EARTH DAY SLAY

It can be hard to feel optimistic about climate progress these days. But we shouldn’t lose sight of the good news — and there’s lots! Crooked climate correspondent Anya Zoledziowski shines a hopeful light on climate action as we celebrate Earth Week.

• Climate change is often seen as a partisan issue, and largely a priority for Democrats. But what if I told you the political divide isn’t as wide as it looks?

• The vast majority of Americans (72 percent) believe global warming is happening, and most (63 percent) are worried about it, according to new opinion data from Yale Climate Change Communication. Many stats illustrate this trend: About 60 percent of Americans understand human activities are causing climate change; more than 70 percent believe the climate crisis will harm future generations; and 77 percent support renewable energy generation on public land. Not to mention, most people living in GOP strongholds take climate change seriously!

• Republicans do have skin in the (climate) game, after all — they live on this planet, too! In fact, red districts are bearing the economic brunt of Trump’s climate rollbacks. Several Republican lawmakers have even asked Trump to keep some Biden-era climate-related tax cuts in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act — the biggest injection of money into climate action that the U.S. has seen.

• The catch is that Americans don’t talk about the climate crisis, and one new study found that this “spiral of silence” represents a big hurdle for climate action. “The more people view global warming as a bad thing, the less they talk about it,” the study says.

Raising public awareness is the antidote, according to this study. 

• Social media, news, and entertainment can play a role in making that happen. But you can have an immediate impact IRL: Talk about climate change, bring it up over dinner, post about it online, scream it from the rooftop — whatever! A good climate chat can make a difference.

• That’s in part because climate storytelling makes progress feel realistic. There’s “a need for these positive stories to come out and make it feel like things are possible,” said Caitlyn Eberle, a lead author of a new study from the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. By talking about climate wins, we shine a light on tangible, inspiring opportunities.

• So that’s what the study strives to do. Take Kamikatsu, Japan: the town achieved a recycling rate four times the average in Japan by introducing a sophisticated waste management program. Or the successful restoration of the Kissimmee River in Florida. “If we could just try to model some of those behaviors on a large scale, it would actually make a huge difference,” Eberle told me. Then there’s this: Global renewable electricity generation is forecast to increase by almost 90 percent between 2023 and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. Wind energy alone already accounts for about 10 percent of the U.S. electricity generation.

• All this is why Crooked Media is partnering with Covering Climate Now on their new 89% project — a year-long, collaborative journalism campaign that highlights the global “silent majority” of climate change believers.

It’s a nice reminder that progress is forging ahead, whether Trump likes it or not. Happy Earth Week, everyone!

This story is supported by our nonprofit partner, Crooked Ideas, and in partnership with Covering Climate Now’s 89% project. 

Callout: Got any climate or environment story tips or ideas? Drop me a line at anya@crooked.com. I’d love to hear from you!

TOO SENSITIVE TO HANDLE

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s troubles have gotten so ridiculous, they’d make a decent episode of the absurdist political comedy show “Veep.”

Screaming matches. Shit-talking in national media outlets. Allegations of drinking on the job. Leaked group chats with his wife. Weird workout videos. Questionable tattoos.

So far, the comically unqualified former Fox News weekend co-host is attempting to hang tough in the face of headlines about inadvertently leaking national security secrets — again.

“I haven’t blinked, and I won’t blink because this job is too big and too important,” Hegseth said this morning. Just staring wide-eyed into the void at his doomed future approaching, I guess!

Donald Trump is standing firmly behind his axe-throwing television buddy who eats bagels off the ground (cream cheese side down) and doesn’t wash his hands. But how long will Hegseth really last?

The chaos inside the Pentagon has had real impacts, delaying progress on Trump’s “Iron Dome for America” missile defense shield, according to the New York Times. Defense officials complain that meetings held by Hegseth’s top aides are often pointless — and once, devolved into his chief of staff recounting a trip to a strip club, per the outlet.

Hegseth has also been battling with Elon Musk over cuts to the Pentagon. Musk’s DOGE wants to slash up to a fourth of civilian jobs at the department, some 200,000 positions. But the defense secretary warned that it would hurt critical functions in the department, the Times reports.

If I’ve learned anything from watching hundreds of hours of reality television, it’s that the drama usually becomes too much to handle. Hegseth might “implode on his own,” a person close to the White House told Politico.

You know things are really bleak when someone starts a Hegseth vs. Head of Lettuce watch — in a nod to the time folks started wagering over whether beleaguered former U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss would outlast a decaying head of iceberg lettuce.

Place your bets now!

NEWS NEWS NEWS

Donald Trump’s tariff plan is expected to slow U.S. economic growth and drag the world down with it, according to an International Monetary Fund forecast released today. Meanwhile, it appears that Trump is trying  to blame Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for any bad economic news, calling him “a major loser” in a social media post yesterday. Very mature adults running this country!

Migrant kids are making court appearances without lawyers, after the Trump administration cut a $200 million fund for attorneys to represent unaccompanied children. Some of them are as young as 4 years old, others wore a shirt with a pizza cartoon and played with a toy windmill while a judge spoke. “It’s my job to figure out if you have to leave,” a judge told several children during a recent hearing in New York. “It’s also my job to figure out if you should stay.”

A Venezuelan migrant from Michigan believed to have been deported to El Salvador “has simply disappeared,” his friend told the New York Times. Ricardo Prada Vásquez isn’t on the list of people flown to the country, hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks, and doesn’t appear in photographs and videos released by authorities. A person in U.S. custody going missing is unheard of: “This case represents a black hole where due process no longer exists,” Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School, told the outlet.

Columbia University grad student Mahmoud Khalil missed the birth of his first child after ICE agents denied his release from custody, according to his wife. “ICE and the Trump administration have stolen these precious moments from our family in an attempt to silence Mahmoud’s support for Palestinian freedom,” Noor Abdalla wrote in a statement afterwards.

Tesla earnings fell 71 percent in the first quarter of the year, in large part thanks to Elon Musk’s new status as a widely unpopular far-right gazillionaire who’s trying to uproot democracy. Boohoo!

The Education Department will resume collections on defaulted student loans beginning May 5. “There will not be any mass loan forgiveness,” the department said in a statement. People in default will be informed of their status via email within two weeks, according to the announcement. Borrowers may see automatic deductions from their paychecks by the summer.

The Supreme Court looks likely to allow religious families to opt out of LGBTQ-themed book lessons in public schools. Woke SCOTUS does not strike today.

Trump’s EPA plans to fire or reassign about 300 people who work on environmental justice or diversity, equity and inclusion, the Washington Post reports. What next? Is Trump gonna cancel Earth Day? Smh.

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