Suppressed studies. Muzzled scientists. Disbanded scientific advisory committees. These are some examples of the gross violations of scientific integrity that the Trump administration has carried out during its 3½ years in power. At the Union of Concerned Scientists, we have been tracking these attacks on science since day one and our tracker has now hit a new, […]
Environmental groups on Friday condemned the announcement of a new rule proposed by President Donald Trump that would further weaken the Endangered Species Act by making it easier to destroy habitats vulnerable species rely on for survival. “President Trump is back for another whack at another key environmental law,” said Oceana senior federal policy director Lara Levison. By Eoin […]
A coalition of 20 organizations filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to block the Trump administration’s gutting of a law dubbed the “Magna Carta” of U.S. environmental legislation. The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a five-decade old law, “embodies our nation’s environmental conscience” and “expressly commands the federal government to ‘fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee […]
Thorstein Veblen explained the mindset of wealth in 1899. Work is for women and the lower orders, while the highest virtues are those of prowess—force and fraud. Conspicuous Consumption became essential, to show off not doing any honest toil. Nobody does it more than Donald Trump and his cadre of grifters. This is not just […]
We became a majority in the US in the 1990s, held back only by the Vast RightWrong-Wing Conspiracy of lies, hate, gerrymanders, voter suppression, a corrupt Supreme Court, and the Russians, aided by thatidiotComey. But now it’s time. By Mokurai Our time has come. All of us, Black, White, Green, or Purple; Jew and Gentile and Muslim and whatever; […]
Donald Trump’s decision to step back from international climate action pushes any prospect of hitting global emissions targets to “near zero”. Modelling suggests there are only very limited circumstances where the Paris Agreement’s warming limit of 2C is met – and a US departure from the landmark 2015 deal restricts those options further for every term […]
The Trump administration is working to weaken U.S. environmental regulations in many areas, from water and air pollution to energy development and land conservation. One of its most controversial proposals is known as the “secret science” rule because it would require scientists to disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, in order […]
A nonpartisan congressional report released Tuesday reveals how the Trump administration manipulated data to justify deregulating carbon emissions by drastically understating the costs of allowing fossil fuel extraction—and the resulting climate crisis—to continue. By Julia Conley Common Dreams The Government Accountability Office, the nonpartisan investigative office of the U.S. Congress, shows in the report that the Trump administration revised […]
Environmental defenders on Wednesday accused the Trump administration of trampling the rights of frontline communities as it finalized plans to weaken the law known as “the Magna Carta of environmental legislation.” President Donald Trump was expected to announce at a campaign stop in Atlanta Wednesday the rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which was signed into law by […]
As the North Atlantic right whale was placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s list of critically endangered species Thursday, environmental protection groups accusing the U.S. government of bowing to fishing and fossil fuel industry pressure to downplay the threat and failing to enact common-sense restrictions to protect the animals. By Julia Conley Common Dreams […]
Great minds think alike. And you probably thought the only thing those two great minds had in common was their love of hydroxychloroquine and their enthusiastic support for using it to combat the coronavirus. As Trump explained some weeks ago, during the period he was taking the drug, he’d received lots of letters “from people who […]
Langston Hughes was a great man and a great poet. In particular he is the perfect antidote for MAGAism. “Let America Be America Again (America never was America to me.)” We should have trumpeted today’s poem from the moment Trump came down the escalator. We should be declaiming it in chorus every day. For myself, I […]
Following the rapid industrialization and population boom of the early 1900s, the environment stood as a casualty of society’s capitalistic growth. Rivers caught fire, DDT crashed bird populations, and scientists feared devastating harms caused by the escalating concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. These issues were exacerbated by the lack of federal regulation, as states led […]
As extreme weather disrupts planting and trade wars shrink the market available to farmers, American agriculture is struggling. One recent report from the American Farm Bureau Federation found that farm bankruptcies were up 24% from last year — one of the steepest rises in modern history. At the same time, farm debt is reaching levels […]
The chief cultural signifier of our times is this: Wearing a mask. Or not. These low-tech, low-cost, high-impact coverings are simple and effective at helping reduce the COVID-19 infection rate. Our top political leaders’ failure to produce, distribute, and require them en masse when the pandemic first spread ranks somewhere between stupid and criminal. By Jim […]