Slashing two national monuments in Utah may have received the most attention, but Trump’s Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service have been quietly, systematically ceding control of America’s public lands to fossil fuel, mining, timber, and livestock interests since the day he took office.
What’s at stake are 670 million acres of forests, canyons, rivers, wetlands, mountains, and high deserts. Native American sacred sites. Ancient migratory pronghorn paths and towering temperate rainforests. Pristine streams that feed wild salmon and endangered pikeminnow. Prehistoric artifacts.
These lands are being plundered at a terrifying rate under the Trump administration, which has kicked the door open and let in profiteers to mine, drill, frack, log, and bulldoze. Along the way, it’s worsening the climate crisis, endangering wildlife, and divesting our natural inheritance to fatten the dividends for massive corporations.
Just this week, Trump launched a massive attack on imperiled wildlife, finalizing changes to the Endangered Species Act that could lead to extinction for hundreds of animal and plant species. The changes, which will make it harder to protect wildlife habitat from development, come in the face of urgent scientific warnings that humans have driven up to 1 million species worldwide to the brink of extinction.
Earlier this month, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt (a former oil and mining industry lobbyist) installed William Perry Pendley as acting deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management. Under Pendley, who has made it his life’s work to oppose federal authority over public lands, the ongoing fire sale of our children’s endowment is likely to worsen.
And last month, Trump’s Bureau of Land Management moved to allow fracking on millions of acres in Colorado―potentially tripling greenhouse gas emissions in a state that’s trying to scale back climate pollution―and his Forest Service announced plans to exempt large-scale logging projects in national forests from public and environmental review.
Sadly, it gets worse.
Trump also has relaunched proposals for three massive copper mines that had been idled during the Obama administration and would have disastrous consequences for wilderness, wildlife and water: Twin Metals near Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness; Rosemont in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona; and Pebble Mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, at the headwaters of the world’s most productive wild sockeye salmon fishery.
So far the Trump administration has leased more than 3.4 million acres of public land in the lower 48 states for fracking and drilling, saddling future generations with the potential of nearly 600 million more tons of greenhouse gas pollution.
All of this comes as scientific climate reports carry dark warnings that our planet is teetering on the breaking point and the world is becoming desperate for urgent action to avert the worst consequences of climate change.
The most recent report, from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concludes that the land will be unable to sustain humanity because of being destroyed and manipulated by deforestation, industrial agriculture, and other development.
Among other things, scientists recommend that we restore ecosystems and stop burning fossil fuels to avoid “irreversible loss in land ecosystem services required for food, health and habitable settlements.”
But here’s the good news: We can start addressing climate change right here and now, by ending new oil and gas leasing on our public lands.
Fossil fuel production on public lands causes about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution. Peer-reviewed science estimates that a federal fossil fuel leasing ban would reduce carbon emissions by 280 million tons per year.
Current laws give Congress and presidents authority to end new federal fossil fuel leasing. Hundreds of organizations—including the Center for Biological Diversity, the organization where I work—have already petitioned the federal government to end new onshore and offshore leasing, and the proposal is endorsed by several presidential candidates.
And more good news: With increasing frequency, courts have been rejecting the efforts of Trump’s Interior Department to deny or minimize the climate consequences of its actions, including decisions for more oil and gas extraction on public lands.
These cases are part of a growing pattern of judicial rulings that say federal agencies must do additional environmental review to weigh climate impacts before these projects can move forward.
Even in these terribly divisive times, there’s broad agreement that preserving landscapes for wildlife and future generations is the wise and right thing to do. The fate of the planet depends on it.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.