Reframing the climate conversation
On May 23, the Trump administration released an Executive Order titled “Restoring Gold Standard Science,” a thinly veiled attempt to suppress legitimate science with a title too ironic to be funny to the thousands of government employees, university researchers, and nonprofit organizations that lost federal research funding in recent months. The executive order twisted legitimate scientific standards of accuracy and reproducibility for political use; criticized climate scientists for considering worst-case emissions scenarios (despite Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mandate making them increasingly likely); and put political appointees in charge of “correcting” scientific results.
This executive order legitimized Trump’s censorship of science he disagrees with, transforming a field dedicated to objective inquiry into a political weapon. But the administration’s policing of science began several months ago. Beginning in January, cascades of federal grants and research projects that contained forbidden words (including “climate science”, “environmental quality,” “increase,” “groups,” “trauma,” and “women”) were flagged for review and, more often than not, cancelled. In response to the government’s haphazard “Ctrl-F” targeting and dismantling of legitimate scientific research, many scientists began preemptively removing words, re-writing phrases, or shifting the focus of their research in an attempt to retain federal funding. In many cases, this self-censorship became an absurd experiment in making already dense scientific writing completely impenetrable. How, for instance, can one report upward trends in results of any kind without “increase?” Or conduct medical research without the technical term “trauma?” Apart from the practical challenges, self-censorship also negatively impacts productivity and motivation; it is hard to conduct effective research when publishing results or investigating controversial questions threatens funding and careers.
But, at least for climate change, Trump’s censorship of buzzwords may provide an opportunity to shift the narrative. Despite the best efforts of climate scientists, the term “climate change” has become overtly political. Oil and gas companies and professional deniers have spent exceptional sums of money convincing the public that climate change is overblown (at best) or a complete hoax (at worst), and right-wing politicians have seized on this supposed controversy to paint climate change as contentious. As a result, it is essentially impossible to have a rational, productive discussion about climate change in the current political climate. Even the basic science of greenhouse gas warming — understood by scientists since the 1800s — is challenged by deniers, who made up approximately a quarter of Congress in 2024.
The challenges of talking about climate change aren’t just political; even on the same side of the aisle, well-meaning discussions often do not generate impactful change. This is because climate change is a “super wicked problem”, defined as an “enormously complex societal problem that has no single right answer and no clear finish line, multiple stakeholders with conflicting priorities, and no central authority empowered to solve it.” Invoking polar bears in the Arctic or coral reefs in Australia, as many climate change conversations do, highlight the overwhelming scale of the problem and the apparent impossibility of a solution, leaving even those who support action too paralyzed to respond.
That is why Trump’s censorship provides an opportunity. If we replace the term “climate change” with specific, precise language that clearly identifies how rising greenhouse gas concentrations impact our everyday lives — and what we can do about it — we can have more productive conversations across the political spectrum. For instance, acknowledging that warming temperatures in Colorado have caused significant declines in snowpack, threatening the state’s $4.8 billion ski industry, creates a clear connection between rising temperatures and economic damage to towns like Telluride. Creating locally focused narratives around environmental changes and climate-smart adaptations, as groups like Sheep Mountain Alliance or EcoAction Partners do for San Miguel County, helps communities understand individual options for action. Discussing sustainable solutions such as clean energy in terms of economic opportunities, job expansion, and improved air and water quality provides compelling reasons to vote for such solutions, without even mentioning climate. In many ways, Telluride is ahead of the curve: most residents recognize the threat climate change poses to the lands they love, and local governments are generally supportive of decarbonization and sustainable development. But we can’t afford to limit the climate conversation to people who are already engaged. For people of all political orientations, rephrasing provides a productive way to talk about climate change without the baggage of “climate change.”
Of course, it would be trivially easy for the Trump administration to put “snowpack” or “pollution” on their blacklist, right alongside “climate change.” While Trump remains in office, we desperately need to fight against censorship and advocate for free science. But simultaneously, we can embrace the opportunity to shift the way we talk about climate change, in hopes of creating a cooler, more sustainable future.
Madeleine Burns grew up in Durango and recently graduated from Princeton, where she studied environmental engineering with a focus on hydrology. She currently lives in Telluride and works on climate change analyses of national parks.