Bleached Staghorn Coral

By James Ewing (Watermill, NY)

“The GOP Republican party is the most dangerous organization in human history…dedicated, with such commitment, to the destruction of organized human life on earth.”—Noam Chomsky, scholar, MIT.
What are these most dangerous men doing?
Oceans cover about 70% of earth’s surface and support all the planet’s living systems. They regulate weather, temperature, the food web, absorb atmospheric CO2 while producing half of the world’s oxygen. The ocean’s coral reefs maintain its resilience and viability.
In 2016 and 2017, greenhouse gas induced heating and acidification killed about half the corals on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef as well as many others around the world.
“So, you take out coral reefs and a third to a quarter of all species gets wiped out…that is ecological chaos, ecological collapse”, says John Vernon, world’s foremost expert on coral reefs. “We’ve got a mass extinction event looming,..more than an alarm bell,” says Veron. “It’s an air raid siren.”
And what are dangerous men doing? Driving our precious estate over a cliff and stepping on the gas.
The GOP party, White House and cabinet officials have essentially denied or ignored the existence of global warming. In 2008 the “No Climate Tax” pledge, signed by GOP’s Americans for Prosperity, declares economic growth shall always override environmental sustainability.
Dangerous men withdrew the nation from the Paris Climate accord which bound the globe together in efforts to halt global warming. GOP leadership were united in their praise.
Fossil fuels account for about 80 % of total climate warming emissions. What do dangerous men do?
Trump’s GOP republican party seeks to overhaul the Clean Power Plan which cut greenhouse gas emissions from power plants yielding controls to less restrictive individual states and fast track emissions permitting processes by industry insiders. They repeal the Clean Air and Water Acts; ease restrictions on releasing mercury, arsenic, lead, and carbon monoxide into our air; weaken fuel economy standards; cancel restrictions on super-polluting “glider trucks”; oppose California’s electric car mandate; abandon methane limits on new oil and gas wells; revoke prohibitions on hydrofluorocarbons; expand oil production infrastructure, opening public lands to resource development; weaken the Well Control Rule and allow drilling in 25 of the 26 regions of the entire U.S. Outer Continental Shelf while immunizing extractive industries from compensatory damages; slash funding for renewable energy and efficiency research; remove scientists from advisory positions at the EPA…
“Coral (die-off) is driven by carbon dioxide, unless you stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it’ll go on. There’s no way around it, there’s no alternative… We can’t—as humans—can’t exist independently of the welfare of the planet.”—John Vernon. But is this what dangerous men are thinking? Really? Really?