Creation Care Mom

I had every intention of posting something last Monday. I’ve been working on a few ideas of what to write about and thought I was ready for one of them.

But.

Inauguration day killed any enthusiasm.

Then there was a flurry of executive orders. Full of drama and flourish. Most without power, but still charting our new direction as a country.

For us who work and write and care about the environmental impacts of the current system, it was both not shocking and yet completely demoralizing. We knew that the new regime would have early victories. Some of which we will claw back through lawsuits. No surprise when it was announced that the USA was leaving the Paris Accords. He did it once before. It wasn’t even surprising that he banned offshore wind permits. He has shone his distaste towards offshore wind for a while now.

But there were devastating surprises.

Declaring an energy emergency, allows him to suspend environmental reviews for new energy infrastructure and therefore speed permitting for new oil and gas pipelines and wells. Couple that with a ban on federal permits for wind. It’s a harsh reality check for the renewable energy industry as we look ahead for the next four year. It puts us out of sync with the rest of the world as the demand for fossil fuels continues to drop as renewables and battery storage become cheaper. Among his other targets were emissions standards, efficiency standards for home appliances, and the shuttering of FEMA in favor of individual states responding to their own disasters.

So its been a tough week.

If you have other friends who do this work in one way or another, speak out to them and support them. It has been depressing and stressful. We need to know that we aren’t alone. For as much as the federal government does have power to point us in a specific direction, I believe we have power. Power to resist. Power to deny. Power to speak up. Power in our dollar. Our choices collectively matter more than his. We will go farther and be stronger together than by ourselves. In the darkness, we will light the way forward for each other.

That being said. Here are some other actions you can take.

Sign up for a climate newsletter. There are so many that will keep you informed about the new administrations movement. Some I suggest are Heatmap, The New York Times Climate Forward, and Katherine Hayhoe’s.

Check out this podcast by my friend Caleb Haynes where he and his wife talk about sustainable swaps. Personal choices do matter, and if you are looking for ideas, this is a place to start!

And as always. Don’t be afraid to talk about how climate change is impacting you and your life today. The more people hear about it, the more people who will do something about it.

Love you all.