“We’re not doing that climate change, you know, crud, anymore.” Brooke Rollins, Secretary of Agriculture - 5/8/2025
‘Do you believe in climate change?’ is not really a meaningful question, because climate change has existed as long as the Earth has existed. Vivek Ramaswamy, self-described conservative American nationalist - 9/19/2023
“That’s why climate change is the perfect enemy. They get to control your life to deal with it, no matter what’s happening.” Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense - 8/13/2019
“By overhauling massive rules on the endangerment finding, the social cost of carbon and similar issues, we are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” Lee Zeldin, EPA Administrator, 3/12/2025
FYI - This newsletter is a screed, toned down from what I planned, but still not my normal newsletter. It was prompted by yet another horrible proposal from the present administration. “Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Tuesday the Trump administration would revoke the scientific determination that underpins the government’s legal authority to combat climate change,” wrote Maxine Joselow and Lisa Friedman in the NYTimes.
When I read comments such as Mr. Ramaswamy’s, I see a perfect example of illogic used as a talking point. By making a patently false equivalent, he’s trying to sow distrust of modern science, which clearly shows that we are on a dangerous path and that we need to change our actions. And, when I read Hegseth’s, Rollins’, and Zeldin’s comments, I feel I am encountering people who themselves have succumbed to exactly what they condemn, that they are spreading crud and are kowtowing to a zealot.
As a thought experiment, let’s change the topic from climate change to cancer: Why should I worry about cancer, since the cells within my body have always been growing and multiplying? Of course, no one says anything like this when they have cancer. When people get a diagnosis, they don’t take the fact lightly. They recognize that normal no longer applies, that cancer has so altered their body’s long-term life processes that they must respond. If not, they will die. In response, most people choose to attack cancer with vigilance, which typically involves extreme measures such as chemotherapy or radiation.
With human-caused climate change, planet Earth basically has cancer: the normal ways that the planet’s climate changes over time are completely out of whack and sped up. There is no doubt in the scientific community that the modern warming of the planet caused by human action, along with our failure to act to counter the change, is unprecedented.
If we don’t address this issue, the planet won’t die, as with cancer, but Earth’s human and more-than-human inhabitants surely will suffer, as we have been witnessing over the past couple of decades. I have to think that those who doubt this statement are not paying attention, are getting their information from a dubious source, or choose to ignore the facts. No matter why people such as the president and his minions reject the peer-reviewed science about human-caused global warming, the consequences will affect every being on the planet, mostly in negative ways.
In the PNW, here’s a very short list of some of the ways the warming climate has been playing out:
* Instead of snow, we get rain more often in the winter. The warmth and moisture cause plants to grow off-cycle from when animals are looking for food. Also, without a slow-melting snowpack, there is less water in rivers in the summer, which is bad for fish, hydropower, and irrigation.
* A combination of drier conditions and heat waves leads to more frequent and more severe fires on both sides of the Cascades. The forests that could buffer climate change and provide a refuge for plants and animals are being lost. Smoke releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and damages the health of anyone who breathes.
* Warmer water in Puget Sound has led to the arrival of unusual fish such as salmon shark and mola mola; increased populations of jellyfish; fewer nutrient-rich and more nutrient-poor marine invertebrates; and more toxic algae blooms, all of which contribute to worsening conditions for the plants and animals that have long resided in our inland sea.
As with cancer and our bodies, we know what we need to do (such as reducing carbon output), and we have been doing some of it but clearly not enough. And the list above illustrates the negative, compounding effects of our lethargic response. Fortunately, the way to help the Earth is not nearly as bad as radiation or chemotherapy are for our bodies. In fact, we have far better science that informs us about how to address climate change than we have about our own bodies. What we need are politicians and governments willing to act, willing to listen to scientists, willing to show humility, willing to take responsibility, willing to act like climate change is the single most important threat to the health of Earth and all of her residents.
As a person who would like to live with a healthy planet now and into the future, I am saddened and outraged that people in power are undoing the regulations, policies, and ongoing science that are in place. Their actions are short-sighted, scientifically-bankrupt, morally indefensible, and destined to cause lasting damages to humans, more-than-humans, and the planet itself. It is inane and insane to think that we can deregulate ourselves into a better future. The worst policy adjustments to choose are the ones that undo the many, and often bipartisan, measures that protect clean air and clean water, prevent toxic emissions, and decrease our carbon footprints.
Any one who has been reading my newsletters knows that I try to take a hopeful approach. I wish that was the case with climate change and the present administration but clearly their world view does not align with hope. All I can do is to continue to live in a manner that I think is in accord with my values…and perhaps periodically let my anger burst forth.
Next week, I will focus on bunnies.
On a much lighter note: Tuesday, August 12 - 6:00 P.M.- There are still a few spaces in my Stories in Stone walking tour for Birds Connect Seattle. The 1.5-mile-long walk looks at building stone ranging in age from 80,000 to 3.5 billion years old and from across the globe.
Word of the Week - Screed - A speech or piece of writing characterized by vehement or protracted criticism or complaint; a rant, a tirade. In the OED, the first definition of screed is a narrow strip of fabric and my usage of the terms appears to come from the idea of lengthy speech, as in reading a long list, or long strip. Screed, in fact, is a variation of shred, as in a shred of cloth.