America has come a long way on climate issues — don’t let Trump take us backwards

Earth Day 2025 is the best of times and the worst of times for environmental advocates. On the holiday's 55th anniversary, there has been significant progress in the fight to save the planet from the ravages of climate change. But the harsh reality is that President Trump’s agenda would undo much of that progress.  

The theme for the anniversary this year is Our Power, Our Planet. The objective is to reduce dependency on the fossil fuels that increase the record temperatures in a dangerously overheated planet. The high temperatures in the atmosphere are responsible for erratic weather which brings death and destruction wrought by severe drought and dangerous storms. 

There is a lot more to do to save the planet, but progress has been made. Last year marked the first time more power was produced by wind and solar energy than from coal, according to EarthDay.org, the sponsor of the annual April 22 event. The goal of the group is to triple the production of renewable power by the end of this decade. 

Much of the credit for these advancements is due to former President Joe Biden’s forward-looking policies. The former president may not be popular now but his efforts to initiate the fight against the ravages of the climate crisis will leave a legacy. If progress stops under Trump and the excrement hits the oscillating cooling device, Biden’s supporters can at least say the former president told you so and at least tried to end climate carnage. Or they can congratulate the 46th president for starting the successful crusade before it was too late. 

Trump is devoted to undoing the noble deeds of his predecessor. He wants to eliminate the tax credits for producing renewable energy enacted by the previous administration to pay for tax giveaways for bankers and billionaires.  

Trump also wants to dramatically eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency regulations that protect the public from dangerous pollutants. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on Sunday that there would be no adverse health effects from deregulation. If you believe that, the former New York congressman has a bridge in Brooklyn he’d like to sell you.

Ironically, the EPA was created by Republican President Richard Nixon, who responded to growing public concerns about environmental threats.

To make matters even worse, the president wants to terminate disaster relief aid at a time when even more of it will be needed to repair devastation wrought by floods, wildfires, tornadoes and hurricanes. This could generate severe political liabilities for the Republican Party. North Carolina is a presidential battleground state with hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage from a series of storms. It might lose millions of dollars in federal disaster relief.

The next Republican presidential candidate — perhaps Vice President JD Vance or Donald Trump Jr. — might pay the price in 2028. Who knows? A massive drought in Texas or a devastating hurricane in Florida could put those states in play for Democrats. 

A national survey conducted in February by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center revealed that environmental concerns rank low in public concern. For instance, more than six in ten Americans worry a lot about inflation. On the low end of the scale, just two out of every five people are highly charged by climate change.   

Trump’s policies reflect GOP grassroots indifference. His policies spit into the harsh wind of climate change. He has dismissed the climate crisis as a “Chinese hoax.” The GOP response to the coming environmental catastrophe is deny, deny and deny. Two thirds of the Democrats anticipate a climate crisis but barely one in ten Republicans do.  

Support for improving the quality of the environment has existed for a long time but really hasn’t translated as a valance issue in the voting booth. The best thing to bring climate change to an electoral boil is to connect it emotionally with concerns about the economy. That sadly will be easier for advocates to do as U.S. efforts to fight the crisis dissipate under Trump and Mother Nature takes her revenge with more frequent and deadly storms that will cost thousands of people their lives and taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars in recovery and repair. 

It’s difficult but necessary to imagine the carnage caused by climate change to Earth and its inhabitants. A place to start would be the view in the book “A Distant Mirror” by renowned historian Barbara Tuchman which reflects on the horrific impact of the Black Plague on 14th century Europe. The disease led to widespread death, famine, war and destruction. The difference is that medieval Europeans didn’t have the tools to effectively fight the plague.  

Tuchman wrote another book, “The March of Folly,” which is a study in the abject failure of world leaders to take aggressive actions that could have nipped preventable disasters in the bud. We do have the means to fight climate change if we find the will to avoid another deadly tragedy. 

Brad Bannon is a national Democratic strategist and CEO of Bannon Communications Research which polls for Democrats, labor unions and progressive issue groups. He hosts the popular progressive podcast on power, politics and policy, Deadline D.C. with Brad Bannon.