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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

December 27, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

DEC 28, 2023

Fifty years ago tomorrow, on December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law. Declaring that Congress had determined that “various species of fish, wildlife, and plants in the United States have been rendered extinct as a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation,” the act provided for the protection of endangered species.

Just over a decade before, in 1962, ecologist Rachel Carson had published Silent Spring, documenting how pesticides designed to eliminate insects were devastating entire ecosystems of linked organisms. The realization that human destruction of the natural world could make the planet uninhabitable spurred Congress in 1970 to create the Environmental Protection Agency. And in 1973, when Nixon called for stronger laws to protect species in danger of extinction, 194 Democrats and 160 Republicans in the House—99% of those voting—voted yes. Only four Republicans in the House voted no.

Such strong congressional support for protecting the environment signaled that a new era was at hand. While President Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon, tended to dial back environmental protections when he could in order to promote the development of oil and gas resources, President Jimmy Carter pressed the protection of the environment when he took office in 1977.

In 1978, Carter placed 56 million acres of land in Alaska under federal protection as national monuments, doubling the size of the national park system. “These areas contain resources of unequaled scientific, historic and cultural value, and include some of the most spectacular scenery and wildlife in the world,” he said. In 1979 he had 32 solar panels installed at the White House to help heat the water for the building and demonstrate that it was possible to curb U.S. dependence on fossil fuels. Just before he left office, Carter signed into law the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, protecting more than 100 million acres in Alaska, including additional protections for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Oil companies, mining companies, timber companies, the cattle industry, and local officials eager for development strongly opposed Carter’s moves to protect the environment. In Alaska, local activists deliberately broke the regulations in the newly protected places, portraying Carter as King George III—against whom the American colonists revolted in 1776—and insisting that the protection of lands violated the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness promised in the Declaration of Independence.

For the most part, though, opposition to federal protection of the environment showed up as a drive to reform government regulations that, opponents argued, gave far too much power to unelected bureaucrats. In environmental regulations, the federal government’s protection of the public good ran smack into economic development.

In their 1980 presidential platform, Republicans claimed to be committed to “the conservation and wise management of America’s renewable natural resources” and said the government must protect public health. But they were not convinced that current laws and regulations provided benefits that justified their costs. “Too often,” they said, “current regulations are…rigid and narrow,” and they “strongly affirm[ed] that environmental protection must not become a cover for a ‘no-growth’ policy and a shrinking economy.”

In his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan explained that he wanted to see the U.S. produce more energy to fuel “growth and productivity. Large amounts of oil and natural gas lay beneath our land and off our shores, untouched because the present Administration seems to believe the American people would rather see more regulation, taxes and controls than more energy.”

In his farewell address after voters elected Reagan, Carter urged Americans to “protect the quality of this world within which we live…. There are real and growing dangers to our simple and our most precious possessions: the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land which sustains us,” he warned. “The rapid depletion of irreplaceable minerals, the erosion of topsoil, the destruction of beauty, the blight of pollution, the demands of increasing billions of people, all combine to create problems which are easy to observe and predict, but difficult to resolve. If we do not act, the world of the year 2000 will be much less able to sustain life than it is now.”

“But,” Carter added, “[a]cknowledging the physical realities of our planet does not mean a dismal future of endless sacrifice. In fact, acknowledging these realities is the first step in dealing with them. We can meet the resource problems of the world—water, food, minerals, farmlands, forests, overpopulation, pollution if we tackle them with courage and foresight.”

Reagan began by appointing pro-industry officials James G. Watt and Anne M. Gorsuch (mother of Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch) as secretary of the interior and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, respectively; they set out to gut government regulation of the environment by slashing budgets and firing staff. But both resigned under scandal in 1983, and their replacements satisfied neither those who wanted to return to the practices of the Carter years nor those who wanted to get rid of those practices altogether.

Still, with their focus on developing oil and gas, when workers repairing the White House roof removed the solar panels in 1986, Reagan administration officials declined to reinstall them.

Forty years later, we are reaping the fruits of that shift away from the atmosphere that gave us the Endangered Species Act and toward a focus on developing fossil fuels. On November 30 the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), an agency of the United Nations, reported that global temperatures in 2023 were at record highs both on land and in the seas, Antarctic sea ice extent is at a record low, and devastating fires, floods, outbreaks of disease, and searing heat waves have pounded human communities this year.

The WMO released this provisional report the same day that the U.N. Climate Change negotiations, known as COP28, began in the United Arab Emirates. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres urged leaders to commit to act to address climate change, while there was still time to avoid “the worst of climate chaos.” After a year in which countries staggered under extreme weather events, climate change is on people’s minds: nearly 80,000 people, including world leaders and celebrities, registered to attend COP28.

After the convention ended on December 13, Umair Irfan of Vox summarized the agreement hashed out there. For the first time in 27 such conventions, countries explicitly called for the phasing out of fossil fuel…but they didn’t say when or by how much. After taking stock of what countries are doing to address climate change, the meeting concluded that efforts to reduce emissions, invest in technology, adapt to warming, and help suffering countries are all falling short.

In addition to acknowledging the need to move away from fossil fuels, COP28 agreed to cut methane, boost renewable energy considerably, and help countries that are dealing with the fallout from climate change: island nations, for example. But emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise, and the hope of limiting warmer temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius now seems a long shot. Still, renewable energy capacity grew nearly 10% in 2022, led by solar and wind power.

Today President Joe Biden used the anniversary of the Endangered Species Act to reclaim the spirit of the era in which it was written, urging Americans to protect ecosystems and biodiversity, “honor all the progress we have made toward protecting endangered species,” and to “come together to conserve our planet.” He noted that thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden-Harris administration has been able to invest billions of dollars in forest management, ecosystem restoration, and protection of watersheds, as well as making historic investments in addressing climate change, and that, as president, he has protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy.

And yet the forces that undermined that spirit are still at work. In the 2022 West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency decision, the Supreme Court claimed that Congress could not delegate “major questions” to executive agencies, thus limiting the EPA’s ability to regulate the emissions that create climate change; and House Republicans this summer held a hearing on “the destructive cost of the Endangered Species Act,” claiming that it “has been misused and misapplied for the past 50 years” with “disastrous effects on local economies and businesses throughout the United States.” Chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources Bruce Westerman (R-AR) accused the Biden administration of stifling “everything from forest management to future energy production through burdensome ESA regulations.”

While in 1980 voters could react to such a contrast between the parties’ environmental visions ideologically, in 2023, reality itself is weighing in. Brady Dennis of the Washington Post noted today that in this era of rising waters and epic storms, North Carolina has become the fourth state, along with South Carolina, New York, and New Jersey, to require home sellers to disclose their home’s flooding history and flood risk to prospective buyers.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#environmentalist #environmental law #climate change #climate emergency #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #Endangered Species Act #EPA #Environmental Protection Agency #history

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thedisablednaturalist · 8 months

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We need to ban styrofoam, at the very least single use/non-medical/non-scientific use.

#styrofoam #ban single use #environmentalist #its so bad it breaks apart in the stream into these little pebbles that stick to everything #they are IMPOSSIBLE to clean up

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socialismforall · 3 days

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This #EarthDay, here's a reminder that environmentalism without class struggle is just gardening*.

*Nothing against gardening, but we're currently facing global ecological collapse within our lifetimes.

article 1: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe

article 2: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

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horns-sheds-claws · 1 year

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The prairies

the prairies have a huge image problem through no fault of their own. When talking about conservation it’s easy to sell people on preserving areas with mountains, the boreal forest, ocean, rainforests etc. But the prairies have been a tough sell. It’s not because the prairies aren’t beautiful and captivating and important. It’s because so many people don’t even know what an actual prairie is. There’s a good chance when you read prairie you pictures fields of wheat/barley/oats/canola/whatever crops are common to your area. But that’s not a prairie. A prairie is a thriving eco system with a shit ton of bio diversity. It may not look it but it has some of the most bio diversity of any land eco system. It is also one of the best eco systems for sequestering carbon. The absence of much bush should not make an eco system disposable.

This is one of my biggest issues with people advocating for less livestock production in favour of crops. Crops don’t sequester nearly as much as a native grass prairie. But a native grass prairie not only can support livestock but needs grazing animals to thrive. I know we’ve all heard about cows and emissions but what people don’t consider is the amount of emissions being sequestered by allowing these animals to graze an in tact prairie, while also allowing a bio diverse eco system to flourish. Yes there is bad cattlemen out there, just like there’s good ones who care a lot about conservation (despite your notions thay all ranchers/cowboys don’t give a shit about the land). I could continue on about this about how 99% of ranchers care a lot about the welfare of their livestock but that’s a different conversation.

my point is the preservation of prairies are not only an absolutely vital part of protecting bio diversity and in turn helping fight climate change but tue revitalization of these prairies needs to happen too. Currently only 6% of native prairie in North America is in tact (there is tame pasture and prairie which is better than crops but not as good as native plants). Some places are better than others (but nobody is great) like Alberta (26% left), Saskatchewan(21%). But some are absolutely terrible like Iowa and Texas.

prairies are not a barren wasteland waiting for humans to plant crops. They are an amazing and complex eco system just as deserving as the mountains and forests of our protection

#Prairies #conservation #environment #enviromental #environmentalist

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hog-snot · 3 months

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youtube

#gorillas #gorilla #primate #primates #ape #apes #dian fossey #bork talk #conservation #dian fossey gorilla fund #gorilla conservation #environment #environmentalist #environmentalism #mountain gorilla #mountain gorillas #Youtube

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queeraliensposts · 7 months

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Today's opinion that'll get me burned at the stake is...

False Allegations aren't the huge problem that anti-feminists make it out to be.

It's a fucked up thing to do, and it makes it harder for real survivors to come forward, but the truth is even if we lived in a world where not a single person on this earth was shitty enough to lie about something that serious and the only people that ever made allegations were ACTUAL survivors, shitheads would bend their logic and deny evidence to "prove" that the abuser is innocent. Even then only 3% of allegations are proven false and a large portion of those aren't proven false by actual evidence they're proven false by people saying they lied out of pressure. Also, check statistics on how many allegations are proven false only for new evidence to show up a couple of years later proving them true, similar to what happened in the film "Unbelievable".

Now on to the part that is REALLY gonna get me burned at the stake. The whole "false allegations ruin lives" narrative is partially bullshit. Cause maybe they ruin lives while people still believe that they are true but once 70% of the internet is convinced you are innocent, people will justify every shitty action you make. Case and point Melanie Martinez.

Do nothing while your fan base bullies a smaller artist over a misunderstanding so dumb it makes me lose faith in human intelligence? Leah had it coming!

Have another accuser? They're probably a liar too!

Support AI art which puts artists out of a job? Let her be!

Sell NFTs and then paint them as good when it has been confirmed by professionals that there is no such thing as an environmentally friendly NFT? Leave her alone, people don't trust her because of Timothy!

Let her fan base spread transphobic and transmed rhetoric because her accuser identifies as trans, when trans people are at the face of a genocide? Omg y'all are chronically online?

Turn BLM into an aesthetic? At least she cares!!!!

Take a group of friends on a trip to Hawaii when Native Hawaiians were experiencing displacement and begging people not to go? It's not that big of a deal!

Melanie could kill baby Jesus and people would defend her, and it's all thanks to Timothy! And the shitty part is that a lot of these actions have real consequences that won't affect her, so if people are letting her get away with it, why should she change? There are plenty of other names I could think of right now but I've dug my grave enough.

#tw: abuse #tw sa #fuck nfts #fuck ai art #fuck ai writing #Blm is not an aesthetic #trans lives matter #Protect indigenous people #fuck transmeds #cringe culture is dead #Leah kate was a victim of cringe culture #Leave leah kate alone #Also people act like being falsely accused of SA is worse than being SA'd #It's not #environmentalist

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