Zeldin's religion of climate change denial

In announcing the administration’s plan to revoke the Endangerment Finding, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin referred to it as “the holy grail of the climate change religion.” The Endangerment Finding is the mechanism by which the EPA is required under the Clean Air Act to cut emissions that contribute to global warming from vehicles, power plants and other industries.

This is the latest salvo in Zeldin’s pollution spree, one that clearly demonstrates he doesn’t care about global warming or air pollution. He goes to work running the agency that’s supposed to protect people but does everything he can to roll back regulations that clean up our air — all on behalf of massively wealthy fossil fuel companies. No one else benefits, except his bosses, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, Project 2025’s architect, and President Donald Trump, who are pulling his strings. Under them, we can call Zeldin’s shop the Environmental Pollution Agency.

Zeldin’s rhetoric about religion is ignorant — after all, it is scientists who’ve done the research proving how methane, carbon and other emissions thicken the blanket of our atmosphere, keeping solar radiation from escaping and heating up our Earth. Religions aren’t based on science, but on faith, on the idea that there’s something larger than us, beyond the reach of science. Zeldin, Vought and Trump can’t escape the science — the facts and data are incontrovertible.

Over one and a half million members of Moms Clean Air Force and millions of others across the country agree that the science shows what we need to do, and it’s up to the EPA and our political leadership to act. Climate change is decimating our lives, health, homes, and communities. It’s costing us in health care, home insurance and the billions of dollars to rebuild our houses, churches, schools, roads and towns, if rebuilding is even possible.

In all these years, I’ve never seen such a damaging, cynical and dangerous government-led mess of a response. It’s worse than the classic climate denial of a mere 10 years ago. Now we’re fighting a deliberate, calculated campaign not just to deny the problem but also to destroy all the progress we were making with pragmatic, affordable solutions for curbing climate pollution — and that were also good for the economy and creating jobs.

Why are Zeldin and Trump so perversely focused on undoing this progress? It’s their religion, and it’s based not on science but the feeling that there is indeed something larger than all of us: Money. The only worshiping going on in this administration is of fossil fuels, our “beautiful liquid gold” to quote Trump.

Many of us believe we have a responsibility to care for this planet on which we are blessed to live. It is part of our ethical framework — not a religion, but an ethos, a moral way to live. We believe we should protect our natural world. We want to pass along our blessings to our children, their children and generations to come.

Contrarily, the worship of the unregulated burning of fossil fuels, the circling around a strange kind of pagan fire, is at the heart of the climate denial religion that now fixate Trump, Zeldin and their adherents. It’s our children whose futures are being sacrificed.

This guest essay reflects the views of Dominique Browning, co-founder and  director of Moms Clean Air Force, a national coalition fighting climate change.