April 22, 2024 – 54th Anniversary of Earth Day

Former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) increased climate warming while President Joe Biden tries to slow it down.

On Earth Day 2024, Biden announced distribution of $7 billion in 60 Solar for All grants to lower energy costs and create good-quality jobs helping 900,000 households and reducing 30 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. On his visit to Virginia’s Prince William Forest Park, he also announced that almost 2,000 corps positions across 36 states are part of his New Deal-style American Climate Corps green jobs training program. The park was established in 1936 as a summer camp for underprivileged youth from Washington, part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps to create jobs during the Great Depression.

EPA’s new rules to curb carcinogenic emissions at hundreds of U.S. chemical plants will help Blacks and the poor. About 104,000 people live within approximately six miles of these synthetic organic chemical plants in Texas, Louisiana, and other states with St. John the Baptist Parish west of New Orleans one of the largest U.S. sources of these emissions.

A new rule establishes the first national standard to limit dangerous “forever chemicals,” per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), contained by almost half the country’s drinking water, found in the blood of 97 percent of people in the U.S. Water utilities will be required to filter five of over 12,000 types of these chemicals: PFOA, PFOS, PFNA, PFHxS and HFPO-DA, also known as GenX chemicals. Regulations limit mixtures of any two or more of PFNA, PFHxS, PFBS, and GenX chemicals. Used to help products repel water and oil, the chemicals are tied to cancer, thyroid disease, reproductive issues, and heart and liver damage, likely more dangerous at levels thousands of times lower than previously believed. Government of $1 billion in funding are part of a $9 billion investment helping communities manage contaminated water. Small, disadvantaged, and rural communities can also access the EPA’s Water Technical Assistance program.

Chemicals expose people through food, clothing, household products such as nonstick pans, cosmetics, waterproof apparel, dust, etc. Changed food packaging may help, but states are responsible for enforcement. Maine is the first state to establish valid thresholds for these chemicals. More contamination from these chemicals came from DDT’s administration that wrote legal loopholes for their use and exemptions allowing release of additional “foreign chemicals.”   

Another rule requires polluting companies to pay for their eradication. Three chemical companies—DuPont de Nemours, Chemours, and Corteva—have reached a $1.18 billion deal to resolve complaints about polluting U.S. drinking water systems. Chemical manufacturer 3M will begin payments over contamination with forever chemicals.

Changing previous policies to favor the oil industry and livestock on U.S. public lands, Interior Department secretary Deb Haaland finalized a new rule for balanced managing of U.S. 245 million acres, one-tenth of U.S. land and mostly in 12 western states, with protection, restoration, and science-based knowledge. Leases will be issued only to qualified groups, not foreigners or when incompatible with existing uses. Royalty rates for fossil fuel companies to drill and mine on public lands have been increased for the first time since 1920. Perimeters of two national monuments in California between Napa and Mendocino and east of Los Angeles will be increased.

Biden’s administration also banned fossil fuel drilling on almost half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, 13 million acres in the Western Arctic and 40 percent of the remote area NPRA-A, home to protected animal species including polar bears and caribou.

For the first time in over 60 years, the Bureau of Land Management will require oil industry companies to set aside more money for plugging old wells to stop them from leaking oil, brine, and toxic or climate-warming gasses. Previously, money set aside would cover the cost of only 0.5 percent of these tens of thousands of wells, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the remainder. Even the new rule won’t cover all the well clean-ups because of BLM inaccuracies: the mandated bond is $71,000 for each well, but just one well in Alaska cost $13 million to plug. The rule does require amounts to be adjusted each decade to cover inflation.

A failed private project shows the importance of government in the climate battle. About 150 homeowners in Salisbury (MA) paid $600,000 for a sand dune project to protect their homes that lasted three days. The government needs to take action: the Gulf of Mexico covers a football-field sized piece of land in Louisiana every hour. 

Global heating is pushing the world’s coral reefs to a fourth planet-wide mass bleaching, the worst one on record. About 54 percent of ocean waters with coral reefs have enough heat stress to cause bleaching. The first event in 1998 exposed 20 percent of the ocean’s coral reef corals to heat stress causing bleaching. In 2010, 35 percent reached that threshold, and the third from 2014 to 2017 ended up at 56 percent. The fourth one will soon surpass that one with a one percent increase per week. Rich in biodiversity, coral reefs, one percent of the ocean, provide habitat for one-fourth of all marine species. Coral containing tiny algae build the reefs, but heat causes coral to expel the algae and then starve. At the current rate, 99 percent of the reefs will die off by the end of the century.

Moths, important pollinators, also show the negative effect of an air pollutant tied to car exhaust and wildfires that changes the smell of flowers and makes the nectar unrecognizable. In addition, diesel exhaust disrupts honeybee pollination; traffic noise stifles bird calls and therefore mating; the draw of streetlights kills; and highways keep bats from hunting.

This year, the earth broke many climate records—flooding, snowfall, heat, hurricane speed, melting icebergs, etc. Snowpack and groundwater are declining, and hurricanes need a sixth category for increased wind speeds over 192 mph. Examination of sclerospones, an ocean creation living for hundreds of years, shows the Earth warming at a faster rate for the past two decades than expected, and 2023 was the hottest year on record.

Extreme heat also hurts the economy. Last summer, the heat wave in Texas cost the state $9.5 billion, a 0.47 percent lower growth rate and second only to the pandemic on small businesses. Meanwhile, home energy bills increased by 11.7 percent. With climate change disasters, insurance companies are also underpaying claims but charging higher premiums.

In 2023, researchers predicted that the Atlantic Ocean system of currents could collapse this century, resulting in natural disasters and change Western Europe into Alaska. Currents deliver warm water from the equator to the poles and return with cold water back south, heating up Europe and cooling the tropics for milder and stable climate in both regions. The tipping change could occur anytime between 2025 and 2095 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

Since 2000, 4 million people have died from climate change, an under-estimate and health emergency. Low-income countries lack mortality data, but another 14.5 million are estimated to die globally from climate change by 2050, again conservative figures. Climate-induced medical costs will be $1.1 trillion for healthcare systems.

An experiment in the effect of climate change on gene expression shows that it can result in depression, autism, schizophrenia, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Women pregnant during the 2012 Superstorm Sandy bore children with an extremely high risk of psychiatric conditions as early as preschool through changes in the brain. Fossil-fuel-induced changes from rising temperatures to extreme weather to heightened levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide alter brain health from memory to language. Heat increases aggression, decreases memory, and limits brain coordination. It is also associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Continued burning of fossil fuels produces more dementia in younger people.

Shell oil company knew about alarming climate change from fossil fuel as far back as the 1960s, according to former Shell staff, people close to the company, and public archives from 2017 to 2022. In the 1980s, Shell scientists gave two pathways: “one where energy companies undertook a smooth transition to clean energy and one where fossil fuel demand continued to rise, creating ‘more storms, more droughts, more deluges.'” A Shell spokesperson said that Shell “did not have unique knowledge about climate change.” The company made $40 billion profit in 2022, and the former CEO Ben van Beurden received $11.7 million last year, up from $7.9 million the previous year.  ExxonMobil also knew about the damage of fossil fuels several decades ago.

Darren Woods, ExxonMobil CEO, declared the public is to blame the world’s failure to meet climate goals. He claimed that they could make fuels with lower carbon “but people aren’t willing to spend the money to do that.” Woods’ company lobbied to fend off provisions in an earlier version of the legislation that would have levied heavy taxes on polluting companies to pay for climate efforts. Exxon received subsidies from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to build its clean energy, but Woods said it “is not a long-term sustainable strategy.” Most of Exxon’s investments go into fossil fuel expansion while the company spends billions to influence public opinion.  

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gained fame from environmental protection, but his conspiracy theories have led to former colleague on the Natural Resources Defense Council to ask him to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election. A dozen other national environmental organizations issued a letter calling him a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier” who promotes “toxic beliefs” on vaccines and on climate change. Kennedy now thinks that the free market will solve the climate crisis.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) opposes windmills for energy because they kill whales. He also ranted against Biden’s “racist” agenda supporting a solar project in Angola. According to Johnson, believers in climate science are “driven” by the desire to take “control over our lives.”