Third Act Believes In Science—Fossil Fuels, Including CO2, Put Our Planet and Health In Danger

Third Act is the nation’s largest organization of progressive elders. The new administration’s relentless attacks on progress, in all of its forms, will have grand and terrible repercussions. This is our response to the proposed rollback of the Endangerment Finding, which states that heat-trapping emissions harm people and the environment.

Image courtesy of Gerald Simmons/Flickr.

 

It’s been widely reported that the EPA will soon announce that it no longer considers carbon dioxide—and other fossil fuels—a danger to human health and welfare. This is a clear attempt to remove the statutory basis for climate concern by the federal government.

That this is the logical outcome of the Trump administration’s insistence that climate change is a hoax does not lessen the disgrace of this moment. American scientists were the first to chart the growth of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the first to announce definitively that it was warming the planet. Those were honorable and important moments of truth-telling, but when they happened, truth-telling was taken for granted. 

If this decision holds, gas and oil companies will profit tremendously while the people of this country will suffer. This administration will demonstrate, as it has done countless times, that profit is more important than irrefutable facts and the health of this planet and all who live here.

In our sad new world, our leaders lie to us about basic physics and chemistry. We will do what we can to resist this remarkable dishonesty.

Below, you can find other organizations devoted to environmental justice, working on the front lines to support those who will be most impacted by this; we encourage you to support them.