BY: ELIANA JONSHON 30 JUN 2026 ---------------------- https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!0Rxs!,w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9ad482ed-b467-40e2-a03e-513782f1fea6_1280x720.jpeg Climate activists who threw soup on Vincent van Gogh painting at National Gallery of Art New York Times contributing writer Michael Grunwald, who wrote a book urging people to eat less meat to fight climate change, is out with a new article on the climate movement for the journal Liberties. It includes plenty of predictable Trump-bashing—but it also includes “some entertaining and surprising criticism of Grunwald’s colleagues in the environmental movement,” our Ira Stoll writes. Grunwald notably accuses climate activists of “exaggerating” and says their extremism is counterproductive. “[S]ome climate activists have an annoying habit of exaggerating how badly things are going,” Grunwald writes in the Liberties article, “Climate Change and the Primacy of Politics.” “Global warming is making droughts and floods worse, but it is not making them happen. In fact, global warming does not always make everything worse; tropical hurricanes, for example, do not seem to be getting more frequent, defying a lot of shrill eco-catastrophism. Apocalyptic rhetoric about how it’s game over for the climate if we do not cut greenhouse emissions 43% by 2030 is not only annoying but wrong. There’s no such thing as game over for the climate. … there is no inflection point where we all suddenly die or are all doomed. There is only better and worse.” “Climate issues are more complicated than the nose-ringed Just Stop Oil pests who glue themselves to museums or the contemptuous Bluesky in-crowd that snarks about insufficiently radical Democrats would have you believe,” he writes. “The climate left is often clueless about politics, and sometimes also about climate; the knee-jerk naysayers who fight zero-emissions nuclear plants, solar panels in tortoise habitats, and the transmission lines necessary to distribute renewable power to metropolitan areas are not doing the environment any favors.” Grunwald adds that “the center-left writer Matthew Yglesias was right to argue not long ago in the New York Times that American fossil energy is usually cleaner than foreign fossil energy, even though the climate movement’s hall monitors absurdly denounced him as a denier.” And he adds that “blocking all natural gas is definitely counterproductive, especially now that the rush to build AI-driven data centers is creating a rush to build new power plants to meet projected spikes in electricity demand; electrification is vital for decarbonization, and gas-fired electricity is much cleaner than coal, even if it isn’t [as] clean as wind or solar.” READ MORE: Climate Activists ‘Exaggerating,’ Liberal Journalist Says, Denouncing ‘Shrill Eco-Catastrophism’ Additional reading: The Zohran Mamdani-backed socialist who will soon represent a portion of Manhattan in Congress, Darializa Avila Chevalier, “maintained a since-deleted Twitter account with repeated sympathetic references to communism, Marxist ideology and Soviet figures, including Vladimir Lenin,” CNN’s KFile reports. It puts CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins in an awkward spot: Collins said Friday that while President Trump has referred to candidates like Chevalier as “hardcore godless communists,” “socialism, much less Democratic socialism, is not communism.” Left-wing Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner holds a 2-point lead against Republican incumbent Susan Collins, according to a New York Times poll released Monday. The survey is notable for two reasons: One, Collins trailed her 2020 opponent, Sara Gideon, by a wider margin in polls before winning by nearly 9 points, and two, Collins holds a 21-point lead over Platner, the self-described “working class Mainer,” among non-college voters. Arizona senator Ruben Gallego is facing a federal investigation over suspected campaign finance violations after a report revealed he used huge amounts of campaign cash to fund “luxury outings” with his second wife. The probe also comes amid news that Gallego’s “right-hand man,” legal counsel Roy Herrera, “quietly created a nonprofit that’s able to raise unlimited funds” without disclosing its donors, as NOTUS reported. The move raised red flags among campaign finance experts, who noted that nonprofits cannot engage in activity linked to any public official. It’s primary day in Colorado, where yet another socialist challenger, Melat Kiros, is well-positioned to take down 15-term Democratic incumbent congresswoman Diana DeGette in Denver. Kiros called both the October 7 and September 11 terror attacks “inevitable.” Naturally, she trounced DeGette in a March ballot access vote that took place at a local party convention in March. You can read more about the race here. A federal grand jury in Manhattan has issued subpoenas as part of an investigation into the Shanghai-based tech mogul and American expatriate Neville Roy Singham, according to Fox News, which reports that the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York is probing potential “financial crimes” including wire fraud and money laundering. Singham works hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, and his vast network of American nonprofits has worked to amplify opposition to AI and data centers in the U.S., the Free Beacon reported. Check out our full Tuesday lineup below. ‘Ro’ Me the Money! How Progressive Class Warrior Ro Khanna Lives Like the Oligarchs He ‘Fights,’ With In-Home Elevator, $190K Range Rover, and Family-Owned Golf Courses. Committee To Protect Journalists Ousts Anti-Israel Heiress From Its Board As Group Launches Full Review of Its Controversial ‘Journalists Slain in Gaza’ List Climate Activists ‘Exaggerating,’ Liberal Journalist Says, Denouncing ‘Shrill Eco-Catastrophism’ Thanks for reading the Washington Free Beacon! Subscribe for free to receive new posts.