Defend Mother Earth from Dirty Donald
This isn’t just stupidity, it’s lunacy.
For normal people, watching Donald Trump can be very enraging and tiring. Trying to figure out what makes the man tick is like an exercise in clinical psychiatry. Trying to predict his next move is like joining a gambling game on the Titanic.
Whether small detail or big picture, he gives ordinary people an awful lot to fret over. There seems to be a cumulative numbing effect as we watch him stretch or embellish his “alternative reality” day after day. Sometimes it seems like he has uttered enough falsehoods and crossed enough ethical lines to provide for his own downfall. This may be proven true eventually but that day is still in the future.
Meanwhile, people who consider themselves liberals or moderates must stand aghast at the president’s attitude toward the environment. He is anti-science in his thinking and denies that climate change, the warming of the earth’s atmosphere, is occurring.
He supports the dirty fossil fuel industries. He refuses to support new clean energy sources: solar, wind, and thermal. He is pro-business to a ridiculous extent, the “business” of exploiting natural resources without mercy for quick profits and without regard for consequences.
He is also obsessed with carrying out his anti-Obama agenda so anything the last president did to address environmental concerns, Trump is systematically undoing. Here are some examples:
He pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Pact.
He is rolling back standards to improve car mileage rates.
He is rescinding Obama-era coal emissions standards
He intends to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. This is a pristine area famous for its caribou herds and the indigenous people who depend upon them.
He is shrinking Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Escalante National Monuments (some 2 million acres) to make way for exploitation of lands adjacent to them, which will dramatically impact and destroy areas set aside for the enjoyment of the American people. Pollution and Industrial waste, sometimes toxic, will move across boundaries and negatively impact the health of national parks and monuments.
He had the audacity to appoint as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency a man named Scott Pruitt, a man who was opposed to the purpose of the agency he was to lead!
These are just a few examples but you get the idea. In the midst of us being overwhelmed at times by Donald Trump’s narcissistic and bombastic personality, we must not take our eyes off his actions and policies. He already represents the biggest setback to the modern environmental movement yet seen.
I know many of my friends care about the environment for themselves, their children, and everyone else. Climate change is real; the warming of the earth’s atmosphere is real; and we need progressive leadership based on science to address the growing challenges regarding the health of the land, water, and air. There are numerous groups one can join or support financially. Among them:
World Wildlife Fund
Environmental Defense Fund
Greenpeace
Friends of the Earth
Audubon Society
National Wildlife Federation
Natural Resources Defense Council
Save the Whales
These groups provide education and suggest policies for legislators. They have many active projects to study and protect wildlife. Some will engage in direct action and several have the means to mount substantial legal challenges in court to ensure that existing environmental laws and regulations are enforced.
I encourage you to stay informed and do what you can to help protect Mother Earth from the actions and policies of the current president. As his lunacy worsens, ordinary Americans should step up their game to oppose the president’s short-sighted, profit-driven decision-making.
