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Grand Isle, Louisiana. When I returned to Cordova, Alaska, in December 2010 after my first six-month stint in the Gulf coast communities impacted by the Deepwater Horizon BP oil disaster, fishermen greeted me wryly. "See you found your way home."
Fishermen were interested in stories because even then, twenty-one years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still no sense of closure. Exxon never "made it right." How could Exxon "make right" family lives shattered by divorce, suicide, or strange illnesses stemming from the "cleanup" work? Or the sense of betrayal by the Supreme Court to hold Exxon to its promise to "pay all reasonable claims"?
As fishermen listened to the Gulf stories, one asked, "Do they know how f---ed they are yet?" No, I explained, they've only lost one fishing season and they just now are filing claims for the first deadline.
When I returned to the Gulf in early January 2011, I heard the same story from Louisiana to Florida. "Everything you warned us about is coming true." During the next four months, I witnessed "oil-sick" people from grandbabies to elders, people distraught from claims denied, shellfish fisheries collapsing, baby and adult dolphins dying in unusually high numbers, continued dispersant spraying, and the early stages of Gulf ecosystem collapse -- all while nationwide ads claimed BP is "making it right."
Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right -- in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.
Stop the false ad campaign.
When you hear one of BP's "making it right" ads, call your local media station. Tell them to pull the greenwashing ads and get the real story. The Gulf is sick and so are its coastal residents. Money, even heaps of it, will never make it right. Airing the misleading ads only makes things worse, especially in the Gulf where people despise BP's bid to brainwash other Americans.
Stop spraying chemical dispersants.
Chemical dispersants are the oil industry's preferred method of marine spill response in the United States. Dispersants drive the oil out of sight, out of mind, while dispersant production companies like Nalco profit handsomely and the spiller writes off the expense as a cost of doing business. Big oil companies often make their own dispersants -- and profits from sales -- but hide connections through subsidiaries. Small wonder that spillers prefer dispersants.
The problem with dispersants is exactly what is occurring in the Gulf. The federal government uses outdated and minimal testing procedures for dispersants, which hugely underestimate the chemicals' impacts to marine -- and human -- life. Some of the reported chemicals in dispersants are known human health hazards; many of the proprietary chemicals are as well as we learned from Gulf disclosures. Dispersants are now linked, or heavily implicated, with the widespread occurrences of lesions and maladies in fish and shellfish, dolphin deaths, and dramatic decline in populations of some Gulf species such as shrimps and killifish.
Yet people have a say in dispersant use. For example, dispersants were sprayed in the Gulf in coastal seas and nearshore areas in direct contradiction to reports from the US Coast Guard and EPA because the coastal states have signed pre-approval letters to allow dispersant use anywhere, anytime. But people in coastal communities of America could pass local ordinances banning dispersant use in state waters after marine oil spills; people could make sure their state had a signed no-approval letter as part of their Regional Response Team's spill contingency plan. Changing the National Contingency Plan would take more effort, so let's start locally by banning these deadly chemicals in our coastal seas.
Stop pretending that people in the Gulf coastal communities aren't "oil-sick" and that BP isn't responsible and liable.
It's not only the dolphins that are sick and dying. For two years, BP and the state and federal governments denied the epidemic of respiratory problems, dizziness and headaches, horrific skin lesions, and blood problems was linked with the oil and chemical disaster -- despite the fact that medical literature identifies these identical symptoms as characteristic of oil spill exposure. Now under the BP-Plaintiffs' Settlement, BP has agreed to pay literally billions of dollars for medical claims, medical monitoring for twenty-one years, medical services, and community health clinics for underserved populations staffed with specialists in chemical illness treatment -- but with no admission of liability.
Get educated and educate others about what is happening in the Gulf. Tell your local film festivals to screen the award-winning Gulf documentary, Dirty Energy, in which local residents talk about being "oil-sick." Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are in drilling muds, used in both onshore and offshore oil drilling, and in injection fluids, used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in drilling for natural gas. Not surprisingly, the "oil-sick" symptoms are not limited to the Gulf.
Stop pretending that people in other oil sacrifice communities aren't "oil-sick" and that the oil companies aren't responsible and liable.
Independent films such as Gas Land and Split Estate are amplifying voices of residents from shale gas sites who are suing over fracking side-effects including earthquakes, exploding tap water, and mysterious debilitating illnesses. In Pennsylvania, residents are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking about their contaminated well water in trade for a supply of clean fresh water from the very companies that caused the problem -- while the same companies then claim there is no documented evidence of well contamination.
Independent filmmakers and videographers have amplified the voices of people sickened from the tars sands drilling operations in Alberta, Canada, and the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Battle Creek, Michigan. Already eleven people have died in one small trailer court near the Kalamazoo River from illnesses that they and their doctors believe were triggered or worsened by the tar sands that flowed past their homes and soiled the river banks.
Start taking responsibility for what is happening in your backyard.
The oil companies are polluting our air, poisoning our drinking water and land, poisoning people and communities across the country, collapsing ocean ecosystems from Alaska's Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, and even altering our climate in pursuit of profit, while leaving people and communities with the costs. The federal government clearly has no exit strategy off fossil fuels, so is beholden to -- actually partnered with -- this industry. When the industry and its supporters chant drill, baby, drill, politicians enable oil activities and help maximize profit by drilling loopholes and exemptions into the very laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment.
It is the ordinary people, not the bureaucrats and oil cats, who have the power to alter our collective future -- and make it right for everyone. We all matter.
We start with town meetings to recognize what we value collectively in our community, determine a shared vision, then prioritize the actions to achieve that vision. We move our money and resources to encourage businesses that match our values. Towns across America are doing this now as people strive to become more self-reliant from the corporate-driven government policies that disconnect our jobs from what we love and value.
We need to insist on energy sources that do not create, then sacrifice, communities. We need an energy policy that leaves no Americans behind -- not in the mountains of Appalachia, not in the Gulf of Mexico or along the North Slope of Alaska, not in the western Rockies or over the eastern Marcellus shale deposits, not in northern tar sands oil pits or pipeline corridors, not on foreign soil in wars over oil.
Making it right in the Gulf starts with diversifying our energy portfolio in our own backyards. A federal energy policy for the sake of energy alone will "make it wrong" for many people because all jobs not created equal. Jobs that simultaneously support healthy people, thriving communities, and environmental quality are worth more than jobs that pollute and poison the biosphere for profit.
What government of, for, and by the people puts corporate profit above the wellbeing of millions of people and the very survival of the youngest generations? Governments are instituted to secure the safety, health, and wellbeing of the people. Laws and policies that fail to safeguard these rights and protect the environment are illegitimate and unjust in a democratic society. Writing laws to protect our backyards starts in our backyards with local ordinances. The community-based movement builds to constitutional reform to assert that only real humans are sovereign and entitled to human rights.
The transformation starts when we believe that we have the power to act. When enough of us prove another way is possible and demand change, the politicians will have no choice but to follow the people's lead and make things right in America.
Political revenge. Mass deportations. Project 2025. Unfathomable corruption. Attacks on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Pardons for insurrectionists. An all-out assault on democracy. Republicans in Congress are scrambling to give Trump broad new powers to strip the tax-exempt status of any nonprofit he doesn’t like by declaring it a “terrorist-supporting organization.” Trump has already begun filing lawsuits against news outlets that criticize him. At Common Dreams, we won’t back down, but we must get ready for whatever Trump and his thugs throw at us. Our Year-End campaign is our most important fundraiser of the year. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. By donating today, please help us fight the dangers of a second Trump presidency. |
Grand Isle, Louisiana. When I returned to Cordova, Alaska, in December 2010 after my first six-month stint in the Gulf coast communities impacted by the Deepwater Horizon BP oil disaster, fishermen greeted me wryly. "See you found your way home."
Fishermen were interested in stories because even then, twenty-one years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still no sense of closure. Exxon never "made it right." How could Exxon "make right" family lives shattered by divorce, suicide, or strange illnesses stemming from the "cleanup" work? Or the sense of betrayal by the Supreme Court to hold Exxon to its promise to "pay all reasonable claims"?
As fishermen listened to the Gulf stories, one asked, "Do they know how f---ed they are yet?" No, I explained, they've only lost one fishing season and they just now are filing claims for the first deadline.
When I returned to the Gulf in early January 2011, I heard the same story from Louisiana to Florida. "Everything you warned us about is coming true." During the next four months, I witnessed "oil-sick" people from grandbabies to elders, people distraught from claims denied, shellfish fisheries collapsing, baby and adult dolphins dying in unusually high numbers, continued dispersant spraying, and the early stages of Gulf ecosystem collapse -- all while nationwide ads claimed BP is "making it right."
Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right -- in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.
Stop the false ad campaign.
When you hear one of BP's "making it right" ads, call your local media station. Tell them to pull the greenwashing ads and get the real story. The Gulf is sick and so are its coastal residents. Money, even heaps of it, will never make it right. Airing the misleading ads only makes things worse, especially in the Gulf where people despise BP's bid to brainwash other Americans.
Stop spraying chemical dispersants.
Chemical dispersants are the oil industry's preferred method of marine spill response in the United States. Dispersants drive the oil out of sight, out of mind, while dispersant production companies like Nalco profit handsomely and the spiller writes off the expense as a cost of doing business. Big oil companies often make their own dispersants -- and profits from sales -- but hide connections through subsidiaries. Small wonder that spillers prefer dispersants.
The problem with dispersants is exactly what is occurring in the Gulf. The federal government uses outdated and minimal testing procedures for dispersants, which hugely underestimate the chemicals' impacts to marine -- and human -- life. Some of the reported chemicals in dispersants are known human health hazards; many of the proprietary chemicals are as well as we learned from Gulf disclosures. Dispersants are now linked, or heavily implicated, with the widespread occurrences of lesions and maladies in fish and shellfish, dolphin deaths, and dramatic decline in populations of some Gulf species such as shrimps and killifish.
Yet people have a say in dispersant use. For example, dispersants were sprayed in the Gulf in coastal seas and nearshore areas in direct contradiction to reports from the US Coast Guard and EPA because the coastal states have signed pre-approval letters to allow dispersant use anywhere, anytime. But people in coastal communities of America could pass local ordinances banning dispersant use in state waters after marine oil spills; people could make sure their state had a signed no-approval letter as part of their Regional Response Team's spill contingency plan. Changing the National Contingency Plan would take more effort, so let's start locally by banning these deadly chemicals in our coastal seas.
Stop pretending that people in the Gulf coastal communities aren't "oil-sick" and that BP isn't responsible and liable.
It's not only the dolphins that are sick and dying. For two years, BP and the state and federal governments denied the epidemic of respiratory problems, dizziness and headaches, horrific skin lesions, and blood problems was linked with the oil and chemical disaster -- despite the fact that medical literature identifies these identical symptoms as characteristic of oil spill exposure. Now under the BP-Plaintiffs' Settlement, BP has agreed to pay literally billions of dollars for medical claims, medical monitoring for twenty-one years, medical services, and community health clinics for underserved populations staffed with specialists in chemical illness treatment -- but with no admission of liability.
Get educated and educate others about what is happening in the Gulf. Tell your local film festivals to screen the award-winning Gulf documentary, Dirty Energy, in which local residents talk about being "oil-sick." Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are in drilling muds, used in both onshore and offshore oil drilling, and in injection fluids, used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in drilling for natural gas. Not surprisingly, the "oil-sick" symptoms are not limited to the Gulf.
Stop pretending that people in other oil sacrifice communities aren't "oil-sick" and that the oil companies aren't responsible and liable.
Independent films such as Gas Land and Split Estate are amplifying voices of residents from shale gas sites who are suing over fracking side-effects including earthquakes, exploding tap water, and mysterious debilitating illnesses. In Pennsylvania, residents are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking about their contaminated well water in trade for a supply of clean fresh water from the very companies that caused the problem -- while the same companies then claim there is no documented evidence of well contamination.
Independent filmmakers and videographers have amplified the voices of people sickened from the tars sands drilling operations in Alberta, Canada, and the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Battle Creek, Michigan. Already eleven people have died in one small trailer court near the Kalamazoo River from illnesses that they and their doctors believe were triggered or worsened by the tar sands that flowed past their homes and soiled the river banks.
Start taking responsibility for what is happening in your backyard.
The oil companies are polluting our air, poisoning our drinking water and land, poisoning people and communities across the country, collapsing ocean ecosystems from Alaska's Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, and even altering our climate in pursuit of profit, while leaving people and communities with the costs. The federal government clearly has no exit strategy off fossil fuels, so is beholden to -- actually partnered with -- this industry. When the industry and its supporters chant drill, baby, drill, politicians enable oil activities and help maximize profit by drilling loopholes and exemptions into the very laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment.
It is the ordinary people, not the bureaucrats and oil cats, who have the power to alter our collective future -- and make it right for everyone. We all matter.
We start with town meetings to recognize what we value collectively in our community, determine a shared vision, then prioritize the actions to achieve that vision. We move our money and resources to encourage businesses that match our values. Towns across America are doing this now as people strive to become more self-reliant from the corporate-driven government policies that disconnect our jobs from what we love and value.
We need to insist on energy sources that do not create, then sacrifice, communities. We need an energy policy that leaves no Americans behind -- not in the mountains of Appalachia, not in the Gulf of Mexico or along the North Slope of Alaska, not in the western Rockies or over the eastern Marcellus shale deposits, not in northern tar sands oil pits or pipeline corridors, not on foreign soil in wars over oil.
Making it right in the Gulf starts with diversifying our energy portfolio in our own backyards. A federal energy policy for the sake of energy alone will "make it wrong" for many people because all jobs not created equal. Jobs that simultaneously support healthy people, thriving communities, and environmental quality are worth more than jobs that pollute and poison the biosphere for profit.
What government of, for, and by the people puts corporate profit above the wellbeing of millions of people and the very survival of the youngest generations? Governments are instituted to secure the safety, health, and wellbeing of the people. Laws and policies that fail to safeguard these rights and protect the environment are illegitimate and unjust in a democratic society. Writing laws to protect our backyards starts in our backyards with local ordinances. The community-based movement builds to constitutional reform to assert that only real humans are sovereign and entitled to human rights.
The transformation starts when we believe that we have the power to act. When enough of us prove another way is possible and demand change, the politicians will have no choice but to follow the people's lead and make things right in America.
Grand Isle, Louisiana. When I returned to Cordova, Alaska, in December 2010 after my first six-month stint in the Gulf coast communities impacted by the Deepwater Horizon BP oil disaster, fishermen greeted me wryly. "See you found your way home."
Fishermen were interested in stories because even then, twenty-one years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still no sense of closure. Exxon never "made it right." How could Exxon "make right" family lives shattered by divorce, suicide, or strange illnesses stemming from the "cleanup" work? Or the sense of betrayal by the Supreme Court to hold Exxon to its promise to "pay all reasonable claims"?
As fishermen listened to the Gulf stories, one asked, "Do they know how f---ed they are yet?" No, I explained, they've only lost one fishing season and they just now are filing claims for the first deadline.
When I returned to the Gulf in early January 2011, I heard the same story from Louisiana to Florida. "Everything you warned us about is coming true." During the next four months, I witnessed "oil-sick" people from grandbabies to elders, people distraught from claims denied, shellfish fisheries collapsing, baby and adult dolphins dying in unusually high numbers, continued dispersant spraying, and the early stages of Gulf ecosystem collapse -- all while nationwide ads claimed BP is "making it right."
Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right -- in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.
Stop the false ad campaign.
When you hear one of BP's "making it right" ads, call your local media station. Tell them to pull the greenwashing ads and get the real story. The Gulf is sick and so are its coastal residents. Money, even heaps of it, will never make it right. Airing the misleading ads only makes things worse, especially in the Gulf where people despise BP's bid to brainwash other Americans.
Stop spraying chemical dispersants.
Chemical dispersants are the oil industry's preferred method of marine spill response in the United States. Dispersants drive the oil out of sight, out of mind, while dispersant production companies like Nalco profit handsomely and the spiller writes off the expense as a cost of doing business. Big oil companies often make their own dispersants -- and profits from sales -- but hide connections through subsidiaries. Small wonder that spillers prefer dispersants.
The problem with dispersants is exactly what is occurring in the Gulf. The federal government uses outdated and minimal testing procedures for dispersants, which hugely underestimate the chemicals' impacts to marine -- and human -- life. Some of the reported chemicals in dispersants are known human health hazards; many of the proprietary chemicals are as well as we learned from Gulf disclosures. Dispersants are now linked, or heavily implicated, with the widespread occurrences of lesions and maladies in fish and shellfish, dolphin deaths, and dramatic decline in populations of some Gulf species such as shrimps and killifish.
Yet people have a say in dispersant use. For example, dispersants were sprayed in the Gulf in coastal seas and nearshore areas in direct contradiction to reports from the US Coast Guard and EPA because the coastal states have signed pre-approval letters to allow dispersant use anywhere, anytime. But people in coastal communities of America could pass local ordinances banning dispersant use in state waters after marine oil spills; people could make sure their state had a signed no-approval letter as part of their Regional Response Team's spill contingency plan. Changing the National Contingency Plan would take more effort, so let's start locally by banning these deadly chemicals in our coastal seas.
Stop pretending that people in the Gulf coastal communities aren't "oil-sick" and that BP isn't responsible and liable.
It's not only the dolphins that are sick and dying. For two years, BP and the state and federal governments denied the epidemic of respiratory problems, dizziness and headaches, horrific skin lesions, and blood problems was linked with the oil and chemical disaster -- despite the fact that medical literature identifies these identical symptoms as characteristic of oil spill exposure. Now under the BP-Plaintiffs' Settlement, BP has agreed to pay literally billions of dollars for medical claims, medical monitoring for twenty-one years, medical services, and community health clinics for underserved populations staffed with specialists in chemical illness treatment -- but with no admission of liability.
Get educated and educate others about what is happening in the Gulf. Tell your local film festivals to screen the award-winning Gulf documentary, Dirty Energy, in which local residents talk about being "oil-sick." Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are in drilling muds, used in both onshore and offshore oil drilling, and in injection fluids, used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in drilling for natural gas. Not surprisingly, the "oil-sick" symptoms are not limited to the Gulf.
Stop pretending that people in other oil sacrifice communities aren't "oil-sick" and that the oil companies aren't responsible and liable.
Independent films such as Gas Land and Split Estate are amplifying voices of residents from shale gas sites who are suing over fracking side-effects including earthquakes, exploding tap water, and mysterious debilitating illnesses. In Pennsylvania, residents are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking about their contaminated well water in trade for a supply of clean fresh water from the very companies that caused the problem -- while the same companies then claim there is no documented evidence of well contamination.
Independent filmmakers and videographers have amplified the voices of people sickened from the tars sands drilling operations in Alberta, Canada, and the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Battle Creek, Michigan. Already eleven people have died in one small trailer court near the Kalamazoo River from illnesses that they and their doctors believe were triggered or worsened by the tar sands that flowed past their homes and soiled the river banks.
Start taking responsibility for what is happening in your backyard.
The oil companies are polluting our air, poisoning our drinking water and land, poisoning people and communities across the country, collapsing ocean ecosystems from Alaska's Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, and even altering our climate in pursuit of profit, while leaving people and communities with the costs. The federal government clearly has no exit strategy off fossil fuels, so is beholden to -- actually partnered with -- this industry. When the industry and its supporters chant drill, baby, drill, politicians enable oil activities and help maximize profit by drilling loopholes and exemptions into the very laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment.
It is the ordinary people, not the bureaucrats and oil cats, who have the power to alter our collective future -- and make it right for everyone. We all matter.
We start with town meetings to recognize what we value collectively in our community, determine a shared vision, then prioritize the actions to achieve that vision. We move our money and resources to encourage businesses that match our values. Towns across America are doing this now as people strive to become more self-reliant from the corporate-driven government policies that disconnect our jobs from what we love and value.
We need to insist on energy sources that do not create, then sacrifice, communities. We need an energy policy that leaves no Americans behind -- not in the mountains of Appalachia, not in the Gulf of Mexico or along the North Slope of Alaska, not in the western Rockies or over the eastern Marcellus shale deposits, not in northern tar sands oil pits or pipeline corridors, not on foreign soil in wars over oil.
Making it right in the Gulf starts with diversifying our energy portfolio in our own backyards. A federal energy policy for the sake of energy alone will "make it wrong" for many people because all jobs not created equal. Jobs that simultaneously support healthy people, thriving communities, and environmental quality are worth more than jobs that pollute and poison the biosphere for profit.
What government of, for, and by the people puts corporate profit above the wellbeing of millions of people and the very survival of the youngest generations? Governments are instituted to secure the safety, health, and wellbeing of the people. Laws and policies that fail to safeguard these rights and protect the environment are illegitimate and unjust in a democratic society. Writing laws to protect our backyards starts in our backyards with local ordinances. The community-based movement builds to constitutional reform to assert that only real humans are sovereign and entitled to human rights.
The transformation starts when we believe that we have the power to act. When enough of us prove another way is possible and demand change, the politicians will have no choice but to follow the people's lead and make things right in America.
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away," said the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde.
The inaugural interfaith service at the Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday proceeded with the usual prayers and music, but after delivering her sermon, the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde appeared to go off-script and made a direct appeal to President Donald Trump.
Recalling the Republican president's assertion on Monday that he was "saved by God" after a bullet hit his ear in an assassination attempt in July, Budde asked Trump, who was seated in the church, "in the name of our God... to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now."
"There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and Independent families," said Budde, "some who fear for their lives. And the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meatpacking plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals."
"I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here," said Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C.
Budde's appeal followed Trump's signing of 26 executive orders in his first day in office, with dozens more expected in the first days of his second term. The president signed orders ending birthright citizenship—provoking legal challenges from immigrant rights groups and state attorneys general—and pausing refugee admissions, leading to devastation among people who had been waiting for asylum appointments at ports of entry. Official proclamations declared a national emergency at the southern border and asserted that the entry of migrants there is an "invasion."
Trump also took executive action to declare that the federal government recognizes only two sexes, male and female.
"May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God for the good of all people in this nation and the world," said Budde in her address to Trump.
The president kept his eyes on Budde for much of her speech, at one point looking annoyed and casting his eyes downward. Vice President JD Vance leaned over and spoke to his wife, Usha Vance, as Budde talked about undocumented immigrants, and raised his eyebrows when she said the majority of immigrants are not criminals.
Trump later told reporters that the service was "not too exciting."
"I didn't think it was a good service," he said. "They can do much better."
Democratic strategist Keith Edwards applauded Budde's decision to speak directly to the president, calling her "incredibly brave."
Budde "confronted Trump's fascism to his face," he said on the social media platform Bluesky.
The study was published as President Donald Trump was blasted for an executive order that one critic said shows he wants to turn the Alaskan Arctic into the "the world's largest gas station."
For thousands of years, the land areas of the Arctic have served as a "carbon sink," storing potential carbon emissions in the permafrost. But according to a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change Tuesday, more than 34% of the Arctic is now a source of carbon to the atmosphere, as permafrost melts and the Arctic becomes greener.
"When emissions from fire were added, the percentage grew to 40%," according to the Woodwell Climate Research Center, which led the international team that conducted the research.
The study, which was first reported on by The Guardian, was released the day after President Donald Trump issued multiple presidential actions influencing the United States' ability to confront the climate crisis, which is primarily caused by fossil fuel emissions, including one directly impacting resource extraction in Alaska, a section of which is within the Arctic Circle.
Sue Natali, one of the researchers who worked on the study published in Nature Climate Change, told NPR in December (in reference to similar research) that the Arctic's warming "is not an issue of what party you support."
"This is something that impacts everyone," she said.
As the permafrost—ground that remains frozen for two or more years—holds less carbon, it releases CO2 into the atmosphere that could "considerably exacerbate climate change," according to the study.
"There is a load of carbon in the Arctic soils. It's close to half of the Earth's soil carbon pool. That's much more than there is in the atmosphere. There's a huge potential reservoir that should ideally stay in the ground," said Anna Virkkala, the lead author of the study, in an interview with The Guardian.
The dire warning was released on the heels of Trump's executive order titled "Unleashing the Alaska's Extraordinary Resource Potential" that calls for expedited "permitting and leasing of energy and natural resource projects in Alaska," as well as for the prioritization of "development of Alaska's liquefied natural gas (LNG) potential, including the sale and transportation of Alaskan LNG to other regions of the United States and allied nations within the Pacific region."
The order also rolls back a number of Biden-era restrictions on drilling and extraction in Alaska, which included protecting areas within the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from oil and gas leasing.
"Alaska is warming four times faster than the rest of the planet, a trend that is wreaking havoc on communities, ecosystems, fish, wildlife, and ways of life that depend on healthy lands and waters," said Carole Holley, managing attorney for the Alaska Office of the environmental group Earthjustice, in a statement Monday.
"Earthjustice and its clients will not stand idly by while Trump once again forces a harmful industry-driven agenda on our state for political gain and the benefit of a wealthy few," she added.
Trump wants to turn the Alaskan Arctic into the "the world's largest gas station," said Athan Manuel, director of Sierra Club's Lands Protection Program, in a statement Monday. "Make no mistake, Trump's rushed and sloppy actions today are an existential threat to these lands and waters, and the communities and wildlife that depend on them."
The U.N. ambassador nominee also shrugged off the Nazi salutes made by Elon Musk on Inauguration Day.
As U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik faced questioning by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday regarding her nomination for a top diplomatic position, the rights group Jewish Voice for Peace Action called on lawmakers to consider her "record of antisemitic, anti-Palestinian, anti-immigrant, and anti-democracy rhetoric and policy" and block her confirmation.
Stefanik's (R-N.Y.) record was reinforced at the hearing as she was asked about her views on Palestine, expressions of antisemitism in the United States, and far-right Israeli leaders' political agenda, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) recalling a meeting he had with the congresswoman after President Donald Trump nominated her to be the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
At the meeting, Van Hollen said, Stefanik had expressed support for the idea that Israel has a Biblical right to control the entire West Bank—a position that is held by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, but runs counter to the two-state solution that the U.S. government has long supported.
"Is that your view today?" asked Van Hollen, to which Stefanik replied, "Yes."
Van Hollen noted that Stefanik's viewpoint also flies in the face of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions and international consensus about the Middle East conflict.
"If the president is going to succeed at bringing peace and stability to the Middle East, we're going to have to look at the U.N. Security Council resolutions," said the senator. "And it's going to be very difficult to achieve that if you continue to hold the view that you just expressed, which is a view that was not held by the founders of the state of Israel."
Stefanik also refused to answer a direct question from Van Hollen regarding whether Palestinian people have the right to self-determination, saying only that she supports "human rights for all" and pivoting to a call for Israeli hostages to be released by Hamas.
Jenin Younes, litigation counsel with the New Civil Liberties Alliance, said Stefanik expressed "religious fanaticism, pure and simple" at the confirmation hearing—which was held as Israeli settlers and soldiers ramped up attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
"That [Stefanik] will now play a major role with respect to our foreign policy in the region is terrifying," said Younes.
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) Action noted that in addition to supporting "the Israeli government's brutal genocide of Palestinians," Stefanik has also "amplified the antisemitic Great Replacement theory"—which claims the influence and power of white Christian Americans is being deliberately diminished by Jewish Americans and immigration policy.
Despite her support for the debunked conspiracy theory, Stefanik made headlines last year for her accusations against college students, faculty, and administrators over the pro-Palestinian demonstrations that exploded across campuses as Americans spoke out against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza. The congresswoman said the protests were expressions of antisemitism and pushed for the resignation of university leaders who declined to discipline students who spoke out against Israel.
The hearings where Stefanik lambasted college leaders "were part of a broader campaign to silence anti-war activism and dissent on college campuses while forwarding the MAGA culture war campaign against [diversity, equity, and inclusion], critical race theory, and LGBTQ+ rights," said JVP Action.
An exchange between Stefanik and Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Tuesday also raised questions over Stefanik's views on antisemitism. Murphy asked the nominee about the Nazi salute twice displayed by billionaire Trump backer Elon Musk—whom the president has named to lead his proposed Department of Government Efficiency—at an event Monday night.
" Elon Musk did not do those salutes," Stefanik asserted.
Murphy countered by reading several comments from right-wing commentators who applauded Musk's "Heil Hitler" salute.
"Over and over again last night, white supremacist groups and neo-Nazi groups in this country rallied around that visual," said Murphy.
JVP Action said Stefanik has "deeply embraced Trump's anti-democratic agenda."
"Her nomination must be blocked," said the group.