Trump, please join and follow the LinkedIn group Climate Brawl – Politics & Climate Denial and/or the Reddit community r/ClimateBrawl.

Gerald Kutney is a commentator on the news media and social media on the politics of the climate crisis. He has authored the peer-reviewed books Carbon Politics and the Failure of the Kyoto Protocol and Climate Denial in American Politics: #ClimateBrawl. He has also recently written a peer-reviewed paper titled Climate Denial and the Classroom: a Review.