Scientists Decry Trump’s ‘Surreal’ Attack On Climate Science

Current conditions: Coastal storms are pushing water levels on New England’s shores two feet above normal levels • Japan just set a new temperature record of more than 106 degrees Fahrenheit • A cold front is settling over South Africa, bringing gale-forces to KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Scientists decry Energy Department’s climate skeptic report

The Department of Energy issued a report on Tuesday calling into question the global consensus on climate change and concluding that global warming poses less economic risk than previously believed. “The rise of human flourishing over the past two centuries is a story worth celebrating. Yet we are told — relentlessly — that the very energy systems that enabled this progress now pose an existential threat,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement. “Climate change is real, and it deserves attention. But it is not the greatest threat facing humanity.” But scientists whose work appeared in the 151-page report decried an analysis they said “fundamentally misrepresents” their research. I rounded up some comments they’ve made over the past couple of days:

 
• “It’s really surreal to think that’s where we are in 2025,” Jennifer Jacquet, a professor of environmental science and policy at the University of Miami, told Bloomberg.
 
• “These guys have a history of being wrong on important scientific issues. The notion that their views have been given short shrift by the scientific community is just plain wrong,” Ben Santer, a climate researcher and an honorary professor at the University of East Anglia, told, Wired's Molly Taft.
 
• “Complete decarbonisation in the long run requires partial decarbonisation in the short run. In other words, this attempt by the DoE to undermine the economic case for climate policy fails — and thus inadvertently strengthens said case,” University of Sussex scientist Richard Tol wrote on his Substack.
 
• “It is a coordinated, full-scale attack on the science. This was present in the first Trump administration, but it’s being exacerbated in the second,” Dave White, who directs the Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University, told The New York Times.
 
• “This shows how far we have sunk. Climate denial is now the official policy of the U.S. government,” Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University, told Science.

2. U.S. oil production hit a new record

  A pumpjack in the Permian Basin.Joe Raedle / Getty Images

U.S. crude oil production surged to a record 13.49 million barrels per day in May, despite concerns about oversupply driving prices down to four-year lows, according to a Reuters analysis of data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The milestone represents a win for President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly urged the industry to “drill, baby, drill,” even as rival producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries increased output to maintain market share, making profits difficult to turn in the U.S.

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3. Trump cancels plans for new offshore wind leases in federal waters

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has rescinded its designated areas for offshore wind development in federal waters. The move de-designated more than 3.5 million acres off the continental shelf in the Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon, the Central Atlantic, and the Gulf of Mexico for potential wind development.

The agency said it was acting in accordance with Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum’s order this week to weed out any policies that give preferential treatment to wind and solar. While the de-designation will not affect existing leases, the decision makes permanent the temporary pause on offshore wind leases Trump issued via an executive order on his first day in office in January.

4. Keeping a Michigan coal plant open will cost at least $29 million

In May, Energy Secretary Chris Wright issued an emergency order directing the utility Consumers Energy to keep Michigan’s J.H. Campbell coal plant operating for another 90 days, through August 20, to meet surging electricity demand on the Midwest’s grid. In a public filing as part of its quarterly earnings announced Thursday, Consumers Energy named the price of complying with the administration's order so far: $29 million. And that’s just the cost of operating the plant through June 30. The company said it plans to recoup the cost from ratepayers. The filing did not indicate what the total cost would be for the full three-month period.

Even before Trump returned to office, coal plant retirements were slowing. As Heatmap’s Matthew Zeitlin wrote last year, “Coal and gas were being retired so steadily over the past 20 years not just because plants were aging, but also because power use was essentially flat from the early 2000s through, essentially, yesterday. This meant that older plants — especially dirty coal plants — became uneconomic to run, especially as natural gas prices began to fall.” Coal plant retirements dropped last year to their lowest level since 2011, according to the Energy Information Administration, though at least as of February they were projected to increase this year again by 65%.

5. GE Vernova's nuclear reactor finds a new market in Europe

Of all the small modular reactors competing for a shot in the West’s ballyhooed nuclear renaissance, GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s 300-megawatt model is among the most promising. Ontario’s public utility just broke ground on what could be the world’s first BWRX-300s. The Tennessee Valley Authority has plans to build the second set. And Finland, Sweden, Estonia, and Poland are all considering buying their own. Add Hungary to that list. Piggybacking off the Polish project, Hungary on Wednesday signed a letter of intent with Poland’s Synthos Green Energy to back construction of up to 10 BWRX-300 reactors, the U.S. Embassy in Hungary announced. “This is American engineering at its best — the kind of trusted technology that reflects the strength, reliability, and excellence of the American industrial base,” Chargé d’Affaires Robert Palladino said in a speech at the signing event.

The move comes as the U.S. looks to broaden its grip on Europe’s nuclear sector. Westinghouse, the legendary American nuclear developer behind the only two new reactors built from scratch in a generation in the U.S., is building Poland’s first atomic power station. Earlier this week, Slovakia skipped its competitive bidding process and picked Westinghouse to construct its next nuclear plant. But after struggling to build its own reactors at home, the U.S. has to prove it can deliver on the deals.

THE KICKER

“Wind farms: Loud, ugly, harmful to nature. Who says that? These giants are standing tall against fossil fuels, rising up out of the ocean like a middle finger to CO2,” Samuel L. Jackson says in a new minute-long TV commercial from Swedish wind giant Vattenfall advertising seaweed snacks from aquatic crops grown on the artificial reefs around the behemoth turbine foundations. It may be one of the most defiant, if expletive-laden, defenses made yet of the industry the Trump administration is bent on drowning.