Donald Trump has spoken out often against climate science. Could he be pushing his fellow-conservatives in the opposite direction? PHOTOGRAPH BY STEPHEN CROWLEY / THE NEW YORK TIMES / REDUX

Four months ago, at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference, in Bismarck, North Dakota, Donald Trump laid out his vision of America’s energy future. “A Trump Administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not phony ones,” the Republican nominee for President told his audience, apparently alluding to climate change. The next day, speaking in Fresno, California, he essentially blamed the West’s years-long drought on bad policy—not, as scientists do, on a lack of rainfall and snowpack. “If I win, believe me, we’re going to start opening up the water so that you can have your farmers survive,” Trump said. Last Thursday, at the Economic Club of New York, he doubled down again, promising to “unleash the vast treasure of American energy” by lifting “unnecessary restrictions” and “streamlining” approval for new fossil-fuel infrastructure and exploration. It was the clearest signal yet that Trump, who has consistently disregarded climate science in his words and tweets, is willing to do so in policy, too.

In some ways, Trump’s views are merely a brash expression of those of his party. The G.O.P. has long equated climate-friendly legislation with economic suffering. In June, for instance, Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, proposed rolling back “all climate-change regulations under the Clean Air Act” in order to promote growth. (Never mind that, in the years to come, the significantly greater economic risk actually lies in sticking with fossil fuels.) But Trump is also out of step with his potential voters. Back in March, before he clinched the nomination, Yale University’s Program on Climate Change Communication found that sixty-one per cent of registered Republicans support the idea of carbon dioxide being regulated as a pollutant, and seventy per cent support tax rebates for people who purchase solar panels or energy-efficient vehicles. The same month, Gallup reported that concern over global warming was at an eight-year high in this country. The rise of Trump, in other words, coincides with a growing conservative focus on environmental conservation.

It is hard to imagine what will happen to American climate policy if Trump wins. (If he is elected, according to a report from the Sierra Club, he will be the only climate-change-denying head of state in the world.) But, given the reasonable chance that Trump will lose, motivated eco-conservatives are already positioning themselves to redefine the Republican Party’s climate and energy platform in a way that moves beyond institutionalized denial. Bob Inglis, a former congressman from South Carolina, sees Trump’s campaign as a window of opportunity. Inglis; his strategy director, Alex Bozmoski; and a small staff at George Mason University form the core of RepublicEn, a clean-energy advocacy organization. Bozmoski, a former climate denier, is particularly candid about Trump, whom he calls “freaking crazy.” It’s the backlash to that craziness that Bozmoski hopes will help remake the G.O.P. into a champion of free-market support for renewable energy. Trump’s outspoken denial, Bozmoski told me, is “good for climate.” On RepublicEn’s Web site, he added, a cartoon likeness of the candidate serves as a “Bat Signal for people who want to fight the crazy with principles and pragmatism.” So far, strategies like this appear to have worked, at least on a limited scale. “In the six months since Trump won in New Hampshire, RepublicEn doubled twice, adding eight hundred and sixty-five members,” Bozmoski said.

Inglis and Bozmoski are far from the first to reconsider the G.O.P.’s messaging around climate and energy. Still, for many years, the discussion on the right was hindered by the national squabble over science, and what some conservatives see as the Democrats’ hostile insistence on total orthodoxy. “Today, it doesn’t feel like we’re climbing that hill anymore,” James Dozier, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, which lobbies Republicans in the House and Senate, told me. “There’s general understanding that if you want to appeal to younger voters, if you want to appeal to independent voters and young mothers, being able to articulate a clean-energy position is important.” Mark Pischea, a Republican political strategist based in Michigan, agreed. “We don’t really talk about climate change overtly—not because we’re afraid to but because it’s not that relevant,” he said. At this point, Pischea added, there are enough reasons to persuade conservatives of the need for clean energy—the economy, national security, faith, their grandchildren’s health—that engaging them on science isn’t productive. Instead, according to Dozier, climate-conscious conservatives are trying to “change the narrative from one of a dire emergency to an opportunity for solving a challenge.” Polarizing rhetoric rarely leads to good policymaking—and focussing on hopeful, positive messages is likely more effective than continuing a cycle of denial and counter-denial.

Bozmoski acknowledges the headwinds that he and his colleagues face. “The environmental left has been growing for sixty years,” he said. “We started in 2014.” But he sees this moment as a critical turning point if the G.O.P. is to push back against what he called the “lip service” of Hillary Clinton’s climate agenda, which proposes to continue much of the work that the Obama Administration has already started. “Trump’s flippant non-position on climate keeps the Democrats as the only game in town for the seventy per cent of Americans who want climate action,” he said. “Without policy competition, we’re stuck with a status quo that’s both utterly insufficient and inefficient.”