The environmental movement is doing some soul-searching.
It is floundering in the age of President Donald Trump, mired in a period of deep introspection in the wake of major policy rollbacks. Even the movement’s unity of purpose has been strained as various groups begin to question its priorities.
In less than a year’s time, Trump has razed the Biden administration’s hard-fought climate and energy law, torpedoed energy and environmental rules, and told the United Nations in September that climate change is the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” And the president’s expansive use of executive power has some environmentalists wondering if safeguarding democracy now takes precedence over everything else.
“What we are facing right now is the evisceration of 60 years’ worth of environmental progress and a crisis of confidence within the environmental and climate communities,” said Erich Pica, president of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth. “Folks are kind of spinning about what is happening and how to address it.”
