We can still save the planet. It won't be easy. And it won't be quick.
Exercise; eat healthier; be a better person; clean up clutter. Did you make any new year’s resolutions? Given 2017, assuming you want to continue decent quality of life on this planet, serious 2018 environmental resolutions are needed.
To quote Noam Chomsky from his book “Who Rules the World”: “It’s hard to find words to capture the fact that humans are facing the most important question in their history—whether organized human life will survive in anything like the form we know—and are answering it by accelerating the race to disaster.”
Certainly actions are needed to avoid disaster. Use of carbon-intense energy sources like coal and oil have propelled climate and ecosystem degradation damaging air, water, and productive land use. Globally, it’s leading to more poverty, poorer health, more hunger, ocean acidification, and weather extremes plus higher costs for energy and food with less access.
Humans depend on a complex biodiverse ecosystem and we are losing it. According to a new World Wildlife Fund report, global populations of vertebrates—mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish—have declined by 58 percent from 1970 to 2012. Animals living in the world’s lakes, rivers, and freshwater systems have experienced the most dramatic population declines at 81 percent.
It is predicted that human activity will likely cause a two-thirds drop in global wildlife populations by 2020. In other words, we humans are crowding out biodiversity with overpopulation and urban sprawl bringing destruction and fragmentation of natural areas habitat. We are also taking up land that could be used for food.
Embarrassingly, President Trump’s answer to these concerns was to resign from the Paris Accord even though we US residents boast the most consumption and energy use per capita in the world. Trump and company continue working to dismantle effectiveness of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the agency charged with assuring clean water and air.
Fortunately, many arbitrary orders for changes in rules and regulations are now being contested under the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts. Still, Director Pruitt cuts the budget, ignores public comments, takes scientists off advisory committees and creates a brain drain by removing experienced personnel. Mission undermining is also happening at the Department of Interior where natural and sacred lands are being reduced in size and at Department of Energy where research money is reduced for renewables research.
This is disparaging news for sure, but there is some good news!
Upon the withdrawal of the US from the Paris Accord, businesses, industries, and cities stepped up to say “We Are Still In”.
We are reducing climate change impacts from greenhouse gas emissions meaning cleaner air and water. Despite Federal efforts to save the coal industry, it is not coming back and renewables (solar and wind) with new jobs are replacing now more expensive coal, gas and aging nuclear plants. TVA is shutting down three more coal-fired plants this year.
Representing TN Chapter of Heartwood, Heartwood and TN Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center and TN Clean Water Network have threatened action against Cherokee National Forest (CFN). Objections to destruction of soil resources and logging in the Dinkey Forest Management Project located in the Tumbling Creek Watershed near Copper Hill were unlawfully dismissed without review. CFN must remedy unlawful actions by January 31 to avoid legal action.
Tennessee Environmental Council is holding its 250K Tree Planting Day February 24. Citizens reserve trees tectn.org/250ktreeday. Growing trees help slow climate change. Storm water ordinances are being challenged at state and local levels in order to protect water quality.
These are just a few actions taking place in 2018. Resolve to resist! Exercise—Walk or bike often in natural areas and drive less; Eat healthier—Buy organic food grown locally, compost and waste not; Clean up clutter—reuse, repurpose, share; Be a better person—Take a stand with environmental and justice organizations for actions.
As the civil rights movement has taught us, with continued resistance we shall overcome. Happy New Year!
Sandra Kurtz is an environmental community activist, chair of the South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance, and is presently working through the Urban Century Institute. You can visit her website to learn more at enviroedu.net