Trump Is Gutting "The Web of Life" in the Name of Profits
The endangered species act, signed by Richard Nixon in 1973, has been one of the most successful defenses of the great web of life in the history of American legislation. It has prevented extinction for 99 percent of species under its protection and accomplished a 90 percent recovery rate in more than 100 species throughout the United States. As the Center for Biological Diversity notes, "The Act has allowed the designation of millions of acres of critical habitat, which is crucial to species' survival and recovery."Which is exactly why Donald Trump's billionaire developer, drilling, and mining buddies want to gut it. When Louise and I were in Alaska recently, we saw over 100 bald eagles; these birds were on the brink of extinction before the act helped ban DDT and bring them back.
Biodiversity is the foundation on which all life depends, including humans. It provides our water, food, shelters and health. It's the air we breath, the nutrients we take in and the soil that our food is grown on. Now, with Trump's attack on the Endangered Species Act, the web of life is more at risk than ever before. All in the name of more profits for Trump's rich friends. What Trump and other corporatists don't understand is that biological diversity is natural capital that we must protect.
It's the best life insurance for everything.
-Thom
Comments
This is what happens when an invasive species gets established.
Not being Irish, I tend to be torn between saying cancerous and parasitic. And I just found this article, "IS CANCER A PARASITIC DISEASE?" https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/465832 which links the two. It includes phrases such as "cancerous tumors, which have been thought to belong to the lowest order of animal life.".
It's an old article, but the theory is still being discussed. https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-07/cancers-are-newly-evolved-parasitic-species-biologist-argues/
My dad was full Irish, the great-grandson of emigrants who fled the Great Hunger, where the tenuous thread of our lineage ends, as it does for so many other families during those dark times. But their songs and poetry live on.
Interesting articles on cancer. Just think of all the miraculous breakthroughs and possibilities of medical science that could have been realized by now had not the human race squandered so much intellectual acuity down through the ages on the sciences of war and killing and greed.
The same could be said for the social evolution of society and the advancement of civilization as a whole had we not been crippled by such destructive thought viruses (lies), now so pervasive that they threaten the very life of Mother Earth herself.
Yes, the world would be a much better place if we abandoned greed for money or power and narrow, short term thinking.
I see more folks have been kicked off the Thom Hartmann site.....RIP DianeReynolds and Hot Coffee. Thom Hartmann can't tolerate anyone with a differing view. ThomHartmann.com where democracy goes to die.
DR+HC kicked off? How can you tell? Haven't seen them in a while but didn't think much about it. I enjoyed their bantering....."Keep your enemy close." :)
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Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
When you finally reach the end of the exhaustive list of other apt analogies, metaphors, similes, and just downright strange descriptors for the Trump UNreality Shite Show, there's always a wealth of Irish curses to vex the feckin’ eejits.
Go n-imi an droch aimsir leat. (That the bad weather leaves with you).
Filleann an feall ar an bhfeallaire. (The bad deed returns on the bad-deed doer.)
Go n-ithe an tochas thú. (May you be eaten by the itch.)
And one of my favorites:
Go bhfuil an itch agat nach bhfuil aon mhéarlorg ort. (May you have the itch with no fingernails.)
};--))