Tag: Alaska

Profits Over People: Trump’s Environmental Rollback

Multiple brown bear at McNeil River State Game Sanctuary fishing for salmon

This past week has been disastrous for the environment and public welfare. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, ramped up efforts to expand fossil fuel production, attacked clean energy initiatives, rescinded EV rebates, placed environmental justice employees on paid leave, and halted crucial environmental litigation.

Trump, who dismisses climate change as a hoax, prioritizes profits above all else. His actions will have dire consequences: higher cancer rates in cities like L.A., more asthma attacks, skyrocketing hospital bills, and increased deaths among Americans.

Meanwhile, Alaska, now opened to massive drilling, is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, wreaking havoc on ecosystems and threatening the survival of indigenous communities. —RJ

Only the beginning…

Britain is experiencing an unprecedented heat wave today, with temperatures soaring to 104F over much of England. Scientists are apprehensive, their future model scenarios occurring faster than anticipated.

Meanwhile, we continue our dependency on fossil fuels, our president begging Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, yes, the same guy our intelligence names as ordering the killing of Washington Post Saudi critic, Jamal Khashoggi, to increase oil output.

Widespread reports have it that Biden is proposing to open up Alaska’s North Slope wilderness to drilling, despite the Interior Department’s initial draft supplemental impact statement, projecting a thirty year time bomb release of 284 metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere.

Under the proposal, ConocoPhillips would obtain drilling rights to five federal land sites, along with a processing facility, pipelines to transport oil, gravel roads, and at least one airstrip and a gravel mine site, according to the draft EIS.

The fallout would be consequential to wildlife as well, threatening caribou, polar bears and migratory birds.

Ominously, the Arctic and Antartica, which help cool the earth by reflecting sunlight back into space, are melting faster than other earth regions. Hence, the heat waves increasingly scorching the Earth. The proposal only increases the speed of melting ice, resulting in rising seas, release of methane, and alteration of sea currents such as the Gulf Stream

As I write, Alaska has been burning faster than in the last 80 years, with 500 fires since April of this year, the consequence of rising temperatures, increased vapor with accompanying lightning strikes, and accumulating kindle. 264 fires are currently burning across the state.

While I’m ashamed of Biden’s betrayal of his campaign pledges, what bothers me most is the public’s myopic indulgence to pursue life in a bubble, ignoring the ominous natural signatures to our coming doom.

Unless we amend our ways, our children will have no meaningful future.
—rj