SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
extinction rebellion
DC Protesters Rename Trump EPA Environmental Pollution Agency
"The days of shackling America's oil, gas, and coal companies are over," said Environmental Pollution Agency spokesperson Melinda McFossilShill. "The Trump administration stands for freedom, and that includes the freedom to pollute."
McFossilShill is not a real representative of the agency, but rather a critic of what it's become. Thursday's "Make Pollution Great Again!" event was a protest, led by groups including Shut Down D.C. and the local arm of Extinction Rebellion.
In addition to McFossilShill, protesters took on the personas of fossil fuel executives and backers, including Joe Gasfracker, vice president for corporate capture of government (a false name and position) at the (real) American Petroleum Institute.
"I want to extend my deepest gratitude to Administrator Zeldin and President Trump for finally ending the charade of so-called 'environmental protection' and making government work for our patriotic fossil fuel corporations again," he said.
"There are hundreds of people dying in floods, thousands dying in hurricanes, and millions being sickened by particulate matter pollution, wildfire smoke, and extreme heat, but we must balance that against the billions of dollars in profit that our members make," Gasfracker continued. "Billions are more than millions, so obviously our profits must take precedence."
Another protester—dubbed Pete Pollution, executive director of Energy Villains for Increased Leakage (EVIL)—declared that "the American Dream has always been about the freedom to pour toxic chemicals into every community."
"If we don't pollute America's environment, who will?" added Pollution. Other participants held signs that called for making rivers burn, causing more asthma, and destroying human health.
Protesters renamed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the Environmental Pollution Agency at its Washington, D.C. headquarters on August 7, 2025. (Photo: Extinction Rebellion D.C.)
During Trump's second term, the EPA has faced intense criticism for a range of actions. Over the past month, the agency has put 144 employees on leave after they signed a letter criticizing the administration's "harmful" policies, eliminated its scientific research arm in the "ultimate Friday night purge," proposed reregistering a pesticide twice banned by federal courts, and moved to cancel $7 billion in solar grants for low- and middle-income households.
Perhaps most notably, the agency also unveiled a rule to rescind the 2009 "endangerment finding" that has enabled federal regulations aimed at the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency over the past 15 years.
Further, Trump last month signed a series of proclamations to provide what he called "regulatory relief" to over 100 coal, chemical manufacturing, iron ore processing, and sterile medical equipment facilities, with the White House claiming that rules imposed on them under former Democratic President Joe Biden's EPA were "burdensome."
At the time, John Walke, clean air director for the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, accused Trump of signing a "literal free pass for polluters," and warned that "if your family lives downwind of these plants, this is going to mean more toxic chemicals in the air you breathe."
Elected Democrats—who have minorities in both chambers of Congress—have joined climate, environmental, and public health advocates in calling out Trump and Zeldin for various moves.
On Thursday, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) led a letter to Zeldin about his proposal to gut power plant pollution standards.
" Climate change and toxic air pollution are serious issues," dozens of Senate Democrats wrote to the EPA administrator. "We represent millions of constituents who risk poisoning from mercury and air toxics and who are facing the rising costs of the climate crisis."
"Congress established the Clean Air Act to protect our constituents from these dangers. We urge EPA to follow its directive," they added, urging Zeldin to withdraw two proposals on fossil fuel plant emissions.
In a Thursday statement, Schumer said that "the Trump administration is saying to hell with five decades worth of protection against deadly pollution and neurotoxins that has saved thousands of lives, made communities safer, and our economy stronger. Why? To appease Big Oil and fossil fuel billionaires."
"The Trump administration's obsession with gutting clean air protections and allowing more poison into the air is reckless, dangerous, and a clear reminder: Republicans care about their donors, not you," he charged. "The EPA needs to stop ignoring the science and the facts and immediately reverse course and put the health and safety of Americans first."
'1.5ºC Is Dead': Climate Movement Holds Funeral for Paris Agreement Target
Almost a decade ago, parties to the Paris treaty agreed to work toward limiting temperature rise this century to 1.5ºC—but 2024 was the hottest year in human history, and countries around the world show no signs of reining in planet-wrecking fossil fuels anywhere near the degree that scientists warn is necessary to prevent catastrophic climate breakdown.
"Crossing 1.5ºC for a whole calendar year is a wake-up call for the world," said Olympic gold medalist and XR U.K. spokesperson Etienne Stott, highlighting another alarming record from last year. "If we want to avoid crossing further tipping points we need a complete transformation of society."
Extinction Rebellion and other climate groups held a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target in Cambridge, England on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Derek Langley)
Scientists from universities in the United Kingdom and Germany warned in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Earth System Dynamics last month that humankind is at risk of triggering various climate tipping points absent urgent action to dramatically reduce emissions from fossil fuels.
"There are levers policymakers can pull to rapidly phase out fossil fuels, but this requires standing up to powerful interests," Stott said Saturday. "Activists need to build power, resilience, and the world we want to see in our communities; but we also need to keep seeking the spark that will cause the worldwide transformation we need to see."
In addition to the Cambridge and U.K. arms of Extinction Rebellion, Saturday's action was organized by Cambridge Greenpeace, Cambridge Stop the War, and the Organization of Radical Cambridge Activists (ORCA).
Varsity, the independent student newspaper at the University of Cambridge, reported that the marchers "rallied at Christ's Pieces, where they heard from one of the organizers, who emphasised the harm caused by exceeding 1.5ºC of warming."
"The march then proceeded up Christ's Lane and down Sidney Street, led by a group of 'Red Rebels,' dressed in red robes with faces painted white, followed by 'pall bearers' carrying coffins painted black, with the words 'Inaction Is Death' in white," according to Varsity. "The procession was completed by a samba band who drummed as they walked, followed by protesters carrying a large sign reading 'Don't silence the science,' along with many other smaller placards."
Members of the "Red Rebel Brigade" led a procession around Cambridge, England as part of a funeral for the Paris agreement's 1.5°C temperature target on May 10, 2025. (Photo: Derek Langley)
Photos from organizers show participants displaying banners with messages such as "No Future on a Dead Planet," and additional messages painted on the black coffins: "1.5ºC Is Dead," "Act Now," "Ecocide," "RIP Earth," and "Web of Life."
"Politicians have broken their promises to keep global temperature rises to a livable 1.5ºC," declared Zoe Flint, a spokesperson for XR Cambridge. "For decades, people around the world have been resisting environmental devastation in their own communities and beyond—often facing state repression and violence as a result."
"With dozens of political protesters now in prison in this country, that repression has come to the U.K. too," Flint noted. "But when those least responsible for climate breakdown suffer the worst effects, we can't afford to give up the fight."
Parties to the Paris agreement are set to gather next in November at the United Nations climate summit, COP30, in Belém, Brazil.
'Insure Our Survival': XR Launches Campaign at British Insurance Industry Awards Night
"This is just the beginning," Insure Our Survival spokesperson Alex Penson said in a statement. "Thousands of XR activists stand ready to focus their nonviolent direct action energy on the insurance firms who are greenlighting the climate crisis by providing fossil fuel crooks with the insurance they need to dig and drill for oil, gas, and coal."
"It's time for insurers to use their superpower or be held responsible when all of our children face a future like the children in the photographs we showed at our protest,"
The insurance industry has emerged as a target of the climate movement in recent years, as advocates point out that new fossil fuel projects would not be able to move forward without it.
"The insurance industry has a superpower," Penson said. "At a stroke, it could stop the fossil fuel crooks in their tracks and save the lives of billions of people threatened from the worst-case climate scenarios that scientists are saying are increasingly possible."
However, to date the industry has not chosen to use that power. According to the most recent report from the global Insure Our Future campaign, not one of the 30 major insurance firms it analyzed in 2023 had policies in line with limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The insurers included in the U.K.-based Lloyd's market were the leading fossil fuel insurers, Insure Our Future found, earning $1.6-2.2 billion in premiums from oil, gas, and coal in 2022.
"It's time for insurers to use their superpower or be held responsible when all of our children face a future like the children in the photographs we showed at our protest," Penson continued, "struggling to survive in barely habitable countries haunted by crop failures, malnutrition, deadly storms, floods, and heatwaves."
At Wednesday's event, XR activists held up photos taken by photographer Gideon Mendell, showing massive flooding in the U.K. that has been made worse by the climate emergency. They also held up signs reading, "Stop Insuring New Fossil Fuels" and "Insure Our Survival."
(Photo: Extinction Rebellion)
At the sound of a violin, XR's Oil Slickers—activists draped in black cloth to resemble an oil spill—glided around the insurance luminaries as they approached the hall for the industry's annual awards ceremony.
(Photo: Extinction Rebellion)
A choir also sang a song to the tune of "Imagine," including the line, "Imagine all insurers, fighting for us all."
"Last night we challenged insurers having a good time and congratulating each other on their good work at the Royal Albert Hall to face up to some uncomfortable truths—that some of their work leads to flooded homes and wrecked lives for their customers facing more and more climate crisis-driven extreme weather events," Penson said.
The activists also distributed business cards to the attendees warning them that, if they continued to back new fossil fuel projects, XR would target them with direct action designed to hurt both their reputations and their bottom line.
Pension said: "We left the leading lights of the industry in no doubt about what they need to do: Stop insuring new oil, gas, and coal and focus on underwriting renewable energy to speed a just transition to a low or no-carbon economy."
XR's U.K.-based Insure Our Survival campaign emerged from the global Insure Our Future campaign, and in particular an international week of action it organized in late February and early March, including events in London and around the U.K.
About a month after the protests, Zurich Insurance announced that it would no longer underwrite new oil and gas projects.
Sierra Signorelli, Zurich's chief executive of commercial insurance, said at the time that Zurich took the action in keeping with its goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
"Further exploration and development of fossil fuels isn't required for the transition," Signorelli said. "We think it's the right time to evolve our position."
Insure Our Survival campaigner Lucy Porter said that since the spring, many insurance employees, in both senior and junior positions, had spoken to XR saying they supported a move away from backing climate-polluting projects.
"We intend to work with them to make insurance part of the climate solution, not part of the problem, and we invite other people in the industry to contact us and work with us," Porter said.
Porter continued, "To those who continue to put their profits before a livable planet we say: We will hold you accountable through an escalating campaign of nonviolent direct action across the country."
Most Popular