It will be hard to forget the scene of Trump announcing the U.S. was quitting the Paris Agreement to whooping cheers from 20,000 MAGA supporters. Or the elation from the crowd as he tossed the ceremonial felt-tip marker into the throng. Exuberance over quitting an agreement designed to keep them safer in a world that just clocked its hottest year ever recorded. An agreement that requires nothing from any country other than its own “nationally determined” contributions to global safety.

Instead, the U.S. is determined to “drill, baby, drill,” the president declared in his inaugural speech. “We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have – the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we are going to use it.” Hours later, he formally declared a “national energy emergency” to override restrictions on drilling for “liquid gold.” A ludicrous move for a country currently pumping more fossil fuels than any nation in the history of the world.

There’s no sugarcoating it — Donald Trump’s first hours in office were the most vicious and comprehensive assault on climate action that we’ve ever seen. What still remains to be seen is how effective rule-by-Sharpie really is and what reaction it provokes. 

Amidst the firehose of madness, the most hopeful spin I can offer is that there are reasons to expect a counter-reaction. It feels like a thin reed at the moment but public opinion tends to move counter to big changes in politics. The wonky term is the “thermostatic effect” or thermostatic politics. Basically, the public turns the dial when the temperature isn’t right. This thermostatic effect is well-studied by political scientists and you can definitely make the case that Trump’s first term boosted public demand for climate action worldwide. 

But there’s no denying that today’s context looks and feels much different. And Trump’s assault is sweeping. On the........

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