Trump Attacks Environment

Trump Attacks Environment

D. S. Mitchell

Turned Upside Down

Huge crowds turned out around the world for the Earth Day/Science March.  The politics of our environment has been turned upside down. The election of Donald Trump, has done what seemed impossible less than six months ago. Trump, supported by the anti-environment extremists in the House and Senate are about to rip the guts out of our environmental safeguards. The unimagined threat is now looming as a chilling possibility.

Chilling Headlines

Recent headlines include:  “U.S. Abandons Paris Climate Agreement”.  “Clean air and Water Protections Repealed”. “Trump Approves Keystone XL Pipeline”. “Congress Moves to Privatize Public Lands”.  David Goldston of the Natural Resources Defense Fund has been vocal in condemnation.”The next four years are likely to bring a more sustained barrage of attacks on our environment than we have ever seen.” His  dire predictions continue. “What we’re facing is an all-out assault on our bedrock environmental laws by a party in the grips of a radical ideology.  Not only do they want to undo the progress made during the eight years of the Obama presidency; they want to turn back the clock of a half-century or more of hard-won environmental protections.”

Rejecting Regulations

Significant majorities of Americans want action to slow or reverse climate change. They believe that all citizens have a fundamental right to clean air and drinking water. Furthermore they believe that public wild lands must be protected.  Trump’s threats to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord-has drawn massive public outcry in the United States and abroad. The science denying Trump Administration, and their lobbyist funded Capital Hill allies, are in a war with environmentalists. The push is an agenda of climate-change denial, corporate self-monitoring, and palpable contempt for, any and all, environmental regulations.

Four Key Elements Of Agenda

It needs to be all hands on deck if we are to have any chance to counter the Trump Administration’s fossil fuel agenda:

1.) The Keystone Pipeline: when completed will send more than 800,000 barrels a day of climate-destroying “tar sand crude” from Canada to the big U.S.  refineries.

2.) Over turn the Clean Power Plan: The plan would slash carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants and is the key to reducing U.S. contributions to global warming emissions.

3.) Assault on the century old Antiquities Act: Allows presidents to preserve millions of acres of ocean wilderness and public wild lands, such as the 1.3 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah.  There is a concerted effort by the Republican majority to gut the very concept of public lands ownership, known as “devolution”.

4.) Intensify the war on the Endangers Species Act: Anti-environmental forces in Washington are going after the ESA. Includes rolling back protections for America’s most vulnerable wildlife, including the gray wolves, sage grouse and salmon.  Gas and oil industry lobbyists are pressing to end safeguards that protect imperiled whales and other marine animals from the hazards of offshore drilling and industrial activity.

Fossil Fuel Extraction

Trump pledged to launch a “frenzy of fossil fuel extraction across our public lands.” Trump tapped an array of oil industry insiders for top cabinet posts. Including Rick Perry, Scott Pruitt and Rex Tillerson.  This is no less than a fossil fuel takeover of the cabinet. The anti-environment attacks are sure to include, fracking in the George Washington National Forest in the East.  Expect a dramatic expansion of coal mining near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Oil and gas exploration threatens Florida’s Big Cypress National Preserve, home to the critically endangered Florida panther, as well as the roadless pristine White River National Forest, in Colorado.  A new attempt is expected to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration. The Arctic Wildlife Refuge is home polar bears, gray wolves and caribou.

An Unprecedented Assault

Calamity Politics is a political blog commenting and analyzing U.S. politics.  The upheaval of the political system by the election of Donald Trump and his big oil cronies, have all environmentally concerned citizens on high alert.  The dangers to our environment are potentially irreversible.  If you love the air you breath, the water you drink, our national parks, then stand up and fight this onslaught against all that we love. If you don’t want an oil rig at the front door of the Yosemite Lodge, an oil platform at the mouth of the Columbia River, an oil spill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, stand up and make your voice heard.  These fights will be near daily, and we need to be ready to support the organizations that have the legal resources to stop the greatest executive and legislative assault on our environment in history.

Love Our Land

We are on the brink. If you love our lands and our waterways and the diverse life they support. If you care about equity for the native peoples, if you care about the livability of the land you pass to your children, it is imperative that you join the fight against this extremist fossil fuel agenda. That means donating money to the people who will fight Trump and his gas czars in the courts.

Environment Support Groups

Here are 5 great environmental groups.  Each organization has a great reputation and each of them can always use money and volunteers. Give money when you can, volunteer when you can.

1.) Natural Resources Defense Council  2.) Earthjustice  3.) Greenpeace Fund  4.) Union of Concerned Scientists 5.) Friends of the Earth

Join the Resistance

 

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