Opinion: Trump’s Undermining of the EPA is Endangering Us All

Love, Justice, and Climate Change

In 2009 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determined that climate pollution endangers public health and welfare. The EPA carefully reviewed the scientific evidence and found that greenhouse gases produced by burning coal, oil, and gas worsen deadly climate change – increasing catastrophic heat waves, droughts, floods, etc. and also affect public health by fouling the air that we all breathe. This finding, called the “endangerment finding,” required the EPA to regulate these gasses to protect public health. Since then, their regulations have reduced emissions from power plants, automobiles, and other sources, and saved countless lives.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration revoked the “endangerment finding,” thus undermining the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to protect the environment and public health. There has been no change in the scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions are causing climate change and harming our health. If anything, the scientific consensus is even stronger than it was in 2009. With this unjustified step, the Administration has taken away much of the government’s ability to slow devastating global climate change and to limit unhealthy pollution – air pollution that kills 100,000 people per year in the U.S.

With this one act, Trump has endangered us all.

Russ Vernon-Jones was principal of Fort River School from 1990 to 2008 and is currently a member of the Steering Committee of Climate Action Now-Western Massachusetts. He blogs regularly on climate justice at www.russvernonjones.org.