Deep in Trump Country, mixed feelings on the environment

With his black Ford pickup, Gator-Tail skiff, and Go-Devil motor, Bubba Nelson comes off as the quintessential delta man.

Here in Alabama’s Baldwin County, in the heart of the massive and dynamic Mobile-Tensaw River Delta, the corner church and President Donald Trump are beloved. Environmentalists and the federal government, less so. Thick-bearded, baseball cap pulled low, Mr. Nelson in many ways embodies this dynamic: He has no problem with the United States exiting the Paris Agreement to cut global carbon emissions, as it did formally in November, calling it “toothless.”

Packed into his Gator-Tail on this chilly November morning at a Hurricane boat ramp are two large wooden pilings, part of a desperate plan to fortify a 200-foot shoreline at his upriver fish camp against erosion. Thanks to upstream channelization and more frequent storms, erosion is threatening his life’s work. In just two decades, 14 feet of shorefront is gone, partly the result of a 26% increase in major flood events attributable to climate change.

Yet as he pours tens of thousands of dollars a year into safeguarding his camp, Mr. Nelson is wrestling