A group of 50 protesters Tuesday headed to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team office in Washington, D.C. to teach the incoming administration a thing or two about climate change. “In opposition of Trump’s Climate Denial Cabinet, participants held a climate teach-in outside the Trump transition office to provide his administration with a much-needed lesson in climate science,” a 350.org release explains.
Pictures of the protest suggest that demonstrators attempted to share the basic facts of climate change. Listed on a chalkboard titled “Climate Science 101” were five facts: “It’s warming;” “It’s us;” “We’re sure;” “It’s bad;” and “We can fix it.”
Environmentalists are particularly unsettled by Trump’s picks for Environmental Protection Agency administrator and secretary of state. “Groups shined a strong spotlight on [Oklahoma Attorney General] Scott Pruitt, a climate denier set to head the EPA, as well as on ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, who Trump has tapped as Secretary of State. Exxon knew everything there was to know about climate change as far back as the 1970s, yet chose to embark on a decades-long ongoing campaign of deception,” the release says.
Tuesday’s protest was just the beginning, 350.org said. The group has planned a Jan. 9 “national day of action opposing the Climate Denial Cabinet,” according to the release. It will target Senate offices across the nation, paying special attention to senators who accept climate science but have not publicly opposed the appointments of Pruitt and Tillerson. A representative from 350.org did not respond Tuesday to a request for further information on the planned demonstrations.
“Trump’s cabinet is a who’s who of climate-deniers and fossil fuel hacks, poisoned with anti-environmental records and failures to protect families that cannot be replicated for the next four years. Senators must stand up for clean air, clean water, and climate justice and reject these appointments,” Maura Cowley, international climate and energy campaign director with the Sierra Club, said in the release.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.