I haven’t published much since the November 2024 election, mostly because I don’t know what to write about. I feel like I’m at a loss and am grieving. Like all hope is lost.
I feel like the climate crisis fight is over.
I feel like there’s nothing more to say. Half of us voted against the climate crisis and environmental issues and endangered species. The half of us who care about our environment lost the election.
I have cried and I am sad. I want to hug a tree and save the polar bears and protect the sea turtles.
The Climate is not Political
I am angry. I hate politics and I hate money – though don’t misunderstand, I know we need politics in a democracy and we need money to survive. I just wish ethics ruled and money didn’t.
I can’t remain politically neutral anymore, mainly because the climate crisis and environmentalism have become left-aligned. These are NOT POLITICAL ISSUES though, and they never should have been. I am angry with those politicians who made it a political issue.
Humans will suffer with rising sea levels and the coral reefs will die out. Rainforests, which are like the Earth’s lungs, will perish. Human activity and climate change are killing off our species at an extremely high rate. And we’re next, as we endanger our own existence and that of our children.
These issues are actually SURVIVAL issues. We cannot survive without a specific climate, plant and animal biodiversity, or clean air, water, and soil.
Photo by Ivan Radic on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
The Election
The election happened. Trump, the Republican right, and their allies won the presidency, the Senate, the House, and they have the Supreme Court too. They’ve been telling us what they want to do all along, even publishing their plans in a manifesto called Project 2025. They fully plan to trash any plans related to improving the environment or curbing the climate crisis. They’ve been clear about this.
“To say that you’re going to increase fossil fuel production and then to turn around and promise people clean air and clean water is clueless.” -Ben Jealous, Executive Director of the Sierra Club1
New Leaders
The people Trump is choosing for his cabinet are often unqualified and anti-environment. For example, Chris Wright, a fracking magnate, is the confirmed U.S. Energy Secretary. He makes a moral case for fossil fuels! He explained that “the world’s poorest people need oil, gas and coal to realize the benefits of modern life that Americans and others in rich nations take for granted. Only fossil fuels, he says, can bring prosperity to millions who still burn wood, dung or charcoal for basic needs like cooking food and heating homes.”2
Lee Zeldin is confirmed as the leader of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where he will dismantle environmental regulations and reduce the EPA itself, per Project 2025. Zeldin has little experience in environmentalism and has taken money from fossil fuel companies. Environmental regulations seem doomed. “He is expected to work to erase rules to fight climate change and chemical pollution, while shutting down programs designed to help poor and minority communities that are disproportionately affected by pollution.”3
There are dozens of federal agencies being shuttered or at risk of being closed. Federal employees have already been furloughed or laid off entirely. The Trump administration has warned more than 1,100 Environmental Protection Agency employees that they could be fired at any time. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) might be on the chopping block next.
The Climate Crisis is about to get a whole lot worse
Photo by Maria Lupan on Unsplash.
“We’re going to drill, baby, drill.” -Donald J. Trump4
Climate change is no hoax. A warmer climate is causing stronger storms and worse natural disasters. This is causing human suffering across the planet. As Lisa Friedman recently wrote in the New York Times, “On the heels of the hottest year in recorded history, one that brought the planet to a dangerous temperature threshold, President Trump effectively told the world on [January 20] that the United States is out of the climate fight.”5 Trump is withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement. He wants to curb the expansion of renewable energy efforts, expand oil drilling, and end federal regulation of dangerous emissions from fossil fuels.
This is after global temperatures reached record highs last year in 2024. We have surpassed the 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels that scientists warned us against. They indicate that “every fraction of a degree of warming above that level brings greater risks from deadly heat waves, wildfires, drought, storms and species extinction.”6
“Mr. Trump ordered the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement on global warming for a second time. He initiated plans to open vast areas of public land and federal waters, including fragile wilderness in Alaska, for oil drilling and mining. He ordered the elimination of government offices and programs aimed at protecting poor communities from pollution. And he said he would repeal regulations aimed at promoting electric vehicles and would halt approvals of new wind farms in federal waters.” –New York Times7
The glaciers are melting. Scientists studying the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica discovered that it is “melting at an accelerating rate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse…Thwaites holds enough water to increase sea levels by more than 2 feet. But because it also acts like a cork, holding back the vast Antarctic ice sheet, its collapse could ultimately lead to around 10 feet of sea level rise, devastating coastal communities from Miami and London to Bangladesh and the Pacific Islands.”8 Countries like Vanuatu have already experienced sea level rise and had to relocate an entire village because of it.
Worse, without United States leadership on the climate crisis, other countries are less likely to put forth efforts to curb the crisis.
Photo by Tania Malréchauffé on Unsplash.
The Climate Crisis is Creating an Insurance Crisis
Parts of the Los Angeles area burned to the ground and the Trump administration and Congress can’t agree on distributing aid to the thousands who lost everything. In fact, they want to shut down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Some of the people in California lost their homeowners insurance before the crisis! Increasingly, insurance is getting more difficult to obtain and more expensive. This is a direct result of climate change. “As climate-fueled disasters get worse, home insurance is becoming a money-losing business in more of the country. Without insurance, you can’t get a mortgage; without a mortgage, most Americans can’t buy a home.”9 Perhaps the elites want everyone to be renters, ensuring we remain dependent on them.
“Nationally, over the past decade, insurers paid out more in claims than they received in premiums, and, since 2018, more than 1.9 million home insurance contracts nationwide have been dropped.”10
Photo by Ross Stone on Unsplash.
Where do we go from here?
Everything might get worse before it gets better, especially for the environment. Changes to the Constitution could hurt our economy or even lead to war.
Are we transitioning to an oligarchy? Wealthy elites and billionaires are calling the shots. Forbes reported that at least 26 billionaires donated to Trump’s campaign. The main industries among these backers are casinos, finance, and oil and gas. What is their number one priority? Money. Not climate or trees or polar bears or humanitarian causes or philanthropy. One, in particular, wants to figure out how to live on Mars. Why don’t we just protect the beautiful planet and life we already have?
I wish he’d go to Mars. We don’t want him on Earth!
These billionaires support Trump due to money and greed, not because they believe he will do the right thing.
Because everyone knows Trump won’t do the right thing.
Photo by Dan Meyers on Unsplash.
I’m here to tell you that we should not despair. There are so many of us who feel powerless and alone. But we aren’t alone. We need to come together, unite, and stand up. We can’t give up, and we can’t keep quiet. We must object, call on our representatives, and protest.
What other choice do we have?
UPDATE February 10, 2025:
Trump is planning to sign an executive order to end a Biden administration plan that would have phased out plastic straws and switched to paper straws within the federal government. “Back to plastic,” he says, regarding the straws. As the New York Times explained, “The U.S. government is considered the world’s biggest buyer of consumer goods, and its planned shift away from plastic had been considered a significant milestone in a global effort to tackle a plastics pollution crisis.”11 Is this really what we need to spend our time on – reversing a plan to eliminate one single type of plastic? It must be important to the billionaire oil executives who support and donate to Trump, since plastic is made from fossil fuels.
Footnotes:
Article, “Trump’s questionable ‘clean water and clean air’ claims,” by David Gelles, Climate Forward newsletter, New York Times, October 29, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Trump’s Choice to Run Energy Says Fossil Fuels Are Virtuous,” by Lisa Friedman, New York Times, December 12, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Senate Confirms Lee Zeldin to Head E.P.A.,”by Coral Davenport, New York Times, January 29, 2025. ↩︎
Article, “Trump Signs Orders to Promote Fossil Fuels and End Climate Policies,” by Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer, Rebecca F. Elliott, and Eric Lipton, New York Times, January 20, 2025. ↩︎
Article, “3 of Trump’s most important executive orders on climate,” by Lisa Friedman, Climate Forward newsletter, New York Times, January 21, 2025. ↩︎
Article, “A Big Climate Goal Is Getting Farther Out of Reach,” by Brad Plumer and Mira Rojanasakul, New York Times, updated November 15, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Trump Signs Orders to Promote Fossil Fuels and End Climate Policies,” by Lisa Friedman, Brad Plumer, Rebecca F. Elliott, and Eric Lipton, New York Times, January 20, 2025. ↩︎
Article, “Scientists looked deep beneath the Doomsday Glacier. What they found spells potential disaster for the planet,” by Laura Paddison, cnn.com, September 20, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “A climate crisis at your doorstep,” by Christopher Flavelle, Climate Forward newsletter, New York Times, December 19, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “A climate crisis at your doorstep,” by Christopher Flavelle, Climate Forward newsletter, New York Times, December 19, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “‘BACK TO PLASTIC’: Trump Vows to Keep the Government on Plastic Straws,” by Hiroko Tabuchi, New York Times, February 7, 2025. ↩︎
I don’t usually write about politics, and especially not elections. But this year is different.
The stakes are super high.
If Trump wins, his administration will enact an initiative called Project 2025. Written by the Heritage Foundation, is the far-right’s 900-page policy playbook (their words, not mine) for the next Republican president. If you’re not familiar, I encourage you to learn about it.1 It changes many things, from the basic structure of our government to demolishing the Department of Education, to mass deportations and the reduction of human rights. Many in the Republican Party take it very seriously.
Today I want to tell you how Project 2025 will harm us, the environment, and the climate crisis. It will halt all progress on the climate crisis and worsen, especially since the U.S. is one of the biggest contributors to climate change.
Simply put, Project 2025 “seeks to gut the country’s 250-year-old system of checks and balances in order to implement extreme policies that would increase global temperatures and undercut developing countries’ efforts to remain resilient in the face of climate impacts.”2
It saddens me to write this article and I’ve avoided it for a long time.
But with the election upon us and the polls so closely tied, I think people should know the risks.
“Simply put, Project 2025 would be game over for climate progress.” -Sierra Club3
Project 2025 Will Negatively Impact the Environment
We will become a nation of “Profit over Planet” if we elect Trump. Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.
“An analysis conducted by the United Kingdom-based Carbon Brief found that a Trump presidency would lead to 400 billion metric tons of additional emissions in the U.S. by 2030 — the emissions output of the European Union and Japan combined.” -Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections4
Project 2025 tells us exactly what the far-right intends to do. They’re not even trying to hide it – they’ve published it! You can download the book for free and read it yourself.
But protecting the environment, endangered species, and climate change are not part of their agenda. They intend to roll back many environment-related laws and policies. Here are the highlights of Project 2025’s goals regarding the environment, courtesy of the Sierra Club:
“Eliminating or rolling back safeguards that protect Americans’ access to clean air, clean drinking water, and protected public lands.
Handing our public lands over to oil and gas companies to drill whenever and wherever they want, including in some of our most precious and pristine public lands, while leaving us to deal with the pollution and toxic waste they leave behind.
Halting all government action to reach our climate goals, putting Americans and the U.S. economy at further risk of more extreme weather and a faster-warming planet.
Privatizing the National Weather Service and preventing it from forecasting extreme weather events and providing research on the advancing climate crisis.”5
In short, “The document calls for ‘unleashing all of America’s energy resources’ by eliminating federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtailing federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and easing environmental permitting restrictions and procedures for new fossil fuel projects such as power plants.”6
Project 2025 intends to let the oil and gas corporations take the lead, because of greed. The authors of Project 2025 erroneously wrote, “Environmental ideologues would ban the fuels that run almost all of the world’s cars, planes, factories, farms, and electricity grids.” This is nowhere close to the truth. No one wants to ban these fuels. We want to reduce our reliance on them. Project 2025 advises that “The next conservative President should go beyond merely defending America’s energy interests but go on offense, asserting them around the world. America’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas are not an environmental problem; they are the lifeblood of economic growth.”7 But we know that there are many other sources of economic growth.
“[Project 2025] would effectively abandon America’s critical leadership role in addressing the climate crisis.” -Center for American Progress8
Moreover, Project 2025 recommends withdrawing the U.S. from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement. Trump already withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement during his first term.
“If enacted, the policies proposed in Project 2025 would seriously jeopardize the world’s ability to avoid the worst impacts of climate change associated with breaching the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature rise limit set out in the Paris Agreement.” -Center for American Progress9
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
Project 2025 intends to reduce the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They will mandate that states handle their own environmental issues. The playbook indicates that the federal EPA can provide some expertise, a few resources, and be supportive under the guise that the people living in states should make decisions about where they live. “EPA’s structure and mission should be greatly circumscribed to reflect the principles of cooperative federalism and limited government. This will require significant restructuring and streamlining of the agency.”10 However, the states have never had the resources to manage environmental problems, often created by wealthy corporations. This is why the EPA was established in the first place.
“The environmental oversight capacities of the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency would be curbed significantly or eliminated altogether, preventing these agencies from tracking methane emissions, managing environmental pollutants and chemicals, and conducting climate change research.” -Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections11
Furthermore, when regulating the dumping of chemicals or agricultural runoff into a river, a state downstream would have no authority over what an upstream state discharges. This could result in the upstream state inadvertently polluting the water for those downstream. State-level regulation alone is insufficient to protect people from environmental pollution and toxic chemicals.
What this is really about is profit from energy, whether dirty or clean. The government wants to profit, and ensure its corporate affiliates profit to the fullest extent from energy production. The language in Project 2025, such as that “bureaucrats at the Environmental Protection Agency quietly strangles domestic energy production through difficult-to-understand rulemaking processes,” is just ridiculous.12
Project 2025 specifically calls out the Obama and Biden Administrations for pursuing renewable energy. Renewable anything, is a no-brainer. Of course we should be looking at renewable energy. But the authors use inflammatory language to describe their version of recent history: “The Biden Administration’s assault on the energy sector as the Administration uses its regulatory might to make coal, oil, and natural gas operations very expensive and increasingly inaccessible while forcing the economy to build out and rely on unreliable renewables. This approach has also been applied to pesticides and chemicals as the Biden Administration pushes the ‘greening’ of agriculture and manufacturing among other industrial activities.”13
There is no assault on the energy sector. Those administrations are trying to reduce our sole reliance on fossil fuels, not ban them. We lack the infrastructure needed to eliminate their total use anyway. And the ‘greening’ of pesticides and chemicals is weak among all administrations – we are exposed to toxic chemicals in everything. We certainly don’t need more chemical exposure!
The absurd language in Project 2025 persists: “Although the U.S. environmental story is very positive, there has been a return to fear-based rhetoric within the agency, especially as it pertains to the perceived threat of climate change. Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs.”14 Again, the science about the changing climate is clear and climate change is not a perception. There is a ninety-seven percent consensus among scientists across the world. And no side or administration is trying to scare Americans.
“In effect, the Biden EPA has once again presented a false choice to the American people: that they have to choose between a healthy environment and a strong, growing economy.”15 This is false. This is not anything close to what the Biden Administration, or any other administration, has ever indicated. Not once.
“[Project 2025] would also undermine the country’s extensive network of environmental and climate policies and alter the future of American fossil fuel production, climate action, and environmental justice.” -Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections11
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Photo courtesy of NOAA Photo Library on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) mission is “to better understand our natural world and help protect its precious resources extends beyond national borders to monitor global weather and climate, and work with partners around the world.” The organization states that “From daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring to fisheries management, coastal restoration and supporting marine commerce, NOAA’s products and services support economic vitality and affect more than one-third of America’s gross domestic product.”17 This is an important agency!
But Project 2025 does not agree: “The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”18
NOAA consists of six main offices:
The National Weather Service (NWS)
The National Ocean Service (NOS)
The Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)
The National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS)
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
The Office of Marine and Aviation Operations and NOAA Corps
According to Project 2025: “Together, these form a colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.”19
Climate change alarm industry? The only alarm is that the climate is changing. And we have to figure out how we humans can adapt and survive the changes. Or we won’t.
Political Appointees, Not Federal Employees
Photo by Jose M on Unsplash.
Further, Project 2025 intends to “Ensure Appointees Agree with Administration Aims. Scientific agencies like NOAA are vulnerable to obstructionism of an Administration’s aims if political appointees are not wholly in sync with Administration policy. Particular attention must be paid to appointments in this area.”20 This refers to the fact that Project 2025 plans to change all federal workers to ‘political appointees’ that align with the conservative right only. They will not appoint anyone who does not align with their beliefs, regardless of education or expertise. This means that no one who believes in environmentalism or climate change will be working for the federal government. That is beyond disturbing.
The National Weather Service
Photo courtesy of NOAA Photo Library on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
The National Weather Service (NWS) is super important. They provide the very data that provides us with weather predictions and tracks major storms, tornados, hurricanes, flooding, wind, etc. This organization is how we all get our weather data (weekly forecasts) and major announcements (i.e., hurricane warnings).
From Project 2025: “Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.”21 There is no debate; the science is clear. And, the NWS is not politically aligned.
So Project 2025 wants to change the NWS: “Americans rely on weather forecasts and warnings provided by local radio stations and colleges that are produced not by the NWS, but by private companies such as AccuWeather.”22 The authors cited a study that Accuweather was the most accurate than competitors and implied they are better than NWS – but the National Weather Service was not one of the listed competitors. This is because Accuweather and other weather outlets get their data from the NWS.
The fact is that “NWS forecasts, warnings, and data and products form a national information database and infrastructure used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community.”23 This is a free service the government provides. Every news and weather station gets their data from the National Weather Service and translates it to us.
If you’ve ever received a flood, tornado, or hurricane warning, that is the National Weather Service.
If you have a weather radio, that is the National Weather Service.
But Project 2025 wants the NWS to fully commercialize its forecasting operations. They believe private companies, like Accuweather, will pay for it. They want the government to sell this information. So it’s really about money and greed.
“[Project 2025] appears to leave the National Hurricane Center intact, saying the data it collects should be ‘presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.’ But the National Hurricane Center pulls much of its data from the National Weather Service, as do most other private weather service companies, and eliminating public weather data could devastate Americans’ access to accurate weather forecasts.” -Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections24
What’s worse, Project 2025 plans to eliminate the National Flood Insurance Program and have flood insurance sold by private insurers. “That notion skates right over the fact that the federal program was initially established because private insurers found that it was economically unfeasible to insure the nation’s flood-prone homes — long before climate change began wreaking havoc on the insurance market.”25 So if you live in a flood zone, you must vote against Trump and Project 2025. Or you’ll likely not be able to afford flood insurance or a new home.
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research
View of a hurricane from the International Space Station. Image courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
Project 2025 would seek to downsize the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR). OAR, also called NOAA Research, “enables better forecasts, earlier warnings for natural disasters, and a greater understanding of the Earth.”26 The Project 2025 authors wrote, “OAR provides theoretical science, as opposed to the applied science of the National Hurricane Center. OAR is, however, the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism. The preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded. OAR is a large network of research laboratories, an undersea research center, and several joint research institutes with universities. These operations should be reviewed with an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.” We must vote climate deniers out. It is not alarmism nor is it theoretical. We can see climate change every day with our own eyes.
30×30 and America the Beautiful
Photo by Adam Kool on Unsplash.
Under Executive Order 14008, President Biden issued a call to action to conserve, connect, and restore at least 30 percent of our lands and waters by 2030 for the sake of our economy, our health, and our well-being. America the Beautiful is “a decade-long challenge to pursue a locally led and voluntary, nationwide effort to conserve, connect, and restore the lands, waters, and wildlife upon which we all depend,” with eight key principles that help the environment, people, and the economy.27
Project 2025 calls for withdrawing both initiatives. “The 30×30 Executive Order and the American the Beautiful Initiative are being used to advance an agenda to close vast areas of the ocean to commercial activities, including fishing, while rapidly advancing offshore wind energy development to the detriment of fisheries and other existing ocean-based industries.”28 These initiatives would provide for more Marine Protected Areas. We’ve overfished many parts of the ocean, and other activities such as deepsea mining and oil drilling have harmed marine life. If we kill off all of the fish, we aren’t going to have any left.
“Don’t boo. Vote.” -Barack Obama
Endangered Species Act(ESA)
The bald eagle, our national bird, was saved by the removal of DDT and the Endangered Species Act. Image by Dee from Pixabay.
The Trump Administration passed two regulations that limited the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The first one made it easier “to remove a species from the endangered list” and weakened protections for threatened species. Regulators were also “allowed to conduct economic assessments — for instance, estimating lost revenue from a prohibition on logging in a critical habitat — when deciding whether a species warrants protection.”29 It also made it more difficult for regulators to factor in climate change.
The second Trump Administration regulation limited the definition of ‘critical habitat’ for imperiled species and required regulators not to designate areas as critical habitat if there would be greater economic benefit from developing them.30 AP News wrote that this “forced the agency to disprove ‘speculative claims of economic harm made by industries such as mining, logging, and oil and gas’ as they sought to extract resources from public lands,” citing Earthjustice.org.31 The Biden Administration repealed both. Project 2025 calls to “rescind the Biden rules and reinstate the Trump rules regarding” the Endangered Species Act rules defining Critical Habitat and Critical Habitat Exclusions.32
But it gets worse.
Project 2025 also wants to:
Delist the grizzly bear in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Continental Divide Ecosystems.
Delist the gray wolf in the lower 48 states under the ESA.
Direct the Fish and Wildlife Service to end its abuse of Section 10(j) of the ESA by re-introducing so-called “experiment species” populations into areas that no longer qualify as habitat and lie outside the historic ranges of those species, which brings with it the full weight of the ESA in areas previously without federal government oversight.33 This means that the Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) may designate a listed species as experimental and release them in an area outside of its current range that is also geographically isolated from other populations of the species. “Treating the experimental population as threatened allows the FWS the discretion to devise management programs and special regulations for that population.”34 It is unclear what Project 2025 considers “abuse” of said section, but we can assume it will pose restrictions on the Fish & Wildlife Service’s protections.
Abolish the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and obtain necessary scientific research about species of concern from universities via competitive requests for proposals.35Currently, the “USGS is the biological research arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior, providing unbiased science to support the conservation of public lands and their resources.”36 We don’t need to take the lowest bid on any scientific research, which is the purpose of requests for proposals.
Direct the Fish & Wildlife Service to design and implement an Endangered Species Act program that ensures independent decision-making by ending reliance on so-called species specialists who have obvious self-interest, ideological bias, and land-use agendas. Of course, scientists who study specific species have a vested interest in them and their survival. We wouldn’t want someone without interest to make these decisions.
Modify Regulations Implementing the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. These acts are currently being abused at a cost to fisheries and Native American subsistence activities around the U.S.37 It is not clear what abuses Project 2025 is referring to here. The Marine Mammal Protection Act is a vital law protecting species we are at risk of losing forever.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act(MBTA)
Photo by REGINE THOLEN on Unsplash.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA), passed in 1918, prohibits the killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transporting of protected migratory bird species, eggs, and nests without prior authorization by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). “For decades the FWS, under both Republican and Democratic presidents, interpreted the rule to prohibit ‘incidental take’—the unintentional but predictable killing of birds, often at industrial sites. The FWS typically enforced only egregious cases of incidental take, such as when it levied a $100 million fine against BP for the deaths of an estimated one million birds in its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. But the threat of prosecution gave the government leverage to urge companies to adopt often simple and inexpensive practices to prevent avian deaths, such as covering oil pits and spacing power lines far enough apart to avoid electrocuting raptors.”38 This act protected birds for over one hundred years.
However, in January 2021, the Trump administration implemented a rule permitting companies and individuals to kill migratory birds, provided it was unintentional. Then the Biden administration repealed this rule in September 2021, restoring protections for the birds. Project 2025 plans to reinstate the Trump-era regulations regarding the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA).39
Please Vote Accordingly
Photo by Sora Shimazaki on Pexels.
The risks are far above and beyond what I’ve covered here. Project 2025 is a blueprint for completely restructuring the government at almost every level, every department, and every sector. It’s a gut job affecting far more than climate change and the environment. I encourage you to read it for yourself.
I felt it important to highlight some of the proposed changes in Project 2025. Especially with the election less than two weeks away. People deserve to know the devastating effects it could have on our lives, endangered species, and the environment. I’ve only covered a few of the environmental topics in this article. But the more I read of the 900-page document, the worse it gets.
Thank you for reading – please share and subscribe. Most importantly, go vote!
Additional Resources:
Article, “What Project 2025 Would Do to the Environment – and How We Will Respond,” earthjustice.org, August 30, 2024.
Article, “Conservation Groups Say Project 2025 Would Gut Wildlife and Public Land Protections,” sierraclub.org, August 20, 2024.
Blog, “New Modeling Shows How Bad Project 2025 Would Be Compared to a Clean Energy Future,” evergreenaction.com, August 15, 2024.
Footnotes:
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023. Even if you only read the Foreword of this manifesto, you will find the entire basis of the conservative right’s agenda. ↩︎
Article, “Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action,” Center for American Progress, August 19, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “What is Project 2025 and why would it be devastating for the environment?” Sierra Club, accessed October 16, 2016. ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “What is Project 2025 and why would it be devastating for the environment?” Sierra Club, accessed October 16, 2016. ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Foreword. The rhetoric gets even worse, asserting that the left would stop relying on human intelligence, which is insulting: “Abandoning confidence in human resilience and creativity in responding to the challenges of the future would raise impediments to the most meaningful human activities. They would stand human affairs on their head, regarding human activity itself as fundamentally a threat to be sacrificed to the god of nature.” ↩︎
Article, “Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action,” Center for American Progress, August 19, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Project 2025 Would Jeopardize Global Climate Action,” Center for American Progress, August 19, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 13, “Environmental Protection Agency.” ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Foreword. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 13, “Environmental Protection Agency.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 13, “Environmental Protection Agency.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 13, “Environmental Protection Agency.” ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Page, “About our agency,” noaa.gov, updated May 2, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Page, “About the NWS: Forecasts and Service,” weather.gov, accessed October 20, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US,” by Zoya Teirstein, Yale Climate Connections, July 29, 2024. ↩︎
Page, “About NOAA Research,” noaa.gov, accessed October 22, 2024. ↩︎
Page, “America the Beautiful,” Department of the Interior, accessed October 21, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Article, “U.S. Significantly Weakens Endangered Species Act,” by Lisa Friedman, New York Times, August 12, 2019. ↩︎
Press Release, “Trump Administration Finalizes Another Rule To Gut Endangered Species Act,” EarthJustice.org, December 17, 2020. ↩︎
Article, “Biden administration reverses Trump endangered species rule,” by John Flesher, AP News, July 21, 2022. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 16, “Department of the Interior.” ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 16, “Department of the Interior.” ↩︎
Fact Sheet, “What is a 10(j) Rule?,” US Fish & Wildlife Service, October 2018. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 16, “Department of the Interior.” ↩︎
Page, “Biology,” usgs.gov, accessed October 22, 2024. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 21, “Department of Commerce.” ↩︎
Article, “Trump to Birds: Drop Dead,” by Andy McGlashen, audubon.org, January 5, 2021. ↩︎
Book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, The Heritage Foundation, 2023, Chapter 16, “Department of the Interior.” ↩︎
Regardless of its cause or origin, the climate crisis is unfolding right before our eyes, every single day.
I’m tired of holding back when it comes to discussing climate change. From now on, I won’t worry about offending anyone or sparking political debate. Enough is enough.
Climate change and the climate crisis are not hoaxes. They are not, and should never have been, political issues. It’s absurd that they’ve become so polarized, and it infuriates me.
It’s certainly not a partisan issue — it should be a bipartisan one.
An everyone issue.
Because the climate crisis affects everyone, everywhere.
“Were summers this hot when you were a kid? Wasn’t there less torrential rain? Don’t you remember more snow on the ground in winter? However we measure the facts, people are waking up and seeing that the climate is fundamentally different now.” -Erin Brockovich1
The Storms are Getting Stronger
Asheville, North Carolina after Hurricane Helene caused massive destruction. Photo by Bill McMannis on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
You don’t have to look very long or very hard to find real-life evidence of the climate crisis. Hurricane Helene, which has taken the lives of over 230 people as of today, is a recent result of the changing climate. This hurricane destroyed areas in the mountains of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee – where people never expected a storm like this to affect them with such severity. These areas are hundreds of miles inland.
That hurricane also hit Florida and caused massive flooding. Now, another major hurricane—Hurricane Milton—will make landfall in Florida sometime tomorrow. That’s two major storms in just a couple of weeks!
Hurricane Milton “explosively” intensified from a Category 1 storm to a Category 5 in just about 12 hours. This is the strongest storm in the Gulf of Mexico since 2005. Florida hasn’t even had a chance to finish cleaning up from the last storm, and the ground is already saturated. Some areas are still partially buried in feet of sand. This is a terrible situation. UPDATE 10/11/2024: Hurricane Milton made landfall as a Category 3 at Siesta Key, Florida, spawned an unexpected number of tornados, and left a lot of destruction behind. So far, 16 people are dead.
What’s worse, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, doesn’t believe in climate change. In fact, in May 2024, he signed legislation that removed the words “climate change” from many Florida state laws.2 I’m not sure how he ignores the obvious climate issues in his own state.
We’re seeing record-breaking weather extremes in storms and weather patterns. We’re also seeing drastic changes in climate, such as air temperature and ocean temperatures.
Climate change creates a downward spiral because everything in nature connects. The more carbon dioxide, the warmer the planet gets, including the ocean. The warmer the ocean, the more strength hurricanes gain as they develop. The bigger the storm, the more moisture it accumulates. The warm water is their fuel.
“The impact of global warming is obvious with the hurricanes because the frequency is increasing so dramatically, especially over the last 10 or 20 years. The hurricanes are thriving off of the warmer ocean temperatures and intensifying as they’re making landfall, especially in the Gulf of Mexico.” -Dr. Reed Timmer, Extreme Meteorologist3
It’s Hotter
We’ve set heat records every year in recent decades. July 2024 was the warmest July on record for the planet in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 175-year record.4 Last year, 2023 became the warmest year on record for land and ocean areas individually in both hemispheres.5
There have been 14 consecutive months of record-hot global temperatures, spanning from June 2023 through July 2024. This breaks the previous record (May 2015 through May 2016) for longest record-warm global temperature streak in modern record (since 1980). Each month of record global temperatures, compared to the 1991-2020 average, is shown in sequence. Places that were warmer than average are red; places that were cooler than average are blue. Image by NOAA Climate.gov, based on data from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.
Remember when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned of global warming levels reaching 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels? Well, we are already at 1.2°C!6
Here’s what the 1.5°C means: “Climate scientists have long warned that, to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we need to drastically cut climate pollution and limit global warming as close as possible to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Every fraction of global warming beyond this level exponentially increases climate harm, as well as the risk of crossing tipping points in the climate system – which would trigger abrupt and irreversible changes and accelerate warming. In other words, tipping points are points of no return.”7 This is the downward spiral I referred to above.
The Ice Really is Melting
Melting glacier ice, Alpefjord, Northeast Greenland National Park. Photo by GRID-Arendal on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).
Glaciers, of which there are approximately two hundred thousand on the planet, are melting. In daily life, this may not be so evident. However, to those monitoring the glaciers, it is very evident. We have accelerated glacial loss from 6.7 inches per year in the 1980s, to 11 inches per year in the 1990s, to 1.6 feet per year in the 2000s, and to 2.9 feet per year for the 2010s.8 This is directly causing sea level to rise, among many other problems. For example, warmer water expands, furthering the rise.
“Glacier front positions of Jakobshavn Isbræ from Khan et al. (2015) (1850–1985) and CCI products derived from ERS, Sentinel-1 and Landsat data by ENVO (1990–2016). The background map is a Landsat-8 image from 16 August 2016 (from the U.S. Geological Survey). Location names that occur in the text are marked. The inset shows the location of Jakobshavn Isbræ in Greenland.”9
“The blue line shows the current boundary between the Jakobshavn Glacier (right side, light gray) and the floating ice (center, white) between the valley walls (top and bottom, dark gray). The other colored lines show where this boundary was in previous years.” Graphic by Michalea King, Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND).
“The bleak face of rapid climate change is everywhere, from the shattered surfaces of Greenland’s glaciers to the marble-white branches of bleached coral forests; from the increased number of more ferocious storms to the migrations of some marine species to new, cooler locations; accompanied, throughout, by the rapid die-off of other species already stressed by human predation, pollution, and habitat destruction.” -Sylvia A. Earle10
Sea Level is Rising…And Entire Islands are Disappearing
Photo by Chris Boese on Unsplash.
Seas rose in the 1800s by half an inch. The 1900s saw almost 7 inches in sea level rise. In just the first two decades of the 2000s, we’ve reached a rate of 12 inches, and it continues to accelerate. Scientists expect another rise of 10 to 12 inches in just 30 years, by 2050.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the projections for U.S. sea level rise depend on the path we follow. “If we are able to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, U.S. sea level in 2100 is projected to be around 0.6 meters (2 feet) higher on average than it was in 2000. But on a pathway with high greenhouse gas emissions and rapid ice sheet collapse, models project that average sea level rise for the contiguous United States could be 2.2 meters (7.2 feet) by 2100 and 3.9 meters (13 feet) by 2150.”11
Loss of Land
More severe storms, combined with sea level rise, are causing the loss of lands, especially islands. Vanuatu has already relocated one village and the country is one of the most vulnerable to sea level rise. But the Maldives, Kiribati, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands are at a high risk of island loss as well. In 2018, Hurricane Walaka wiped out a whole island near Hawaii; an island that was a critical habitat for several endangered species.12
“When sea levels rise, people will be displaced – likely those least responsible for the climate crisis…If these peoples are forced to leave a no longer habitable island nation, who is responsible for providing refuge?” -Leah Thomas13
We Must Do Better
What can we do? Yes, we can all make small changes in our daily lives, but the most critical step is voting. Once we’ve voted, we must hold our elected leaders accountable and push them to take meaningful, large-scale actions to slow the climate crisis. While it can no longer be entirely stopped, we can still slow its progress. It’s time to get everyone involved, set aside the “hoax” claims, and focus on moving forward together.
We must do better.
Thank you for reading – share articles like Climate Change, Simply, and subscribe to learn more!
Footnotes:
Book, Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It, by Erin Brockovich, Pantheon Books, New York, 2020. ↩︎
Transcript, “Florida Gov. DeSantis signs bill that deletes climate change from state law,” Morning Edition, NPR, May 17, 2024. ↩︎
Page, “The hurricane hunter: Meet extreme meteorologist Reed Timmer and his tornado-chasing terrier Gizmo,” News24.com, September 30, 2021. ↩︎
Article, “Global climate summary for July 2024,” by NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information AND Global Precipitation Climatology Project (University of Maryland), August 13, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Climate Change: Global Temperature,” by Rebecca Lindsey AND LuAnn Dahlman, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, January 18, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Have we already gone past 1.5 degrees of warming?” by the Climate Council, June 24, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Have we already gone past 1.5 degrees of warming?” by the Climate Council, June 24, 2024. ↩︎
Article, “Climate Change: Mountain glaciers,” by Rebecca Lindsey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, May 10, 2024. ↩︎
Image from article, “Simulated retreat of Jakobshavn Isbræ since the Little Ice Age controlled by geometry,” The Cryosphere, July 12, 2018. ↩︎
Book, “Ocean: A Global Odyssey,” by Sylvia A. Earle, National Geographic, Washington, D.C., 2021. ↩︎
Article, “Climate Change: Global Sea Level,” by Rebecca Lindsey, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, August 22, 2023. ↩︎
Article, “Hurricane Walaka practically wiped an island off the map,” Hawaii News Now, updated October 24, 2018. ↩︎
Book, The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet, by Leah Thomas, Hachette Book Group, New York, 2022. ↩︎
This annual event is to show support for environmental protection. I’ve always said that Earth Day should be every day!
The Earth provides us with everything we need: air, water, plants, and animals. So why do we continue to strip the Earth of the resources it provides us humans?
We are the only species on the planet that destroys its own habitat. No other species does that. What is wrong with us?
Earth Day was established in 1970. But by 1976, plastic became the most widely used material in the world.
Plastic has become so embedded in our environment that explorers have found plastic in Antarctica and the Mariana Trench. Both are places that people rarely visit. There will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050.
Archaeologists are finding that microplastics have contaminated archaeological remains. Scientists discovered microplastics in human breast milk and human lungs. The latest study suggests that the presence of microplastics may double the risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular problems among people with heart disease.
There are about 44,000 species now classified as critically endangered, and almost all of them are endangered because of human activity. Do we not treasure beautiful creatures that all contribute to a healthy planet? Do we not see the value in Earth’s biological diversity?
We burn fossil fuels at such a furious pace that we are altering the planet’s temperature. A warmer climate means escalating changes, such as stronger storms, sea level rise from melting ice, and potentially more diseases or pandemics.
I could go on, but it’s Earth Day, and I want to feel better about the state of things. Then I read this quote:
“One person worrying is desperation; a worrying group sows seeds of hope.” -Carl Safina1
And I remember that there are people who care. Many, many people who care. Not the corporations, nor the government representatives. But real people, like me and those of you reading this. We are the ones who can alter the course of those problems if we come together. We can spread hope.
Maybe we can worry less and band together, because together, we can do anything.
So say “Happy Earth Day” to someone today. Remind them that our home is our habitat and that we must protect it. Thank you for reading. Please share and subscribe.
Happy Earth Day! This is a day of recognition and a day to celebrate our beautiful home and habitat.
But as I always say, Earth Day should be every day.
This year, 2023, feels heavier, though. There’s so much going on and so much division that climate change and environmental issues often feel like back-burner issues.
It’s hard to think about buying plastic-free items and aiming for zero-waste when the price of groceries is so high.
While the average price of groceries rose 11.4% in the last year, it is expected to rise another 8.6% this year. But for some items, staples such as bread, eggs, milk, butter, and flour – the inflation rates are even higher. “The average price of white bread was about 22 percent higher in January than it was two years ago, and flour is up almost 21 percent. Butter cost 31 percent more.”2 Milk went up about 15% between 2021 and 2022.3 “The average price for all types of eggs ballooned 60% in 2022” because of an outbreak of bird flu.4
But some of the other costs have been simply to increase the wealth of corporations, CEOs, and shareholders. They are seeing record profits and receiving record dividends and bonuses. All at our expense. According to Oxfam, a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice, 62 new billionaires were created during the pandemic. They have exacerbated problems like labor shortages and supply chain disruptions to justify inflation. But the majority of food companies still managed to see record profits.5
Photo by me, April 8, 2023.
In the last 5 years, costs have increased overall by about twenty percent. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statics Consumer Price Index inflation calculator indicates that $100.00 in February 2018 has the same buying power of just over $120.00 in February 2023.6 Inflation has increased an average of 20% over the last 5 years. Most of us have not seen an increase in wages or benefits.
It’s difficult to see the value in cleaning up trash in one community when you see environmental racism and injustice in another.
My family participated in a Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful trash clean-up event in April 2023. It felt really good to go out and do something good. But all around our own city and in countries across the globe, there are people living amongst massive amounts of trash, toxic waste sites, and pollution. Why aren’t we doing more to help?
I remind myself that many of us are trying. Unfortunately, the people with the most wealth are often the same people exploiting those that have the least. And climate change affects some of the poorest communities in the world even though they have the smallest carbon footprint.
We just have to keep getting out there and doing what we can. Keep trying, learning, and especially voting!
It’s easy to shift your focus away from climate change when you are worried about the safety of your child at school.
I really don’t like to write about political issues on my website (other than things related to the environment and climate change, but those really shouldn’t be political issues, anyway). But this is a real fear for many parents, myself included. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the U.S.
The March 2023 Nashville school shooting, tragic and sad, should never have happened. The same week as that shooting, my son’s school in Chattanooga was put on a “secure hold” because of an intruder. The school seemed to have handled it swiftly and correctly, but they didn’t notify the parents until after the whole incident was over. The intruder was unarmed, but I nevertheless cried out of fear. I remain fearful every day I bring him to school. This daily anxiety is taking its toll.
How am I supposed to worry about climate change right now, when I’m worried about my child surviving the day?
Photo by Fateme Alaie on Unsplash.
The answer is that I have to at least try.
“The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now.” -Proverb
We all have to try.
Together.
We can do better.
“I don’t think we want to just scrape by as a species, surviving with a degraded natural world, suffering ecosystem and societal collapse, and mass human suffering on a scale that dwarfs anything we’ve experienced as a species. I think we all want to see what we’re capable of, and make this world of ours the best it can be.” -Rob Stewart7
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay.
We must keep learning.
“When you know better, you do better.” -Maya Angelou
We have to do the right things, even when our leaders don’t.
“Choose what is right, not what is easy.” -Yoda
We have to give what we can, whether that’s time, energy, or money.
“The surest path to contentment is generosity. Giving forces us to recognize all we possess and all we have to offer. It allows us to find fulfillment and purpose in helping others.” -Joshua Becker, becomingminimalist.com
We must teach our children to do better than we have.
“I’m still convinced it’s a good old world, really, but I do think we have screwed it up. It’s highly obvious with the ocean filling with plastic; it didn’t get there by itself. Thinking that climate change is a hoax is another screw-up, one that I hope we can still fix for our children and our children’s children.” -Paul McCartney8
We need to value the people and the environment around us. Let’s help each other.
“Fighting for something other than your own wealth, working for someone else’s happiness, saving species, pulling people out of poverty, conserving instead of wasting – this is what really matters.” -Rob Stewart9
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash.
I leave you with a heavy heart this Earth Day. But I think the best thing we can do to celebrate today is to get outdoors and be in nature. Spend time taking in the elements and the beauty of nature. Hug a tree. Hug the person next to you. Spread kindness and love.
“Our task must be to free ourselves… by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.” -Albert Einstein
The fashion and clothing industries contribute to climate change, environmental pollution, and human exploitation. Across the world, perpetuated by wealth, and rampant consumerism based on false urgency to keep up with ‘trends,’ the massive overproduction of clothing is killing us and our environment.
Companies have men, women, and even children, working in dangerous conditions with low or no labor standards. They are kept impoverished by low wages. Companies use toxic chemicals in clothing production, and those chemicals end up in the final products. The clothing industry uses unfathomable amounts of water in production, in a world where there isn’t enough water for everyone. Later, that water is discharged, often into the environment, polluting water and soil. Mass amounts of energy are used to produce both natural and synthetic fabrics. Transporting clothing from developing countries to the west uses astronomical amounts of fossil fuels. Worse, there is so much clothing in the world now that we can’t find uses for all of it.
All this so that we can buy $5 T-shirts that we don’t need. It’s called fast fashion, and it’s detrimental on many levels.
Image by DigestContent from Pixabay.
Fast Fashion
Fast fashion is a design, manufacturing, and marketing method focused on quickly producing high volumes of trendy but cheaply-made clothing.5The term was coined by The New York Times in the 1990s “to describe Zara’s mission to take only 15 days for a garment to go from the design stage to being sold in stores.”9 By the 2000s, brands were taking ideas from the top fashion designers and reproducing them cheaply and quickly. Other big names in fast fashion include H&M, UNIQLO, GAP,Primark, and TopShop.
At one time, there were four seasons of clothing. Today, there are 50 to 100 microseasons per year. Fast fashion was artificially created. The demand “was carefully cultivated by fashion brands to change consumer behavior and make people want more and more, and quickly.”10 As consumers clamored for cheap fashion, clothing companies resorted to low-quality materials and manufacturers to still profit.11
But this disregard for quality has led to massive amounts of clothing going to landfills. “Constantly changing trends have encouraged consumers to discard clothing that’s no longer ‘in style’ even if it’s still wearable.”12 This is not sustainable.
“[Fast fashion] plays into the idea that outfit repeating is a fashion faux pas and that if you want to stay relevant, you have to sport the latest looks as they happen. It forms a key part of the toxic system of overproduction and consumption that has made fashion one of the world’s largest polluters.”13
Photo by Comunicacioninditex on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Ultra-Fast Fashion
There is an even faster fashion now, referred to as ultra-fast fashion. Brands include SHEIN, Missguided, Forever 21, Zaful, Boohoo, and Fashion Nova. It is a recent phenomenon that is as bad as it sounds.14 “Ultra fast fashion turns fast fashion’s ‘weeks’ into days and ‘dozens of styles’ into hundreds and thousands. The numbers alone sound sinister. Brands like SHEIN and Boohoo are reportedly posting thousands of new styles to their websites on a daily basis. Sometimes, knockoffs of trending celebrity and pop culture styles will appear online in as little as 24 hours.” Social media, influencer culture, and online hauls certainly stoked the fire in the creation of ultra-fast fashion.15
“A generation now views ultra-fast fashion’s historically low price points and disposable culture as the norm, with many young people considering garments worn out after only a few washes. This overproduction and quick disposal has exacerbated fashion’s waste crisis.”16
H&M Store, Times Square in New York City. Photo by Will Buckner on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY 2.0).
Wasteful Overproduction
Companies produce more clothing than can be consumed. Some companies trash or burn the excess. “An estimated 2.2 billion pounds of overstock and unsold clothing are landfilled or incinerated around the world every year, according to a 2018 report by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation…Two billion pounds of clothes is the equivalent in weight of 5 billion T-shirts, enough leftover stock to dress the adult population of the planet. In 2018, H&M announced that the brand was stuck with 4.3 billion dollars worth of unsold goods.” It’s not just fast fashion companies, either. The same year, the luxury brand Burberry was caught destroying excess clothing and accessories worth around $24 million.17
Photo by Alexander Kovacs on Unsplash.
Environmental Costs
The world produces around 100 billion articles of clothing annually, and “92 million tonnes end up in landfills.”18 Fast fashion causes extensive damage to the planet, exploits workers, and harms animals.19The fashion industry produces 10% of all carbon emissions and it is the second-largest consumer of water.20
Clothing production requires tons of water. For example, it takes 2,000 gallons of water to produce a single pair of jeans. Worse, “the fashion industry is responsible for 20% of all industrial water pollution worldwide.”21 Textile dyeing is the world’s second-largest polluter of water as the wastewater from it is often dumped into bodies of water. “If fashion production maintains its current pace, the demand for water will surpass the world’s supply by 40 percent by 2030.”22
“The way we manufacture new clothes is truly unsustainable, commanding a staggering level of resources, especially water, chemicals, and fossil fuels, that can’t continue. Each year, clothing production requires 24 trillion gallons of water, enough to fill 37 million Olympic-sized pools. And the fashion industry spews more globe-warming carbon dioxide annually than all international flights and maritime shipping combined.” -Elizabeth L. Cline23
Image by Linda Lioe from Pixabay.
Poor Labor Standards and Pitiful Wages
“Only 2 percent of the 40 million garment workers around the world earn a living wage – it effectively amounts to modern-day slavery.”24
Across the world, workers experience unsafe working conditions and low wages that are far below the minimum wage. Companies require garment workers to work long hours through forced overtime, often apply impossible quotas to their daily production, and sometimes even inflict abuse. They also expose workers to many chemicals and pollutants, which jeopardize their health. Unionization attempts and campaigns for improvements in safety, conditions, wages, sick pay, and job security are often barred by the threat of job losses and sometimes violence.25
“Everyone in the industry knows that workers in textile mills and leather tanneries have been known to develop skin lesions and breathing problems.” -Alden Wicker, To Dye For26
The garment, textile, and footwear workers around the world deserve better. “Fashion is a powerful industry, one that can and should lift people out of poverty rather than trap them in it. It is a multitrillion-dollar business, with plenty of wealth to go around. And yet, according to Oxfam, the top fashion CEOs earn in four days what the average garment worker will make in a lifetime.” Increasing wages would require only a 1 to 4 percent increase in retail prices.27
“The difference in what it would cost for people to not to have to make these kinds of choices between paying rent and putting food on the table is less than a dollar per garment. Why in the world would any company choose every day to prioritize their profits and paying the lowest price possible over ending that kind of human suffering? Especially when it’s not complicated or unaffordable to fix it.” -Sarah Adler-Milstein, co-author of Sewing Hope: How One Factory Challenges the Apparel Industry’s Sweatshops28
Photo of the Eastex Garment Co. Ltd factory in Cambodia, one of garment factories that supplies H&M. Photo by U.S. Embassy Phnom Penh on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 2.0).
“Combined with the commute and getting food on the table for their families, female garment workers can only get four or five hours of sleep a night.” -Alden Wicker, To Dye For29
World Exports
Map courtesy of HowMuch.net, a financial literacy website.
Each of the following countries exports billions of dollars of garment products annually:
China:
China is the largest clothing manufacturing country in the world, employing over 15 million people, mostly women. Companies in this country pay the highest wages but that still does not equate to a living wage for all.30
List of companies that source their clothing from China. Screenshot from the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
Bangladesh:
Bangladesh is the second-largest garment manufacturing country, but they are among the lowest-paid in the world. This is where the 2013 Rana Plaza factory collapse happened, which killed 1,134 and injured another 2,500 people. While “the disaster brought international attention to the alarming labor conditions in overseas garment factories,” only some improvements in safety issues came from it.31 H&M and the VF Corporations (Vans, North Face, Timberland, etc.) are two of the many companies sourcing from Bangladesh.32
After Rana Plaza’s collapse, no corporations stepped forward after the tragedy to acknowledge that they were manufacturing there. H&M executives responded with this: “‘None of the textile factories located in the building produced for H&M,’ it stated. ‘It is important to remember that this disaster is an infrastructure problem in Bangladesh and not a problem specific to the textile industry.'” The statement continued that it would contribute to solutions going forward.33 But this problem is specific to the textile industry.
“In 2013, [Americans] spent $340 billion on fashion – more than twice what they forked out for new cars. Much of it was produced in Bangladesh, some of it by Rana Plaza workers in the days leading up to the collpase.” -Dana Thomas, Fashionopolis34
India:
India employs millions of people but often under conditions of forced overtime, less than half of a living wage, and even child labor.35 There have been some improvements but many workers, of which the majority are women, experience physical abuse and sexual harassment. Companies sourcing from India include American Eagle Outfitters, H&M, Levi Strauss & Co., and VF Corporation.
Vietnam:
Vietnam has a communist government that forbids labor unions, and wages are 60 percent below a living wage. There are around 6,000 textile factories that employ about 3 million people. Nike employs 450,000 people there.36 “Many of us are familiar with the news about Nike sweatshops, but they’re just one of the many fast fashion brands violating human rights for the sake of fashion. The people who make our clothes are underpaid, underfed, and pushed to their limits because there are few other options.”37 Zara and H&M are two of the major brands that source from there.
Cambodia:
There are about 600,000 garment workers in Cambodia. Women experience a great deal of abuse, sexual harassment, and low wages, which are 50 percent below a living wage. Many companies, including H&M, Gap, Nike, and Puma, source from there.38
“Brands are interested in getting clothing as cheaply and quickly as they can. They have consciously chosen to locate production in countries that do not enforce their labor laws. A factory that scrupulously complied with the labor law, respected the right to organize, paid all required wages, didn’t force people to work overtime: That factory will not be able to meet brands’ price demands. You can’t survive as a supplier unless you operate a sweatshop, because the brands are only willing to pay sweatshop prices.” -Scott Nova, Executive Director of the Worker Rights Consortium39
Photo of garment workers sewing on sewing machines in a a large factory room in Bangladesh. Photo by Musamir Azad on Wikimedia, Creative Commons license (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Fashion Production in the U.S.
“In the 1960s, just 5% of all clothing Americans wore was made overseas. By the 1970s, that figure had reached 25% and today it’s somewhere around 98%.” -Sophie Benson, Sustainable Wardrobe40
The United States produces little clothing domestically today: Less than 3 percent, which is down from 50% in 1990. “And a Made in USA garment is no longer a guarantee of ethical working conditions.” The largest part of the garment business is in Los Angeles, where there are approximately 45,000 garment workers, many of them undocumented immigrants. “A 2016 US Labor Department investigation of LA’s factories found that 85 percent of inspected factories violated labor laws. Workers are being paid as little as 4 dollars an hour sewing clothes for well-known fashion brands, including Forever 21, Fashion Nova, Ross Dress for Less, and T.J.Maxx.”41 Another investigation found that companies paid sewers as little as $2.77 an hour.42
Even sadder, US garment workers are some of the highest-paid in the world.
“The large, middle-market brands who source from these sweatshops herald that their apparel is ‘Made in the USA,’ as if such a statement automatically confers authenticity and integrity, as well as superior quality, to clothes produced offshore. It’s a corporate marketing tactic to pander to consumers’ patriotism while flagrantly breaking US labor laws.” -Dana Thomas, Fashionopolis43
Image by Photo Mix from Pixabay.
The Role of Companies
Companies have the power to make real, humane, sustainable changes. “It’s time for more big brands to step up to the plate,” wrote Elizabeth L. Cline. “Big companies are the ones with the huge economies of scale that could bring down the price of sustainable materials and fund the research and development of eco-friendly innovations, from textile recycling and nontoxic dyes to factories powered by clean energy. They can certainly afford to pay higher wages.”44 But we consumers need to hold these companies accountable.
Fast fashion companies sometimes use greenwashing to make consumers feel better about purchasing their items. Greenwashing refers to when companies deceive consumers by claiming that their products are environmentally friendly or “have a greater positive environmental impact than they really do.”45“Fast-fashion companies tell their customers that it’s possible to buy their products and still have a clean conscience. H&M has ramped up its use of organic cotton and sustainably sourced materials; Boohoo sells 40 or so items partially made from recycled textiles.” Aja Barber, a fashion-sustainability consultant, called this greenwashing in an interview with The Atlantic: “It’s like, ‘Oh look, these five items that we made are sustainable, but the rest of the 2,000 items on our website are not .'”46
“[A] higher price reflects things like fair wages, ethical sourcing practices and higher costs for less wasteful production runs. Knowing all that, the real question we should ask is: how is fast fashion so cheap?” -Sophie Benson, Sustainable Wardrobe47
Photo by Sora Shimazaki from Pexels
Our Role
“Fast fashion makes us believe we need to shop more and more to stay on top of trends, creating a constant sense of need and ultimate dissatisfaction.”48
We’ve all supported it at some point, probably mistakenly. We found a great deal on a cute cardigan or funny t-shirt and bought it. Buying new clothes, especially when they’re on sale, brings pleasure to our brains. “This means of instant gratification from the fast fashion complex is a recipe for disaster for our brains, our wallets, supply chains, and the planet.”49 But we have to stop supporting fast fashion now.
Think about the human factor. Every time we purchase from a company that does not follow ethical labor standards or pays poor wages, we are supporting the mistreatment of our fellow human beings. “We are rarely asked to pay the true cost of fashion. The pollution, carbon emissions, waste, and poverty our clothes create aren’t tallied up and included in the prices we enjoy. It does cost a bit more to do things the right way, to operate safer, well-paying factories and farms and to use longer-lasting, sustainable materials and craft more durable products. Ethical and sustainable clothing doesn’t have to be unaffordable, though,” wrote Elizabeth L. Cline.50
We can do better. Follow my upcoming series to learn more about clothing production and learn what you can do differently. Thank you for reading, please share and subscribe!
Photo by Alexander Kovacs on Unsplash.
Additional Resources:
Article, “10 Fast Fashion Brands We Avoid At All Costs,” by Christine Huynh, Good On You, April 30, 2021.
Website, The Magazine of the Sierra Club: Elizabeth L. Cline author page.
Permission to use granted by the author, Brendan Leonard/Semi-Rad(https://semi-rad.com/).
Climate change is no joke, though I have to admit, the above comic is pretty funny – but too true to reality. We spent decades arguing about whether it was a real issue, though the science was always there. Then we argued about whether or not humans were inducing or speeding up climate change, though the science was always there. Then came oops, when we realized that the science was correct and had always been there. Now we are at f***, though the science was always there.
As scientist F. Sherwood Rowland, who with Mario Molina first predicted ozone depletion, said in 1989, “What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”12
We wasted decades arguing. Decades when we could’ve put sustainable changes into practice, when climate change was a future problem, long before there was a crisis.
“The ice we skate is getting pretty thin. The water’s getting warmer so we might as well swim.” -Smashmouth, All Star, 1999
Image by Peter Schmidt from Pixabay.
Climate deniers
Ninety-seven percent of the scientific community agrees that the planet is warming as a result of human action, specifically from fossil fuel emissions. “The fossil fuel industry and their proxies in denier groups like the Global Climate Coalition have used the imagined disagreement in the scientific community as a public relations talking point for years. ‘Emphasize the uncertainty in scientific conclusions’ and ‘urge a balanced scientific approach,’ reads an internal memo from Exxon in 1988,” Kale Williams wrote.13 Companies in the oil and chemistry industries, among others, contributed to decades worth of disagreement, which in turn created division. When they create doubt, they also create space for denial.
“A climate scientist and a climate change denier walk into a bar. The denier says, bartender, show me your strongest whiskey. The bartender says, this one here. It’s 95 percent alcohol. The denier slams down his fist and leaves the bar in a hurry. The scientist says, you know, that’s the problem with these guys. You show them the proof, and they still don’t buy it.”14
But the Weather Is Changing
“Cold weather is proof that the climate isn’t warming, they argue, but extreme weather on the other end of the thermometer – heat waves and droughts – doesn’t prove anything. They point to the fact that the climate has always changed, which is true, but refuse to acknowledge the rate at which it’s currently changing, that temperatures are predicted to rise twenty times faster over the next hundred years than they did during previous periods of warming. They cherry-pick data, choosing specific statistics that support a contrarian opinion, when all the data taken together points to a different conclusion.”15 The Earth is warming but this doesn’t mean it only causes extremes in heat – it causes extremes in all types of weather.
Winters are harsher, summers are hotter, and storms are stronger. This is evident everywhere across the planet. As Erin Brockovich wrote, “Many, many volumes published by thoughtful people have covered the ways in which man-made carbon emissions are changing the environment and the planet we live on. I have no interest in reciting what is settled science. And the truth is, you don’t need to study the science to see its effects. In nearly every place I travel in the United States, people come up to me and discuss how different the weather has become, even in the last decade.”16
“We haven’t found a solution for climate change yet, but… …we’re definitely getting warmer.” -Unknown author
Image by David Blackwell on Flickr, Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND 2.0).
The Elephant in the Room
Few people seem to want to confront the fact that the Earth is largely overpopulated. We are now at 8 billion people across the planet, and that stretches the planet’s resources. Resources that we already overexploit and pollute. As Andrew Knoll, Harvard Professor of Natural History, wrote, “The very innovations that have allowed us to feed and clothe more than seven billion people now grip the Earth in an increasingly tight vise…agriculture now takes up half of Earth’s habitable surface, displacing plants, animals, and microorganisms that once thrived on these lands. We also challenge natural ecosystems through pollution, affecting air and water, soil and the sea. Of course, pollution exacts a human toll, be it unbreathable air in Delhi or undrinkable water in Flint, Michigan.”21 The more humans on the planet, the more stretched our resources will become.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash.
The Earth Will Go On
We don’t need to save the planet; we need to save ourselves. We need to protect humans. The Earth will remain without us. Why won’t we do what we need to do to protect ourselves? As filmmaker and environmentalist Rob Stewart wrote, “We are our own asteroid. Our consumption of fossil fuels has released – is releasing – a store of carbon into the atmosphere that has been accumulating for hundreds of millions of years. Corals, plankton, predators: everything in the ocean is screaming at us to stop. If we don’t listen and take action right now, we could be witnesses to the death of most life on earth. We will be the cause of that death. What will survive are the hangers-on, the muck dwellers. The ocean – dark, barren and unproductive – will remain much the same for them. Over time they will evolve and very gradually repopulate. In millions of years, new animals will once again develop the capacity to build reefs, the oceans will neutralize themselves and life will return to normal.”22 The Earth has already gone through five mass extinctions, and it will survive our own extinction.
It’s Up To Us
We are the only ones that can fix our problems. At this point, it is unlikely that we can reverse the effects of climate change. But we can try to slow the avalanche of coming problems in the forms of sea level rise, weather extremes, and fossil fuel consumption. We can do it. As Nancy Knowlton, former Sant Chair for Marine Science at the Smithsonian Institution, wrote, “Big scary problems without solutions lead to apathy, not action…small steps taken by many people in their backyards adds up.”23 We have the power and we need to come together as a globe to save ourselves.
In the meantime, enjoy some additional climate humor! Maybe if we can laugh together, we can also work together.
Climate change is no joke, but climate change denial can be almost comical. This Gus Speth quote says it best:
“I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.” —Gus Speth, Author and Top U.S. Advisor on Climate Change
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