Cape May

Cape May
(RE BERG-ANDERSSON)

Saturday, February 14, 2026

Opinion: Donald Trump Is (Not) For The Birds

In the last few days there has been a seismic change in the way the United States deals with climate change.

It is ignoring it.

Here is the reporting of the New York Times:

President Trump announced [Thursday] afternoon that he was officially erasing the scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life by warming the planet. The move largely cuts off the federal government’s legal authority to address climate change through regulation.

Following the lead of a president who refers to climate change as a “hoax,” the administration is directly challenging the overwhelming scientific consensus. Presidents of both parties have warned of the dangers of climate change for decades.

At issue is a 2009 determination called the endangerment finding, which the government has used to justify regulations on greenhouse gases. Lee Zeldin, who leads the E.P.A., called today’s move “the single largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.”

The administration claimed it would save auto manufacturers and other businesses an estimated $1 trillion, although it has declined to explain how it arrived at that figure. The Environmental Defense Fund estimated the rollback could lead to as many as 58,000 premature deaths.

(Alen Hunjet, StockPhotoBoard.com)

What Trump did, exactly, according to the BBC, was revoke the Obama-era "endangerment finding" from 2009 that held that pollution harms public health and the environment. For almost 17 years, the US has used that scientific finding as the legal basis to establish policies to reduce emissions from cars, power plants and other sources of planet-warming gases.

"This radical rule became the legal foundation for the Green New Scam," Trump said, using a term popular with Republicans for describing Democratic environmental and climate policies.

So 58,000 early human deaths caused by an increasingly warming planet that has already seen hotter summers, more widespread drought and more destructive hurricanes is a "radical rule" and a "green new scam." 

As an American who loves her country, I hate this radical change by a man who has no regard for anything except his own ego and making a few million bucks for his companies while in office. But as a birder, I am extremely saddened and worried about what will happen to the environment, specifically the birds, now that fighting climate change is no longer an American imperative. 

As the oceans warm, the creatures that need to live cold water have been moving north. So have the birds, whales and fish that feed on them. As icebergs melt, the oceans will continue to rise and threaten coastal communities. That includes my hometown of New York City.

Spring will come earlier. According to Roger F. Pasquier, in his book "Birds in Winter" (2019): "While short-distance migrants are leaving their wintering site sooner and returning there later, long-distance migrants, affected by day length, have not shifted their schedule as much. On arrival in spring, however, they find the season more advanced, often to the point where the food they give their young is no longer widely available. Resident birds in the same habitat have begun nesting weeks earlier, remaining in sync with the the emergence of the prey they feed their young. The migrants least able to accelerate their schedule are the species most declining."

This was written seven years ago.

Birds and animals that once lived in southern regions, such as the red-bellied woodpecker and the northern mockingbird, have been moving north for years. 

Says Pasquier: "The most visible impact of climate change in wintering birds has been the shift in their range. Many species of middle latitudes are migrating less far, if at all, and their range in both winter and summer has moved poleward. Ground foragers can now survive the winter in places where snow cover used to make feeding difficult. Waterbirds are not limited by areas that once froze for months of winter..."

President Trump has done many things to harm many people since he was re-elected in 2024, and he is not much better when it comes to Nature. He wants oil drilling in the arctic. He wants oil drilling off America's coasts. He tried to scuttle wind power projects. He ordered the Defense Department to use more coal-based energy. He has ordered the Energy Department to pay coal plants to stay online. He has proposed major changes to the Endangered Species Act to eliminate many protections. Once he was re-elected he again pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accords on climate change. (He did this during his first term, in 2017, but President Biden reinstated the U.S. in 2021.)

His way to "Make America Great Again" seems to be all about making America a sick place where businesses can operate unregulated and with impunity and Nature is a profit center, the rest of the world and all that live in it be damned. 

Even NASA, a part of the U.S. government, recognizes the seriousness of climate change.

There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate. Human activity is the principal cause.

Earth-orbiting satellites and new technologies have helped scientists see the big picture, collecting many different types of information about our planet and its climate all over the world. These data, collected over many years, reveal the signs and patterns of a changing climate.

Europe has been taking climate change seriously, because it is the fastest warming area on Earth. But the relationship between Europe and the U.S. has been changing under Trump. Besides pulling the U.S. out of the climate accord he has threatened to take the U.S. out of NATO and has been obsessed with controlling Greenland, a protectorate of NATO member Denmark.

Ironically, climate change is causing Greenland's ice sheet to melt at an accelerated rate, leading to rising sea levels and impacting local ecosystems and communities. The warming temperatures also threaten traditional livelihoods, particularly for the Inuit population, as fish stocks decline.

Trump does not care about any of that. He does not care about ecosystems and communities. He does not care about Inuits or fish. He claims he needs Greenland to protect the U.S. from potential threats from China and Russia. What he really wants, I believe, are the rare earth metals needed for technology, which Greenland has in abundance and the U.S. is no longer getting from China.

In a word, sad.

I Don't Count (Don't Ask Me)

Lately, I have found I can no longer do things I was doing just fine before on my computer. This is not so much because of any infirmity on my part but because these websites have tech people and I am convinced these tech people must change things in order to keep their jobs.

So now instead of signing into one of my emails with a password I have to click more buttons in order to do so rather than send a security text to my phone. The way I used to print was changed after the last alleged upgrade. When I downloaded a document as a pdf I got a pdf.aspx I couldn't open without a "third-party program." I had to look up how to change it back to a pdf so I could print it.

None of this has saved me any time or made my use of the computer any easier. I didn't ask for these changes, they were foisted upon me.

Not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

In the name of security several sites I've signed into for years recently asked me to create a new password. I get it, people can hack into your computer if they get your password, although some disagree how often these passwords have to be changed. I disagree, too, considering the several data breaches that affected me within the last year that did not involve these websites I visit.

So I am more than a little disappointed that the good people behind the Great Backyard Bird Count, held every year during the Presidents' Day weekend, have made filing my bird lists more high-tech and less user-friendly. The organizations involved include the Cornell Ornithology Lab, which provided me with the Merlin app, Birds Canada and the national Audubon Society.

In the past, I could go to a dedicated site, sign in and then go through the steps to post the number of birds I saw, where, under what conditions, what day and what time. 

That has changed. 

There is still a dedicated site, www.birdcount.org. But now to report you must use either the Merlin app, the eBird Mobile app or send the information to the eBird website. For this I would have to create an account.

I have no interest in creating an eBird account because I don't care to use eBird to list my sightings. Sure, I look at the eBird lists to see what others have found in particular areas including my home county. But when you file to eBird it is expected you will keep a COUNT of what and how many birds you've seen.

Still not using eBird. (RE Berg-Andersson)

When I am out in the field, with binoculars around my neck, a stick in one hand and my phone showing the Merlin recording app in the other, it is hard enough just finding a bird by eye or ear without taking the extra step and counting how many birds I'm seeing.

Say I see a couple of titmice as I walk in one direction and I then see a couple of titmice in a different area on the way back - have I seen the same two or four?

Say I am by a frozen pond where the one bit of open water contains what looks like hundreds of Canada geese (plus others - this actually happened several winters ago). These geese aren't sitting still waiting to be counted. Most people reporting huge numbers are estimating, and while they are counting and estimating they are missing other birds flying or swimming around.

I support what Cornell and the others are doing. The Great Backyard Bird Count helps scientists understand bird populations and their health by collecting data on bird sightings from participants around the world. This information is crucial for monitoring changes in bird species and their habitats, especially in response to environmental changes - like the climate change the Trump administration considers a hoax. (More on that in a separate blog post.)

And I can understand why you have to post with Merlin and eBird. Cornell runs Merlin and eBird. It built the infrastructure. Why create a separate site when you have already spent a lot of money on a technology platform and you can entice more birders into creating more accounts to post their findings?

A cardinal, one of the many nice birds I've seen in the last few days 
without reporting to eBird. (Margo D. Beller)

Why? Because some of us would rather concentrate on birding than keeping count and filing electronic paperwork. 

Obviously, I'm no "citizen scientist." I'm just a birder.

So, for what it is worth, here is what I saw or heard in the area of my backyard between Feb. 12 and today, Feb. 14, 2026, with help from Merlin:

Fish crow, American crows, mourning doves, a ton of juncos, downy woodpeckers, hairy woodpecker, a red-bellied woodpecker, jay, too many house finches, two female and one male purple finch, male red-breasted nuthatch, titmice, starlings, grackle, robins, mockingbird, two white-breasted nuthatches, a pair of cardinals. 

Not a bad collection, for winter.