Column By John Young
Not that I live in a chalet. But depending on the angle through the trees, towering Longs Peak is in my backyard.
Actually, it’s nearly an hour away, tucked into the back seat of Colorado’s Front Range. But 14,259 feet at its summit, across great distances only atmospheric disruptions can shroud Longs’ craggy eminence.
We’re experiencing one of those disruptions. As I write, and from where I stand, a milky smoke trail from Western wildfires makes Colorado’s 13th-tallest peak invisible. The end of fire season, with snow and cold, will clear things up, hopefully.
But civilization has its own seasons.
Right now, a threat to the grandness of all that is America emanates from the White House.
Little people deeming themselves bearers of a divine mandate have seized the Environmental Protection Agency and repurposed it. Call it now the Polluters Protection Agency.
Meanwhile, a puny president with imperial designs has shelved the whole of federally sponsored energy conservation efforts and any of the climate science behind them.
Toward the ruination of the planet, few acts in human history have been as destructive as what EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced the other day.
The agency will seek to end the fundamental legal principle behind air policy since 2009, the undeniable “endangerment finding” that greenhouse-causing emissions threaten human health.
Zeldin called its repeal the “greatest day of deregulation in American history.”
And the darkest day for our environment.
That the science underlying the greenhouse effect — fact, not a theory — ever became a political matter will mark this as a moment of disgrace for generations to come.
The only logical reason for Republican leaders to challenge the science is the immense influence of the fossil fuel industry which, much like the gun lobby, can elect people who will do exactly what it says.
Seeking his return to power, this president laid his cards on the table a year ago when he told oil executives that for $1 billion in donations the government could be theirs, and all the benefits accruing.
Whatever obscene sum they ponied up, the returns for industry have been extraordinary.
It’s always fascinating to think how encumbered and downtrodden Big Energy is, considering that unlike most commodities, most consumers have scant choice about what the industry offers, whether gasoline, natural gas or electricity.
Coal generation? Yes, it’s tough out there. Good reasons for that are ample – mainly the marketplace — considering the mercury, the grime, the planet-killing pollution. Forget that. For this administration these matters be damned. It’s coal full-speed ahead.
You’d figure that flipping the switch on matters like these, as this EPA has done, would hinge on exhaustive hearings and public comment. But as The New York Times reports, all it took for key polluters was an email to the new EPA in March.
In Times-speak, it was “a novel way” for a polluter to escape rules that protect our skies and our lungs: “simply send an email” to the EPA and “request as exemption.” And at least 15 coal-burning power plants, four steel mills and two mines did. Yowza!
Back to health endangerment: Republican toadies of industry may act like carbon dioxide is just a harmless gas, but the particulates and assorted toxins that come with the emissions in question are not.
For that self-evident reason, this horrible policy won’t last. Americans want clean air, clean energy. They know that fossil fuels will be tapped out one day. They know a balance of energy options is the future. This administration’s fossil-fuels-over-all policies are doomed to be dinosaur-ized.
For that to happen, we must oust the pawns of Big Carbon. We must get back to our future before scenic wonders disappear into our past.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinons expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
