Death by Mythology

Maybe we need to learn to lap up the effluents that were supposed to be curtailed by universally-accepted clean air and water standards… but which are now subordinated to deregulation with the expressed intention of increasing the profitability of toxic polluters. Perhaps we should just look the other way as wildfires decimate and hurricanes rage… or ignore the fact that millions of global warming refugees (such as those in Iraq and Syria who lost their droughted-farms and then turned to ISIS and al Qaeda for help when their governments ignored their pleas) have cause political upheaval in Africa, the Middle East and ultimately, as migrants swarmed to find a sustainable place to live, Europe. Maybe those additives to fatten livestock should be savored, even if those same chemicals – rejected in every nation on earth except the United States – just might cause the injected animals to collapse from broken legs.

We’re watching unrest in Iran at an unprecedented level. Most people believe it is disgust with the repressive religious regime. But like those displaced farmers in Syria and Iraq, the impact of global warming and the failure of Tehran to manage this crisis just might be the real drivers of this latest dissent, something we are witnessing all over the world: “In the era of climate change, their experiences hold lessons for a great many other countries. The World Resources Institute warned this month of the rise of water stress globally, ‘with 33 countries projected to face extremely high stress in 2040.’

“A water shortage can spark street protests: Access to water has been a common source of unrest in India. It can be exploited by terrorist groups: The Shabab has sought to take advantage of the most vulnerable drought-stricken communities in Somalia. Water shortages can prompt an exodus from the countryside to crowded cities: Across the arid Sahel, young men unable to live off the land are on the move. And it can feed into insurgencies: Boko Haram stepped into this breach in Nigeria, Chad and Niger.

“Iran is the latest example of a country where a water crisis, long in the making, has fed popular discontent. That is particularly true in small towns and cities in what is already one of the most parched regions of the world. Farms turned barren, lakes became dust bowls. Millions moved to provincial towns and cities, and joblessness led to mounting discontent among the young. Then came a crippling drought, lasting roughly 14 years…

“Climate change is projected to make Iran hotter and drier. A former Iranian agriculture minister, Issa Kalantari, once famously said that water scarcity, if left unchecked, would make Iran so harsh that 50 million Iranians would leave the country altogether…

“A panel of retired United States military officials warned in December that water stress, which they defined as a shortage of fresh water, would emerge as “a growing factor in the world’s hot spots and conflict areas.”” New York Times, January 18^th. The fact remains that mankind’s excessive use of fossil fuels has brought us to this extreme. And it’s not just retired military officers who have these expectations; it is current US military policy which is not voiced often since these findings contradict Trump basic doctrine.

For the very, very few remaining climate change deniers, most of whom a concentrated in red state America, bad news. The next “genuine fact” on climate change just came from the US government itself: “NASA researchers said that 2017 was the second-warmest year on record, behind 2016 but topping 2014 and 2015. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses a different method to analyze temperature data, said that 2017 was the third-warmest, behind 2016 and 2015. Both data sets are in line with the overall trend that the Earth’s climate is warming because of human-caused climate change.

“There’s something even more startling in the data. The heat that dogged 2015 and 2016 was exacerbated by El Niño, the Pacific climate pattern linked with higher-than-average temperatures. NOAA declared the return of El Niño in March 2015, and it ran through May 2016. But 2017 did not have El Niño turning up the thermostat. NASA’s data shows that 2017 was the warmest year on record without El Niño.” New York Times, January 18^th. You mean global warming isn’t just part of a nature cyclical pattern driven by El Niño?! Oh no!!! Then God is just “doing it.”

For those slammed with recent environmental disasters, living with hope that the government was implementing statutory and regulatory clean-ups as required by law, they are learning a harsh lesson about life in Trump-America… even in states Mr. Trump carried. Somehow the connection between safe water, air and food and environmental laws seems to have been lost on a lot of folks in Trump’s base. Lap it up, Trumpers!

Here’s the way the January 18^th Los Angeles Times explains it: “A massive coal ash spill near Knoxville, Tenn., in 2008 forever changed life for Janie Clark’s family and left her husband with crippling health problems. So Clark was astounded late last year when she heard what the Environmental Protection Agency had done.

“In September, at the behest of power companies, the agency shelved a requirement that coal plants remove some of the most toxic chemicals from their wastewater. The infamous Kingston power plant that released millions of cubic yards of toxic coal ash into rivers was among some 50 plants given a reprieve.

“After the EPA’s action, the plant’s owners delayed new wastewater treatment technology for at least two years…. ‘I couldn’t believe it,’ Clark said. ‘It is like a slap in the face. It is like everything that has happened is just being ignored.’

“One year into the Trump administration’s unrelenting push to dilute and disable clean air and water policies, the impact is being felt in communities across the country. Power plants have been given expanded license to pollute, the dirtiest trucks are being allowed to remain on the roads, and punishment of the biggest environmental scofflaws is on the decline.

“The real-time effects of the most industry-friendly regulatory regime in decades are at times overshadowed by policy battles that are years from resolution. President Trump’s moves to shrink national monuments, return drilling to the waters off the West Coast and allow natural gas companies to release more methane into the air are destined to be tied up in court for the foreseeable future. The contentious Keystone XL pipeline may never get built as volatile oil prices threaten its profitability.

“Yet the air and the water are already being affected as the administration tinkers with programs obscure to most Americans, with names like ‘Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for Steam Electric Power Plants’ and ‘Air Quality Designations for Ozone.’

“The numbers emerging from the federal government’s database of enforcement actions against polluters show that from the time EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt took the helm early last year through November, the dollar amount of pollution-control equipment and cleanup activity the EPA demanded environmental scofflaws install dropped by more than 85%. Even compared with the dollar amount required during the same period of the George W. Bush administration, there is a drop-off of more than 50%.

“‘It is one thing to say we have a change of administration and a different level of emphasis and focus,’ said Cynthia Giles, who led the EPA’s enforcement office during the Obama administration and has analyzed the recent data. ‘But this kind of drop is not a change of emphasis. That is abandonment. That is a very, very big deal.’”

The story repeats itself all over the United States, from Michigan to North Carolina to West Virginia to Ohio (pictured above) to Oklahoma. Ordinary people don’t matter as well as those “job creators who aren’t really creating jobs” corporations who just generate more profits. A soaring stock market forgives all sins… until it stops soaring. It always stops soaring. And some of these new messes are going to cost billions and perhaps decades to clean up once a responsible government, dedicated to the people takes over… someday.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the damage that the Trump administration is inflicting on this nation will take decades to undo… to the extent that such damage is actually undoable.