The Republican Party has been almost uniformly opposed to climate action for years – nobody more so than President Donald Trump. But it wasn’t always like this. On today’s episode, we look back at how conservatives came to see the denial of climate science as a kind of badge of honor – and we talk to two conservative activists who are trying to change that.

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Special thanks to our guests: Benji Backer, Bob Inglis, Jay Turner and Andrew Isenberg

How to Save a Planet is a Spotify original podcast and Gimlet production hosted by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Alex Blumberg.

This episode of How to Save a Planet was produced by Rachel Waldholz. The rest of our reporting and producing team includes Kendra Pierre-Louis, Anna Ladd and Felix Poon. Our senior producer is Lauren Silverman. Our editor is Caitlin Kenney. Sound design and mixing for this episode by Sam Bair with original music by Emma Munger. Full music credits are available on our website. 

Our fact checker this episode is Claudia Geib. Special thanks to Rachel Strom.

Thanks to Anthony Leiserowitz for helping us understand some of this history. This episode also relied on phenomenal reporting from a number of places, including the books Losing Earth by Nathaniel Rich, Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway, Kochland by Christopher Leonard, Dark Money by Jane Mayer, and the podcast Drilled, hosted by Amy Westervelt. 

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