While you're distracted...

"As much of his government battles the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump is pushing ahead with major reversals of environmental regulations, including a restriction on scientific research that some doctors worry would complicate future pandemic controls.

"Federal employees across multiple agencies said the administration was racing to complete a half-dozen significant rollbacks over the coming month. They include a measure to weaken automobile fuel efficiency standards, which one person familiar with the plans said would be issued as early as next week.

"Other efforts include loosening controls on toxic ash from coal plants, relaxing restrictions on mercury emissions and weakening the consideration of climate change in environmental reviews for most infrastructure projects."

An oil-covered bird in Goleta, Calif., after a spill there in 2015. Credit...Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The rest of the story:
Coronavirus Doesn’t Slow Trump’s Regulatory Rollbacks by Lisa Friedman (The New York Times)

Where they stand: The Environment.

The CBD graded the 2020 Democratic candidates on four key environmental areas ("We evaluated every candidate polling above 1% in the latest national polls. We did not evaluate former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg because of his decision not to participate in any Democratic debate, build a grassroots network of supporters or compete in any of the early state caucuses or primaries"): Environmental Voter Guide (Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund)

Old or young, climate change is the crisis of our lifetimes.

Meeting it is up to us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to forcing a political response.

"The political class, as anyone who has followed its progress over the past three years can surely now see, is chaotic, unwilling and, in isolation, strategically incapable of addressing even short-term crises, let alone a vast existential predicament. Yet a widespread and willful naivety prevails: the belief that voting is the only political action required to change a system. Unless it is accompanied by the concentrated power of protest – articulating precise demands and creating space in which new political factions can grow – voting, while essential, remains a blunt and feeble instrument."

"The media, with a few exceptions, is actively hostile. Even when broadcasters cover these issues, they carefully avoid any mention of power, talking about environmental collapse as if it is driven by mysterious, passive forces, and proposing microscopic fixes for vast structural problems.

"Those who govern the nation and shape public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth."

The rest of the story:

Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse by George Monbiot (The Guardian)

quote unquote: Gerard Manly Hopkins

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins (God's Grandeur)

From the Keeping Outrage Alive desk:

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, some 1600 jobs at the EPA have been eliminated.

Our long-running political theater of the absurd

Closing soon?

When Scott Pruitt is fired he will be replaced by his deputy, Andrew Wheeler (not incidently a coal lobbyist and former aid to Jim Inhofe, the Senate’s most prominent denier of climate change), who will calmly, efficiently, and unostentaciously proceed along the same course as Pruitt, polluting air and water, trashcanning regulations, shutting down enforcement, highjacking public lands, and generally undermining 70 years of hard-won progress on the environment.

The system will have worked, however: the corrupt and "extremist" Pruitt will be banished (but, not to worry, he will in all certainty spin through the revolving door to a high-paying precinct from which he will pester his former employees for special treatment for the same industries he currently -- nominally -- regulates).

The same dynamic will follow Donald Trump's departure. We will be told ad nauseum that our "exceptional," "democratic" system of checks

Dan Wasserman twitter@wassermantoons

and balances has rescued us from a narcissitic, unlettered, wannabe dictator and replaced him with the moderate, unassuming, grown-up Mr. Pence. Ignored in this account will be Mike Pence's history as a right-wing fanatic and fundamentalist religious lunatic whose real job will be to put lipstick on the pig of the Right's determination to turn back the clock, if not all the way to the 11th century, at least to 1876.

If the system worked, it hardly needs to be said, we wouldn't have a Pence or a Trump in the first place. Nor for that matter, would we be burdened with elected officials like blue dog Democrats Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly who helped to deploy Andrew Wheeler for his assault of the environment.

Extra credit:
✓ If scandals oust Pruitt, Andrew Wheeler is an ex-coal industry lobbyist pledged to end the ‘pure hell’ of Obama regulations: Scott Pruitt's new EPA deputy could surpass boss in scrapping protections by Oliver Milman (The Guardian)
✓ The US election and the systematic failure of modern politics by Benjamin Farrand (Critical Legal Thinking)

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Shoppers demand Tesco cut plastic packaging and protested by leaving it ...

EPA: Enable Polluters Act

When I moved to Elay in the 70s, on "smog days" the authorities would urge you to "[s]tay inside, don't move around too much and drive as little as possible;" you couldn't walk barefoot on the beach for all the tar balls and hypodermic needles; and there was a cancer epidemic among lifeguards (from the water, not the sun). Now the ocean is mostly safe and, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, there have been no Stage 1 smog alerts since 2003, no Stage 2 alerts since 1988, and the last Stage 3 alert was in 1974. This is a must-watch.
7

"I'll be back."

Last night Bernie Sanders gave a surprise address outside the White House during a global day of action against the Dakota Access pipeline that included demonstrations in over 300 cities.

We reached a new level of political dysfunction this week.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives passed a bill that effectively prevents scientists who are peer-reviewed experts in their fields from providing advice -- directly or indirectly -- to the EPA, while at the same time allowing industry representatives with financial interests in fossil fuels to have their say. Naturally, this is being done in the name of “transparency.”

Environment: Noam Chomsky and Bill McKibben on Global Warming

Read: Interview With Bill McKibben, Winner of Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship by Mickey Z. (t r u t h o u t 2011-02-17).

By Bill McKibben: Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Focusing on inspiring communities of "functional independence" arising around the world, McKibben offers ways to keep our humanity intact as the world we've known breaks down (Amazon).

Action: Join Bill McKibben's 350.org.

Environment: Never has greenwashing been quite so moving

Nature: The epic life cycle of an undangered species -- the plastic bag

Action: Support Heal the Bay's campaign in support of a bill to ban the use of plastic bags from California retailers, the primary vector for the bags' journey to the sea.

Looking On The Bright Side: The End Is Nigh

When I was growing up and suffering parochial school, the nuns talked a lot about the end of the world just around the corner. My grammar school mind couldn't quite grasp the many reasons it was imminent -- predictions buried in the Bible; the restoration of the State of Israel; letters the Virgin Mary left at Fatima that predicted the wholesale destruction of Canada (what can I say: they were Canadian nuns); but I was thrilled nonetheless. I might have missed every other event in history, but at least I'd see The End.

Then nothing happened.

Well, not nothing. But for decades I was mildly depressed, disappointed that there were no continent-wide inundations, no lakes of fire, no devastating plagues, no Four Horsemen, no epic battles between Good and Evil. Sure there were plenty of troubles and lots of false prophets, but no wars that came close even to the dimensions of the Great War or the Civil War, no diseases to match the Black Death, no massacres on the scale the Holocaust or Hiroshima, no devils even of the caliber of Hitler or Stalin. There was plenty of bad stuff, but nothing that would throw into question the survival of humankind. It was pretty disheartening.

Lately, though, I've been feeling a lot more hopeful. It's looking like I may get to see The End after all.

Discounting low-probability catastrophes like a meteoroid collision, an errant black hole or a visit from Klingons, there are plenty of developments that might precipitate The End. Runaway global warming. A methane burp. The disappearance of polar ice caps. Megatsunamis from collapsing ice sheets. Vanishing supplies of fresh water from evaporation of the glaciers or the polluting of ground water. Super-sized hurricanes, typhoons, tornado clusters and dust storms. The shutdown of the Gulf Stream. Drought and desertification. Deforestation. The degradation of agricultural land. Metasticizing population growth. The fouling of the environment. The collapse of the food chain. Famine. Declining human fertility. Murderous cultural and religious tribalism. Mutating viruses. The great species die-off. The frogs. The bees. Oh, the humanity!

Is this a great time to be alive or what?

Victories: How a Tiny California Town Sent an International Water Giant Packing

In the fight for water independence, little Felton has become a symbol of what can be achieved

In 2008, weeks after communities all over the United States celebrated the Fourth of July, the tiny town of Felton, Calif., marked its own holiday: Water Independence Day. With barbecue, music, and dancing, residents marked the end of Felton's six-year battle to gain control of its water system. The fight, like the festivities, was a grassroots effort. For when a large, private corporation bought Felton's water utility and immediately raised rates, residents organized, leading what was ultimately a successful campaign for public ownership and inspiring other communities nationwide. -- How Felton, Calif., Achieved Water Independence: Why controlling your water supply is so important by Tara Lohan (YES! Magazine 2010-06-27).

Politics: If the people are to win, many old assumptions must be upended.

The Republicans are a coalition between the corporate elite and an array of conservative movements and institutions comprised of the Christian right, nativist, gun rights, white supremacist and anti-choice groups, small government Tea Partiers, corporate front groups and others....The Democrats are a coalition between the same corporate elite and a constellation of non-profits, unions, communities of color and environmental and social reform movements....The presence of a corporate elite that pursues its own collective interests is the invisible planet of our political system. One can discover the existence of an unknown planet by observing its gravitational tug on the orbits of its neighbors. The discovery of such a body decodes the motion of the rest of the system. -- Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee: A political ecology of change by Ricardo Levins Morales (ZSpace 2010-07-09).

Musical Interlude: Black Water on the Gulf

Musical satirist Steve Goodie does his own (oil) slick version of the Doobie Brothers's Black Water

as heard on an interview with Dr. Demento this ayem on NPR (Morning Edition 2010-06-22).

Bonus: You'll find one of Steve's greatest hits here: "(I'm thinkin' 'bout nailin') Sarah Palin" (Impractical Proposals 2008-09-07).

Environment: Metastasizing Oil Rigs in the Gulf of Mexico 1942-2005

This video by the Swordpress shows graphically how the Gulf of Mexico has been transformed from a wilderness to an urban ocean in only six decades.

Gulf of Mexico Oil Rigs: 1942-2005 from tsinn on Vimeo.