Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
With the COVID-19 pandemic laying waste to the country, and President Trump’s chances of re-election fading, America is at last beginning to look more deeply into the country’s problems.
Long promised, the Trump administration has now issued its final revisions to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA or Act). The changes are among the most aggressive and widespread deregulatory actions taken to date by an administration that has already moved to rescind or substantially revise 100 environmental regulations.
It is both reasonable and even moral, I think, to long for, to look for the embodiment and instantiation of (and, yes, to memorialize through song and statuary, with the understanding that statues can come down and, just as Hamilton did, songs can be resung), one’s people and place, one’s vine and fig tree, one’s home.
The rush by Donald Trump to dismantle the administrative state is producing an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) strangely complicit in its own destruction. Bit by bit, the EPA will have less to enforce.
Should Joe Biden win in November, he will be returning to reign over a federal government he may not recognize. A government that could be hard-pressed to put his climate policies and programs into operation. For that–he’ll have Donald Trump to thank.
Heather Cox Richardson addresses the question of What Could Possibly Go Right? with a political focus in her conversation with host Vicki Robin.
Winning the election may be the easiest task Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have to accomplish over the next several years. Governing, however, is another matter. In both cases, climate policy has a prominent role to play. Will a President Biden be able to do what Obama didn’t—put the nation on a path to sustainability?
We are living in a moment of tectonic shift in society. Something changed when we all watched the same images — 8 minutes and 46 seconds — the killing of George Floyd. During that unbearable experience, something broke down and broke open in our hearts, in how we relate to one another, and in how we want to live together.
This week Congressional Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives put forward policies, including passing a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill on July 1, aimed at cleaning up the number one source of carbon pollution in America — the transportation sector.
There are significant parallels between the response to the COVID-19 contagion and what the nation must do to combat and adapt to Earth’s warming. In both cases, national science-based policies must be put in place to address the considerable threats posed by each.
Surely the Democratic tent is big enough to accommodate all generations and to take the best bits of each factions climate defense plans and blend them into supportable legislation that puts the necessary policies and programs into place. Every generation depends upon it.
The COVID-19 contagion shows once again the disdain President Trump and his administration have for science-based policies and actions.
