'John Muir Is Rolling Over in His Grave' With Scott Pruitt at the Helm of the EPA

By Deirdre Fulton
Newly sworn-in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt, whose nomination was ardently opposed by environmentalists and who is poised to roll back major climate and clean water regulations, addressed his employees for the first time Tuesday afternoon.
During his remarks, in which he did not mention the pressing crisis of climate change or the matter of public health, Pruitt quoted Sierra Club founder John Muir, saying: "Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in."
Environmentalists were not impressed.
"John Muir is rolling over in his grave at the notion of someone as toxic to the environment as Scott Pruitt taking over the EPA," declared the Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune.
OMG! Assault on the #EPA Begins: Trump to Sign Two Executive Orders https://t.co/fNV2qNlMrs @climatehawk1 @greenpeaceusa @billmckibben @350— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch)1487688698.0
It's difficult to imagine that EPA staffers—hundreds of whom publicly opposed Pruitt's confirmation in the days before the Senate vote—were too pleased, either.
"For some scientists in the agency, [Pruitt's] first speech was probably the equivalent of Voldemort himself walking into Hogwarts and assuming the top job," wrote Andrew Freedman at Mashable.
Pruitt addressed that tension obliquely, telling those who were gathered: "Civility is something I believe in very much. We ought to be able to get together and wrestle through some issues in a civil manner."
The Los Angeles Times reported:
He expressed admiration for the many employees he met during his first meetings at the headquarters who have been with the agency for decades.
"You can't lead unless you can listen," Pruitt said. "I seek to listen, learn and lead with you." But he also bemoaned the "toxic" nature of modern politics.
Grist added:
Pruitt also lobbed subtle barbs at the agency's past leadership, saying EPA needs to avoid abuses. "Regulations ought to make things regular. Regulators exist to give certainty to those we regulate," he said. (Last week, he was even more critical of the Obama-era EPA, telling the Wall Street Journal that it had "disregarded the law").
But Pruitt made no mention of what's likely to be big news this week: Trump is planning to sign executive orders that would start the process of rolling back two major EPA regulations: the Clean Power Plan, one of [President Barack] Obama's signature climate programs and the Waters of the U.S. rule, which regulates pollution in smaller bodies of water.
Ironically, the former Oklahoma attorney general spoke of the need to be "open and transparent"—on the same day that the public awaits the court-ordered release of thousands of emails Pruitt's office sought to withhold from the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy. The emails are expected to be released by end of day Tuesday.
Huge news: Judge Orders Trump's EPA Pick to Release Emails by Tuesday https://t.co/CnMMY89jUD— Josh Fox (@Josh Fox)1487341421.0
And he stated: "We can be both pro-energy and jobs and pro-environment," leading Center for Media and Democracy director of research Nick Surgey to say Pruitt was "already talking about putting the interests of the environment against the interests of industry."
Politico reported that "Pruitt delivered his remarks to about 100 employees gathered at the agency's headquarters, an event that also included a conspicuous handful of security personnel." Pruitt is reportedly "expected to request an around-the-clock security detail from his agency, according to an internal agency email" seen by Greenwire.
Watch Pruitt's full speech here:
Reposted with permission from our media associate Common Dreams.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker vetoed a sweeping climate bill on Thursday that would have put the commonwealth on a path to eliminating carbon emissions by 2050.
EcoWatch Daily Newsletter
By Ajit Niranjan
World leaders and businesses are not putting enough money into adapting to dangerous changes in the climate and must "urgently step up action," according to a report published Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).
Adaptation Has a Long Way to Go
<p>The Adaptation Gap Report, now in its 5th year, finds "huge gaps" between what world leaders agreed to do under the 2015 <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/5-years-paris-climate-agreement/a-55901139" target="_blank">Paris Agreement</a> and what they need to do to keep their citizens safe from climate change.</p><p>A review by the Global Adaptation Mapping Initiative of almost 1,700 examples of climate adaptation found that a third were in the early stages of implementation — and only 3% had reached the point of reducing risks.</p><p>Disasters like storms and droughts have grown stronger than they should be because people have warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels and chopping down rainforests. The world has heated by more than 1.1 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution and is on track to warm by about 3°C by the end of the century.</p><p>If world leaders <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-change-performance-index-how-far-have-we-come/a-55846406" target="_blank">deliver on recent pledges</a> to bring emissions to <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/joe-bidens-climate-pledges-are-they-realistic/a-56173821" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">net-zero</a> by the middle of the century, they could almost limit warming to 2°C. The target of the Paris Agreement, however, is to reach a target well below that — ideally 1.5°C. </p><p>There are two ways, scientists say, to lessen the pain that warming will bring: mitigating climate change by cutting carbon pollution and adapting to the hotter, less stable world it brings.</p>The Cost of Climate Adaptation
<p>About three-quarters of the world's countries have national plans to adapt to climate change, according to the report, but most lack the regulations, incentives and funding to make them work.</p><p>More than a decade ago, rich countries most responsible for climate change pledged to mobilize $100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance for poorer countries. UNEP says it is "impossible to answer" whether that goal has been met, while an OECD study published in November found that between 2013 and 2018, the target sum had not once been achieved. Even in 2018, which recorded the highest level of contributions, rich countries were still $20 billion short.</p><p>The yearly adaptation costs for developing countries alone are estimated at $70 billion. This figure is expected to at least double by the end of the decade as temperatures rise, and will hit $280-500 billion by 2050, according to the report.</p><p>But failing to adapt is even more expensive.</p><p>When powerful storms like cyclones Fani and Bulbul struck South Asia, early-warning systems allowed governments to move millions of people out of danger at short notice. Storms of similar strength that have hit East Africa, like <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/zimbabwe-after-cyclone-idai-building-climate-friendly-practices/a-54251885" target="_blank">cyclones Idai</a> and Kenneth, have proved more deadly because fewer people were evacuated before disaster struck.</p><p>The Global Commission on Adaptation estimated in 2019 that a $1.8 trillion investment in early warning systems, buildings, agriculture, mangroves and water resources could reap $7.1 trillion in benefits from economic activity and avoided costs when disasters strike.</p>Exploring Nature-Based Solutions
<p>The report also highlights how restoring nature can protect people from climate change while benefiting local communities and ecology.</p><p><a href="https://www.dw.com/en/climate-fires-risk-climate-change-bushfires-australia-california-extreme-weather-firefighters/a-54817927" target="_blank">Wildfires</a>, for instance, could be made less punishing by restoring grasslands and regularly burning the land in controlled settings. Indigenous communities from Australia to Canada have done this for millennia in a way that encourages plant growth while reducing the risk of uncontrolled wildfires. Reforestation, meanwhile, can stop soil erosion and flooding during heavy rainfall while trapping carbon and protecting wildlife.</p><p>In countries like Brazil and Malaysia, governments could better protect coastal homes from floods and storms by restoring <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/mudflats-mangroves-and-marshes-the-great-coastal-protectors/a-50628747" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mangroves</a> — tangled trees that grow in tropical swamps. As well as anchoring sediments and absorbing the crash of waves, mangroves can store carbon, help fish populations grow and boost local economies through tourism. </p><p>While nature-based solutions are often cheaper than building hard infrastructure, their funding makes up a "tiny fraction" of adaptation finance, the report authors wrote. An analysis of four global climate funds that spent $94 billion on adaptation projects found that just $12 billion went to nature-based solutions and little of this was spent implementing projects on the ground.</p><p>But little is known about their long-term effectiveness. At higher temperatures, the effects of climate change may be so great that they overwhelm natural defenses like mangroves.</p><p>By 2050, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/rising-sea-levels-should-we-let-the-ocean-in-a-50704953/a-50704953" target="_blank">coastal floods</a> that used to hit once a century will strike many cities every year, according to a 2019 report on oceans by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the gold standard on climate science. This could force dense cities on low-lying coasts to build higher sea walls, like in Indonesia and South Korea, or evacuate entire communities from sinking islands, like in Fiji.</p><p>It's not a case of replacing infrastructure, said Matthias Garschagen, a geographer at Ludwig Maximilian University in Germany and IPCC author, who was not involved in the UNEP report. "The case for nature-based solutions is often misinterpreted as a battle... but they're part of a toolkit that we've ignored for too long."</p>- Beavers Could Help in Adapting to Climate Change - EcoWatch ›
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Environmental groups and the foundations that fund them made incremental, if mixed, progress toward diversifying their staff and leadership in 2020 but remain overwhelmingly white, according to a report issued by Green 2.0 Wednesday.