November 22, 2016

Now Donald Trump Says There’s “Some Connectivity” Between Humans and Climate Change

But he’s still smearing climate scientists.

Mike Segar/ZUMA

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Donald Trump appeared to once again revise his stance on climate change Tuesday, telling New York Times reporters that he believes there is “some connectivity” between human activity and the climate change.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he was “not a big believer in man-made climate change.” In recent years, he went so far as to called global warming a “hoax” and claim it was a Chinese conspiracy. In 2009, however, Trump was one of several high profile signatories of a full-page ad pressing for urgent climate action.

On Tuesday, the president-elect also reportedly hedged on his campaign promise to “cancel” the landmark Paris climate agreement during his first 100 days in office.

“I’m looking at it very closely,” Trump said. “I have an open mind to it.”

The statements come as Trump attempted to strike a conciliatory tone with the Times by agreeing to sit down for an on-the-record interview. The wide-ranging meeting, which touched on everything from Trump’s potential conflicts of interest to whether he still hoped to prosecute Hillary Clinton, was nearly canceled after the president-elect momentarily believed the paper had tried to change the terms of the interview.

Update, November 23: Here’s the full transcript of Trump’s New York Times interview. In addition to acknowledging “some connectivity” between humans and global warming, he also engaged in some pretty blatant climate change denial. Trump invoked the widely debunked claim that climate scientists had been caught fabricating data in the so-called “climategate” scandal. “It’s a very complex subject,” said Trump. “I’m not sure anybody is ever going to really know…They say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists…Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind.”

This article has been revised.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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