Project 2025 and climate change

Before Trump took office on Monday Jan. 20, The Environmental Defense Fund in 'Vital Signs' shared this:

We dug into the details of Project 2025 and found that its proposals would expose you to unchecked pollution, greater risks when extreme weather strikes, and potentially higher electricity bills.  

1. It proposes weakening current air pollution protections, especially from power plants, refineries and cars, while making sweeping cuts to the EPA’s expert staff.

2. Weather: Project 2025 proposes privatizing the National Weather Service, whose scientists offer life-saving information for those in the path of dangerous storms. And... it proposes breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where much of the country’s research on climate change is conducted. 

3. Personal Energy cost: Project 2025’s proposals to gut federal policies encouraging green electricity generation and electric cars would increase U.S. household spending on fuel and utilities by about $240 per year over the next five years.  

4. It ...seeks to gut the Toxic Substances Control Act,” explains Sarah Vogel, who leads Environmental Defense Fund’s health work. “This is the law that gives the EPA the responsibility for ensuring the safety of chemicals that end up in our environment and our bodies. ... a radical call for severely restricting the role of government in protecting our air, our water, and our communities,”"

5. Central to Project 2025 is a continued dependence on fossil fuels, even if it means drilling in America’s most pristine areas and beloved national monuments. Plus, doubling down on fossil fuels is poised to hurt American competitiveness in a world economy that’s increasingly moving toward renewables.   “This agenda would make America weaker by undoing clean energy investments, surrendering jobs to other countries, and increasing pollution,” says EDF Executive Director Amanda Leland.

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I watch Sunday Morning on CBS usually as a recorded program. This last Sunday was before the inauguration.  I'm able to go back and find the interview that was done Jan 20, 2025 with author John Valient, set in the recent California fire zone. His book is "Fire Weather - On the Front Lines of a Burning World." He speaks for nature by saying "I can't take this any more, what you're doing to me." He also believes the fires being experienced now are different than they were 10 years ago, but I wasn't able to understand how he meant that, just hotter and  faster. 

Valient was clear that all our new natural disasters were a result of climate change. He stressed the cause as being the CO2 that our combustion engines keep pumping into the atmosphere. 

Another climatologist, Peter Kalmas was also interviewed after he moved his family from Altadena CA to North Carolina recently. His statement that you can't escape climate change was poignant in his former home in CA having burned in the recent fires, as well as the NC disasters as a result of Hurricane Helene.

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The Good news:

1. Voters in Washington state overwhelmingly supported keeping a 2021 climate program designed to boost public transit, clean school buses, solar energy, forest-fire prevention and more.  

2. Internationally, Canada, the U.K., Mexico and Norway, as well as the European Union pledged to reduce climate pollution, and 20% of the new cars sold worldwide were clean, electric vehicles.

3. A new study published in Nature Energy suggests electric vehicle batteries might last longer than previously thought. (As is, clean, electric cars are cheaper to own and operate than gas-powered cars in 48 out of 50 U.S. states.) 

4. Leaky, abandoned oil and gas wells can pollute our air and water. A group of researchers have started using drones to track down these leaking wells. 

5. MethaneSAT, a methane-detecting satellite developed by Environmental Defense Fund and partners, was successfully launched and deployed in March. It’s circling the globe, helping to detect methane leaks that are fueling global warming.

From Vital Signs "This Month's Good News"

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RE: Trumps Executive Orders...

Perhaps most significantly to all human life on the planet, minutes after taking office he withdrew from the Paris climate agreements and ordered an "energy emergency" so his friends at Big Oil can keep polluting, causing cascading changes to our weather.

And...

So what do we make of all of this? It's not the full-throated seizure of government some of us most feared. It's not not that yet, either. But scratch the surface and there are cracks in his plans.

It's not over. It's not the worst. It's bad. It's going to get worse.

If you need some alternative inspiration, we recommend watching the livestream of MLK Day with The Way We Get Through This is Together: Celebrating Community with Rebecca Solnit, Charlie Jane Anders, Anand Giridharadas, Bill McKibben, Liz Ogbu, and Akaya Windwood. 

SOURCE: Choose Democracy via Action Network Newsletter "Morning After: Hot Take" Jan 21, 2025

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Today's philosophical quote: 

It is often said that at the end of our lives, we are more likely to regret the things we did not do than the things we did.

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Today's Art:

Toroweap Overlook.  36” wide by 48” high, quilt top by Sandra Mollen

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A flash mob presents Carmina Burana (one of my favorite pieces of music)

And from World News:

Did you notice how little was said about the released Palestinian prisoners from Israel? Finally yesterday's local news at noon gave clips of the 90 women and teens who returned to Gaza from being captured by Israel, in exchange for 3 of the Israeli male hostages released by Hamas.  An interesting ratio, I thought.