Growing up in Indiana, I pedaled fast with pals as we positioned our bikes as close as we could to the fogging machines spewing clouds of DDT up and down Hoover Street to eradicate mosquitoes. We didn’t know any better. It was fun, something different to break our summer routine of playing baseball, raiding the Dennis’ apple orchard [they didn’t care; two or three of their boys were among us] or forays into Simpson’s woods at the end of the street.
DDT was eventually banned, of course. Scientific evidence accumulated. People wised up.
Those carefree days contained other dangers as well.
In December, Science Daily posted a Duke University study that concluded:
“Exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood altered the balance of mental health in the U.S. population, making generations of Americans more depressed, anxious and inattentive or hyperactive, according to researchers. They estimate that 151 million cases of psychiatric disorder over the past 75 years have resulted from American children’s exposure to lead.”
Scientific evidence against lead accumulated. People wised up.
And evidence continues to accumulate.
Another December Science Daily story cited a report from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden that found “long-term exposure to air pollution contributes to millions of deaths in India.”
Long term problems – and long distance ones, too. Canada’s CTV reported that “U.S. researchers published peer-reviewed findings [Dec. 13] that suggest doctor visits in the Baltimore area for heart and lung problems increased by almost 20% on six ‘hotspot’ days linked to wildfire smoke from Western Canada.”
Industrial pollution produces inevitable problems. Common sense would conclude that reducing these dangers would benefit every person on the planet. But there exist among us those who ignore the evidence and embrace the filth. [“It smells like profits.”]
In December, the Los Angeles Times reported that: “More than 100 industrial trade groups and chambers of commerce are urging President-elect Donald Trump to weaken or eliminate numerous Biden administration regulations on energy, air pollution, recycling, worker heat protections, consumer safeguards and corporate financing, claiming that the rules are ‘strangling’ the nation’s economy.”
These bidness barons sent a 21-page letter advocating for a green light to pollution. The Times article cited a wish list that “urges Trump to resume exports of liquefied natural gas, support legislation boosting the use of nuclear energy, repeal new emission standards for coal- and gas-fired power plants, relax newly proposed standards for soot and PFAS ‘forever’ chemicals, pause implementation of worker heat standards, limit the Food and Drug Administration’s food traceability requirements and fight efforts to impose ‘right-to-repair’ rules, which provide consumers with tools and instructions to fix their damaged electronics instead of throwing them away.”
Those proud polluters knew their target audience. Also in December, Trump posted on Truth Social: “any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals.”
Jake Johnson of Common Dreams branded this “a legally dubious proposal.” Environmental groups promised to fight such deliberate devastation.
Among those righteous defenders of the planet, Mahyar Sorour of Sierra Club released a statement: “Corporate polluters cannot bribe their way to endangering our communities and our clean air and water. Donald Trump’s plan to sell out to the highest bidder confirms what we’ve long known about him: He’s happy to sacrifice the wellbeing of American communities for the benefit of his Big Oil campaign donors.”
Yes, Trump had promised such dangerous deregulation during the campaign to corporations which donated money to him. He sold them a place at the table at the expense of the rest of us – who are on the menu.
Enough evidence of ongoing environmental degradation and its adverse effect on people have accumulated over the past 60 years that Take America Backwards proponents can only feign ignorance as they pursue profits over Planet Eden and its people.
Some people wise up. Some don’t.
