The important point
This should be the main headline on every news site, from now until the planet burns. But it’s not of course, and that’s a shame. At least we have Sludge to point out the truth for us.
Continue reading →Category Archives: Environment
At the end of the border wall
Reporting live from the border crisis at the end of the wall: pic.twitter.com/FcKCwbvt1u — Laiken Jordahl (@LaikenJordahl) July 28, 2021 I support the Center for Biological Diversity, and so should you!
Continue reading →Earth Day 2021
An excellent choice
Deb Haaland was sworn in today as Secretary of the Interior. This is the best choice Biden could have made for this position. In the New Yorker, Bill McKibben said: [M]uch of the pressure will fall on Haaland, because the territory she’s responsible for is so vast, and the political terrain so charged. She’s a brilliant choice because, with luck, she’ll be able to summon the rest of the country to appreciate the legacy that she now protects: the amazing landscape of the American West, the ancestral home of her own people and of many of our ideas about American … Continue reading →
Deb Haaland for Interior Secretary
“I acknowledge that we are on the ancestral homelands of the Nakochtank, Anacostan, and Piscataway people.” Above is her opening statement. Tom Udall and Mark Udall say, in USA Today: Rep. Haaland’s nomination is both historic and long overdue. If confirmed, she would be the first Native American Cabinet member. Her record is in line with mainstream conservation priorities. Thus, the exceptional criticism of Rep. Haaland and the threatened holds on her nomination must be motivated by something other than her record. Of course as a woman she gets more scrutiny, even more so as an Indigenous woman. Today she … Continue reading →
What they are doing to my Heart Land
The Intercept’s Ryan Devereaux has an excellent and horrifying overview of the damage being done at Organ Pipe. Trump Is Blowing Up a National Monument in Arizona to Make Way for the Border Wall Contractors working for the Trump administration are blowing apart a mountain on protected lands in southern Arizona to make way for the president’s border wall. The blasting is happening on the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a tract of Sonoran Desert wilderness long celebrated as one of the nation’s great ecological treasures, that holds profound spiritual significance to multiple Native American groups…. Celebrated as “a pristine … Continue reading →
“And when Trump is gone, we’ll tear it all down.”
More from Laiken Jordahl, reporting from the border: Trump’s wall is destroying the environment activists are protecting Imagine dedicating your entire life to protecting a place. Then imagine watching everything you’ve worked to protect be bulldozed by a desperate, self-serving president. That’s what’s happening right now to career scientists and conservationists at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument on Arizona’s border with Mexico. I used to work there too. It breaks my heart. Organ Pipe, a sprawling 500-square-mile wilderness area home to the best preserved Sonoran Desert ecosystem on the planet, is being butchered by President Trump’s border wall…. The wall … Continue reading →
Actually, that’s one billion animals killed
And even those who survive may have no habitat to return to. From the Washington Post: A billion animals have been caught in Australia’s fires. Some may go extinct. Some of the rarest species on Earth are threatened by fires scorching their habitats, scientists warn. …More than 1 billion mammals, birds and reptiles nationwide — some of them found nowhere else on Earth — may have been affected or killed by the fires sweeping across Australia, according to a University of Sydney estimate. The potential toll is far greater when other types of animals are included. “We’re not just talking … Continue reading →
Half a billion animals
Trump is destroying Organ Pipe National Monument
From folks on the ground: Truckload after truckload of massive metal bollards are being hauled into Organ Pipe to build Trump’s wall. The barrier will stop migrating wildlife in their tracks, severing this UNESCO biosphere reserve from all habitat south of the border. 📷 Rosemary Schiano pic.twitter.com/D73VAGejW4 — Laiken Jordahl (@LaikenJordahl) December 16, 2019 ALERT: DHS contractors spotted drilling well just 8 miles from Organ Pipe’s Quitobaquito spring. This well taps the La Abra aquifer — the same source that feeds Quitobaquito and the endangered species that depend on it. Footage shot this morning by Rosemary Schiano: pic.twitter.com/aOggQmLiJd — Laiken … Continue reading →