Blizzards, climate change, and a grim future

Anyone living in the Northeast U.S. during the winter of 2026 will long remember the days, weeks even, of bitterly cold temperatures, along with high winds so strong it was difficult to walk anywhere. And the snow: The huge storm that dumped up to 20 inches of snow on the Vineyard on Feb. 22–23, with some Island towns getting more than two feet, was one of the worst in its history. Massachusetts and Rhode Island officials reported that their states in some areas contended with more than three feet of snow.

Gov. Maura Healy announced a travel ban around the commonwealth until the plows could clear the streets. Thousands of people lost power when utility poles fell or falling trees knocked down electrical wires. Half of the Island suffered days without power. The Boston Globe reported that the “blizzard was one of the strongest on record. While the structural characteristics differ from a hurricane, the observed pressure is comparable to that of a Category 2 storm.”

This past winter is emblematic of the world’s future as the Trump administration moves to reverse everything the Environmental Protection Agency has achieved over the past 20 years to combat climate change. We can now expect more winters like the one that has just passed, and we can expect hotter summers, more severe storms, coastal flooding and erosion, and even a full-scale transformation of the Island’s landscape and habitats. As for one of these, coastal flooding, scientists have recently “underestimated how high water levels are, and hundreds of millions of people are closer to peril than previously thought.” This includes on Martha’s Vineyard. 

In mid-February, the administration announced that it was eliminating the Obama-era finding that greenhouse gas emissions cause pollution, deteriorate the environment, and lead to the illness and death of many Americans. Officials proudly proclaimed that the lifting of restrictions on vehicles amounts to the largest deregulation of business ever undertaken by any previous administration.

In 2009, the Obama administration’s EPA released its findings known as the “Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Endangerment Finding.” It concluded that “the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases … in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.” President Trump asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to overturn these findings and allow cars and trucks to pollute the atmosphere.

Zeldin asserted that the claim that greenhouse gas emissions emit pollution is “the ‘Holy Grail’” of the “climate change religion,” and that his action will advance “the American Dream” by allowing people to purchase cheaper vehicles without pollution controls. This is shortsighted, and dangerous. Although Donald Trump has long asserted that climate change is “a Chinese hoax,” Americans know it is real. It invariably leads to the deterioration of the environment, as New Englanders witnessed during the winter of 2026.

But there is more. The Guardian reports that one of the world’s most outspoken climate change deniers, Marc Morano, who is the executive director of the website climatedepot.com, has said that climate scientists are in the “fear-promoting business,” waging a “war on modern civilization.” But he is correct when he adds that in his 26 years of “being focused on climate, I’ve never seen anything like this. Trump is gutting everything they [climate scientists] ever stood for.”

In other words, climate change deniers are winning, and winning big. As the Guardian

reports, “Since taking office in January 2025,” the Trump “administration has significantly curtailed the country’s weather forecasting organizations and climate science research facilities, published reports denying established climate science, and made deep cuts to funding for climate-related energy and community projects.” As for the first of these, the administration has undercut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research in an effort to eliminate it. According to Columbia University Law School’s Climate School, “The spending cuts primarily affect weather, ocean, and climate research, and represent a ‘down payment’ on the administration’s plan to eliminate OAR entirely.”

But there is pushback, at least a little. The International Court of Justice at the Hague ruled last year that countries failing to meet their climate obligations may face financial reparations in future cases that come before the court. The judges wrote that “a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment” is a human right, and that climate change is “an existential threat” to human life, specifically citing greenhouse gas emissions as being “unequivocally caused by human activities,” and having cross-border effects.

The tiny country of Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides) is fighting back by sponsoring a U.N. resolution to enforce the International Court’s ruling. Vanuatu especially faces catastrophic effects of climate change as the sea threatens to envelop the island nation in the Pacific. The Trump administration has demanded that Vanuatu withdraw its resolution. 

According to that country’s minister for climate change adaptation, “Having the Trump administration actively intervening in the market to stop the phaseout of fossil fuels is frustrating, it’s beyond what you’d expect a government to do.” The U.S. State Department’s response: “President Trump has delivered a very clear message: that the U.N. and many nations of the world have gone wildly off-track, exaggerating climate change into the world’s greatest threat.”

And so, the fight over greenhouse gas emissions continues. As long as it does, we can

expect to have extreme weather during Island winters, perhaps making the blizzard of 2026 seem ordinary. And just wait until we have to contend with the upcoming sweltering summer months.

Jack Fruchtman, who lives in Aquinnah, serves on the board of directors and executive committee of the Vineyard Conservation Society (VCS). The views expressed here are his own, and not necessarily those of VCS.