Early on in the vice presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance described climate change as “a very important issue.” For a fleeting moment, that seemed encouraging.
The moment didn’t last. The Ohio Republican quickly added that many Americans “are justifiably worried about all these crazy weather patterns. I think it’s important for us, first of all, to say Donald Trump and I support clean air, clean water.”
Part of the problem with that answer was the simple fact that air and water quality in the United States got worse, not better, during Trump’s presidency. But just as notable was the disconnect between the question and the answer: In the GOP senator’s mind, the key to understanding climate change is focusing on air and water quality, as if they’re all the same thing. They’re not, no matter how many times the former president — and now his running mate — pretend otherwise.
But if the Republican vice presidential nominee’s approach to the climate crisis was a mess, Trump’s was worse. NBC News reported on the former president’s remarks at a press conference in Milwaukee, where he delivered “sometimes hard-to-follow comments.”
‘Global warming wasn’t working because the planet’s actually gotten a little bit cooler recently. But climate change covers everything. It can rain, it can be dry, it can be hot, it can be cold. Climate change. Everything is — look, and I’m — I believe I really am an environmentalist. I’ve gotten environmental awards. But I want clean, beautiful air and clean, beautiful water. That’s all. Crystal clean water,’ Trump said at one point during the event.”
None of this made any sense. The planet hasn’t gotten cooler; the climate crisis and the weather aren’t the same thing; the climate crisis is also unrelated to air and water pollution; and no sane person could seriously describe Trump as “an environmentalist.”
But he said all of this with a straight face anyway.
But that’s not all he said. In the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Helene, the Republican also suggested no one cares about climate change anymore. Two days earlier, he told a Pennsylvania audience that the climate crisis is “one of the great scams of all time.”
Eight years ago this week, Hillary Clinton reminded voters that then-candidate Trump referred to climate change as “a Chinese hoax.” The former secretary of state was correct — he really was on record saying that — but the Republican denied it. Two years later, the then-president even conceded, “I don’t think it’s a hoax.”
At the time, the GOP nominee seemed to realize that much of the American electorate was concerned about the intensifying effects of global warning, so it made political sense for him to distance himself from overt climate denialism.
In 2024, however, Trump just doesn’t care. He now seems to believe that overt climate denialism will not stand in the way of his White House ambitions at all.
This is causing no shortage of international anxieties. As a Politico report summarized this past weekend, “Pro-climate government officials and environmental activists have had months to think about a strategy for preventing a second Donald Trump presidency from disrupting their efforts to save the world. They’ve come up with one main idea: Hope Vice President Kamala Harris wins.”