Worried about Trump’s disastrous environmental policies? Support groups that will fight for planet

It’s been a rough week for anyone who cares about the future of our environment and about preventing the worst impacts of climate change. Last week, it became clear that a majority of American voters had picked a president who has promised to repeal President Joe Biden’s historic climate-change initiatives contained within the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), threatened to pull the United States from international efforts to halt climate change and said he “doesn’t believe in” climate change despite, as Cornell University reported in 2021, 99.9% of peer-reviewed climate-related scientific papers agreeing that climate change is real and that “human activities are altering Earth’s climate.” This week, we’ve discovered just how bad it might get under a second Donald Trump administration. The incoming president has said he plans to nominate former Republican New York congressman Lee Zeldin as the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin is known for, as Salon magazine recently put it, his “abysmal environmental record,” his votes against environmental protections and his incredibly low lifetime environmental score of just 14% from the League of Conservation Voters. Trump has said Zeldin “will ensure fair and swift deregulatory decisions that will be enacted in a way to unleash the power of American businesses, while at the same time maintaining the highest environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet.” Oh really? So the head of the EPA will deregulate polluting corporations — taking away the public’s safeguards that require companies to put environmental safety and the public’s well-being over cutting corners — but that will result in “the cleanest air and water on the planet?” We could wonder why anyone would believe such a statement, but after reading about so many people who voted for Trump because they believed his tariffs will cause prices to go down instead of understanding that these tariffs will just pass higher costs on to consumers, we have come to believe that the majority of Americans either believe Trump’s lies or haven’t been exposed to balanced media sources that highlight the negative impacts of Trump’s policies. Regardless, there is little doubt that a second Trump administration will be disastrous for our environment — including that “clean air and water” — and for the climate gains won under the Biden-Harris administration. “The nation and world can expect the incoming Trump administration to take a wrecking ball to global climate diplomacy,” Rachel Cleetus, policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists, recently told The Guardian. “Trump’s agenda, analysts have found, risks adding several billion (tons) of extra heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, further imperiling goals to stave off disastrous global heating that governments are already failing to meet,” The Guardian noted. Camas residents will soon learn more about how climate change is poised to wreak havoc locally. As consultants told Camas Planning Commission members last month, there are six likely climate-related hazards that will threaten the Camas community over the next few decades, including extreme heat and extreme precipitation, which ranked as “high hazards;” as well as landslides, flooding, wildfires, wildfire smoke and drought. “More hot days in the summer will increase the risk of heat-related illness and may disrupt daily activities,” the consultants warned in their report. “Heat is expected to increase demand for water and electricity (for air-conditioning).” Likewise, the consultants noted that “heavy rains can overwhelm drainage systems, collapse roadways, make driving unsafe, and lead to landslides and floods.” The City’s report on climate change hazards also noted that “heavy rains cause flooding that may inundate homes, businesses, roads and agricultural areas, leading to costly property damage and health impacts … (and) heavy precipitation increases the risk of landslides by saturating the ground and loosening soil” which could “damage natural areas, buildings and infrastructure in their path,” leaving debris that “may block roads pollute waterways and displace people living nearby.” And then there are the wildfire risks. The consultants told the Commission that “hotter, drier conditions increase the potential for wildfires, which may burn near populated areas, causing evacuations and property damage,” and noted that smoke from wildfires also poses a health risk as it can “damage human health and disrupt daily activities.” Washington voters managed to save the state’s Climate Commitment Act, but the installation of Trump into the White House yet again means that historic climate legislation passed by Biden through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is in peril. Trump has threatened to repeal the IRA and claw back its unspent dollars — which included nearly $5.3 billion over the next five years for clean power and other climate projects in Washington state. And while it’s hard to feel anything even close to positive about the state of our environment right now, giving in to despair is so much worse. There are scores of environmental groups we have access to in this part of the nation — and so many of them are laying the groundwork to fight Trump’s destructive environmental policies. Now is the time to join with other environmentally minded folks and figure out how your individual talents might contribute to a statewide, nationwide and even worldwide effort to protect our natural resources, preserve our trees, plants and wildlife and mitigate the impacts of climate change to save our own communities. For ideas of environmental groups to join or support, visit eco-usa.net/orgs/wa.html, tinyurl.com/5f5p3adx or environmentalgroups.us/washington.

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