Environment

In the spring of 2025, central Illinois was swallowed by a wall of dust so dense it erased the horizon—and lives along with it. Vehicles collided in a deadly chain reaction on Interstate 55, as visibility vanished and the dust became a visible cry from the land, a desperate signal of the devastation being wrought upon it. This was not a natural disaster. It was the consequence of decades of extractive farming practices that leave the land bare, lifeless, and vulnerable. It was a warning that when we abuse the soil, we unravel the systems that protect our safety, our health, and our future.

The dust storm that caused the deadly multi-vehicle pileup on Interstate 55 in Illinois was not an anomaly—it is part of a disturbing trend.

Triggered by 35 to 45 mph winds lifting bare, degraded soil from recently tilled farmland, the storm reduced visibility to near zero and resulted in the deaths of at least eight people.

Letter To The editor: LTE/LATimes

Start by following the money: 

Nowhere is nuclear power (which DOES emit heat, toxic poisons and radioactive & other carbon) cost competitive with modern renewables.

Solar & wind are VERY substantially cheaper than old operating nukes AND projected new small ones.

Continuing to operate the two uninsured nukes at Diablo Canyon is costing us $11+ billion over market...with no accounting for the unsolved waste problem, local health impacts & the virtual certainty of uninsured apocalyptic explosions when the next quake hits. 

Newsom's war on rooftop solar has already cost CA more than 17,000 jobs & is the chief reason our rates are the highest in the continental US.

The principle challenge to going 100% renewable is the cost & toxicity of lithium-based batteries. the soon-to-come conversion to sodium (already being deployed in electric cars produced by the Chinese BYD) will seal the deal.

Governor [Kathy] Hochul is making a major push to not only build new nuclear plants in New York State but to make N.Y. the center of a nuclear revival in the U.S.,” declared Mark Dunlea, chair of the Green Education and Legal Fund, and long a leader on environmental issues in the state and nationally, in a recent email calling on support to “stop Hochul’s nuclear push.” 

Dunlea is author of the book “Putting Out the Planetary Fire: An Introduction to Climate Change and Advocacy.” An Albany Law School graduate, he co-founded both the New York Public Interest Research Group and national PIRG. In an interview last week from his home in Poestenkill in upstate New York, Dunlea charged that Governor Hochul has “bought into nuclear power.” 

He said, “She buys the argument that nuclear is carbon-free, avoiding looking at the life cycle of nuclear and its carbon footprint,” which includes, he noted, significant emissions of carbon in uranium mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication and at other points. “The nuclear industry has been lobbying her to go along with it, and she has,” he said.

thank you sammy roth for this important piece.

it's horrifying to see apostles of hate like vance, trump, bannon et al trashing the vital humanitarian creed for which this great pope worked in such good faith. it's clear that if jesus himself came back to preach the loving gospel he created, the MAGA hordes would have him again crucified. 

it's also horrifying to see the ecological nightmare california's utilities have imposed on us. the fires that ravaged pacific palisades were clearly climate induced, then sparked by their incompetent in ability to safely maintain power lines. 

had los angeles been rightfully covered in solar panels, connected with micro-grids, as would best be for our economy and much more, those fires would never have happened.

The administration of Donald Trump is making an unbridled push to block renewable
energy projects—including last week halting the placement of 54 wind turbines in the ocean
south of Long Island, New York—and is pushing fossil fuels, among them coal. The burning of
fossil fuels is the leading cause of climate change. Trump has repeatedly called climate change a
“hoax.”
Meanwhile, a Long Island resident, Lee Zeldin of Shirley, who Trump named
administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is cancelling on a sweeping basis
environmental regulations, discharging EPA employees and, last week, stopping the collection of
greenhouse gas emission data.
Further, on April 8 th Trump issued an executive order directing the U.S. attorney general
to identify “illegal” state and local climate, energy and environmental justice laws that “impede”
domestic energy production and use and “take all appropriate action to stop” their enforcement.
The order is titled: “Protecting American Energy From State Overreach.” It opens: “My
Administration is committed to unleashing American energy.”

Introduction

With Trump and his cronies in power, the climate crisis will worsen.

In a Nov. 14, 2024 post, after Trump was reelected to a second presidential term, there was good reason to worry about Trump’s plans for dealing with the climate crisis. He is a well-known climate-denier.

Here’s a few paragraphs from that post. 

“Trump, a climate-crisis denier, will undoubtedly as president exacerbate the problem and give open-ended support to fossil fuel production and consumption and the industries that benefit from them. Rising emissions and the rising temperatures they produce represent an existential problem that will likely threaten to generate massive dislocations of people and threaten the survival of millions, if not billions, of people in America and around the globe. 

Hour 2 starts 1:05:53
We start our GREEP Zoom #221 with DR. NANCY NIPARKO & her exhortation to keep the faith & not lose hope, however difficult the times may be.
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The FAR OUT documentary film is endorsed by DR. RUTH STRAUSS who also demands the return of Abrego Garcia after he’s been disappeared to El Salvadore.

The name of this terror victim is shouted out by MYLA RESON with the warning that this could happen to any and all of us at the whim of Donald Trump.

ON ENERGY: From DOROTHY REIK we hear about SB540 which would open the door to new nukes & to kill the ability of California to control its own energy supplies.

The legendary KEVIN KAMPS warns of the gargantuan subsidies proposed to insanely re-start Michigan’s Palisades despite the exponential cost overruns already with us, and despite disturbing reports of an epidemic of cancer in a nearby golf club, indicating major radiation releases from the nearby reactor; there are “start dates” for nuclear disasters, he said, but there are no end dates. 

Attempt to Reverse 1976 Moratorium

Despite multiple earthquake faults surrounding the three California nuclear reactor coastal sites harboring huge amounts of radioactive waste in tsunami zones, with no plan to deal with the tons of waste, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature to increase nuclear use in our state. This also despite the devastating fires that occur regularly in California increasing the already staggering risks of nuclear reactors and the lethal long lived waste they produce.

Assemblymember Dr. Juaquin Arambula (D - Fresno) with main co-sponsors Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R - Orange) and Assemblymember Josh Hoover (R- Sacramento) introduced AB 305 . It would overturn California’s longstanding nuclear moratorium to allow for the construction of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).

Harvey's Comment in LA Times:

These Olympics must also be 100% solar/wind/geothermal powered & the Diablo Canyon reactors must be shut before they begin.

the Games are threatened by potential catastrophe from the continued operation of these two uninsured, obsolete nukes surrounded at Avila Beach by earthquake faults capable of blanketing the region with lethal Chernobyl-scale radioactive clouds. 

debate still rages over how much radiation Fukushima poured into Tokyo in 2011-21; we must not allow that possibility for Los Angeles in 2028 & beyond. 

we have just suffered horrific fires caused at least in part by a faulty central-powered utility system that must be replaced by micro-grid based renewables. rooftop solar is the answer for Los Angeles to have a cheap, safe, clean power system, and it must happen prior to the Olympics. 

A new documentary film, Far Out: Life On & After the Commune, directed by Charles Light, tells the story of a group of leftwing journalists who splintered off from what was known as Liberation News Service (LNS). With candid then-and-now footage, Light’s eighty-five-minute film reveals the communards as young hippies and senior citizens, and shows how their paths intertwined with folk/rock superstars to fight the good fight.