Boiling Point: Why you shouldn't make deals with the (climate) devil

I saw a great meme created by Dustin Mulvaney, an environmental studies professor at San José State University. It has to do with President Trump’s efforts to undo regulations under the National Environmental Policy Act. Some background: The Trump administration wants to speed up permitting for oil pipelines, natural gas plants and other fossil fuel infrastructure.

So-called permitting reform is opposed by many climate activists, but not all. Although streamlined environmental reviews would help fossil fuel companies steamroll opposition, they would also make it easier for energy developers to overcome resistance to solar farms and wind turbines. Some climate activists think the benefits of permitting reform outweigh the costs.



Others are skeptical . They see environmental reviews as some of the best tools for reining in fossil fuel pollution — and they don’t believe solar and wind farms should be given a free pass from ecological damage either. OK, here’s Mulvaney’s meme: The joke is this: People who care about the climate crisis are aghast to see Trump tearing down democracy.

But some of them are nonetheless willing to hold their noses and work with him to achieve permitting reform. Personally, I think permitting reform could be helpful for climate — or at least it might have been last year, when Joe Biden was president and there was bipartisan legislation in the Senate. Mulvaney disagreed, arguing that the Senate bill, which didn’t pass, was “a recipe for undermining conservation and climate goals.

” Regardless, times have changed — for climate advocates and everyone else. Trump and Elon Musk are in charge. And however you want to describe their actions — fascist , authoritarian , tyrannical — no one of good conscience should be cooperating with them.

It’s like making a deal with the devil. In the end, you’re going to lose. Here’s a sampling of the Trump administration’s latest: I’m old enough to remember the hopeful days of three months ago, when at least a handful of environmentalists saw Zeldin as a moderate they might be able to work with .

Pretty clear how that’s worked out. Meanwhile, at Trump’s Department of Energy: The situation on America’s public lands is equally grim. The latest blow came Friday, when the White House issued a fact sheet implying Trump signed an order undoing Biden’s establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument in the California desert, and Sáttítla Highlands National Monument in Northern California.

The next day, the White House deleted that language from the fact sheet. Now nobody outside the White House knows the status of the monuments , as my colleague Doug Smith reports. If that sounds super weird to you — yes, it is super weird.

Who knows what will happen next. But if you care about public lands, I wouldn’t bother trying to persuade Trump to take care of them. As I wrote last month after U.

S. Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.

) blandly told me he looked forward to making the case to Trump’s appointees not to strip protections from Chuckwalla National Monument, the folks in charge right now aren’t interested in science or reason or the law. A few more examples of that reality: In one of the most egregious examples of how little Trump cares for objective reality, the president claimed last week that he “invaded Los Angeles” and “opened up the water” — a new embellishment of a previous lie . Want to know what really went down? Read this story by The Times’ Ian James , which explores a newly released memo revealing how the Army Corps of Engineers responded to Trump’s order to “maximize” water deliveries in California.

In other Western water news: To return to the meme: I understand the instinct, if you have a well-meaning policy objective and think you might be able to squeeze it out of the Trump administration, to take what you can get. But sometimes the optics make the self-defeating nature of the task clearer than others. Reading this story by my colleague Lila Seidman , for instance, I was struck by the absurdity of U.

S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) leading a group of bipartisan lawmakers calling on the Trump administration to jettison a controversial plan to protect the northern spotted owl.

She and her colleagues appealed to the Trump administration’s “spirit of fiscal responsibility,” describing the conservation plan as “grossly expensive.” In practice, Kamlager-Dove has ethical issues with the plan, which involves killing one type of owl to save another — a scientifically supported but controversial proposal. Nonetheless, she and eight other Democrats are basically offering up fodder for Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency because it aligns with one of their goals.

Again, you don’t make deals with the devil. Maybe you get something you want in the short term. But in the long term, you lose.

You condition yourself to keep falling for their tricks. You legitimize the erosion of democracy. On that lovely note, here’s what else is happening around the West: THE ENERGY TRANSITION Elon Musk has amassed a great deal of control over the federal government.

But Tesla isn’t doing so well, as Trump-hating customers sour on Musk’s electric vehicles. A few recent stories: In other electric-vehicle news, activists appealed a judge’s decision rejecting their lawsuit over lithium extraction in California’s Imperial Valley, per the Desert Sun’s Janet Wilson. Lithium is a key ingredient in EV batteries.

Overall, the energy transition is slowing under Trump. Fossil fuel executives are no longer pretending to care about clean energy goals. Bill Gates’ climate group, Breakthrough Energy, is cutting dozens of staff members .

Even in California, good news can be hard to come by. My L.A.

Times colleague George Skelton reports that Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking to divert $305 million from a voter-approved climate bond to help balance the budget. Bloomberg’s Eliyahu Kamisher, meanwhile, reports that California’s public employee pension system is counting investments in Chevron, Saudi Aramco and other fossil fuel companies as “climate solutions.

” FIRE FALLOUT If you open one story about the Los Angeles County wildfires this week, make it this one , by my colleagues David Wharton and Lorena Iñiguez Elebee. Lorena created incredible visuals showing how fire-stricken suburbs can be rebuilt safer. It’s by far the most understandable explainer I’ve seen on this important topic.

In other fire safety and recovery news: Last but not least, The Times co-sponsored a poll of L.A. County voters gauging their response to the fires.

I find it pretty alarming that 9% of residents are very seriously considering leaving the county , as Laura J. Nelson reports. Also significant: Most residents want stronger building codes and restrictions on growth in high-fire-risk areas — especially folks in neighborhoods devastated by the recent fires, Liam Dillon writes.

LAND AND WATER A few water stories for the road: I’m also sad to report two deaths. First is David Myers, one of the most important conservationists in California history. He founded the Wildlands Conservancy, which saved hundreds of thousands of spectacular acres from development and greatly expanded Joshua Tree National Park.

Here’s his L.A. Times obituary , from Elaine Woo.

Second is Raul Grijalva, a Democrat who represented Arizona in the House of Representatives for more than two decades. He championed climate, conservation and tribal land stewardship. Here’s his obituary .

ONE MORE THING A huge congratulations to my L.A. Times environment team colleague Rosanna Xia, whose documentary “Out of Plain Sight,” based on her groundbreaking reporting about the hidden history of DDT dumping off the California coast, will play next week on the closing night of Washington, D.

C.’s Environmental Film Festival . I was lucky enough to catch the film when it screened at Netflix’s Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles last month; it’s fantastic.

You can watch a trailer here , and find a list of upcoming film festival screenings here . This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox .

And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here . For more climate and environment news, follow @Sammy_Roth on X and @sammyroth.bsky.

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