CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Five Horsemen of the Environmental Apocalypse

Log loading site, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington Cascades. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

The Trump Administration has released five horsemen to run roughshod over America the Beautiful, playing out their version of Manifest Destiny 2.0 at the expense of all that is good and whole.

In seemingly separate but connected actions, the very agencies entrusted with protecting our national heritage seek to drive threatened and endangered wildlife off the landscape like the native Americans before them. Under a cloak of “efficiency” and “local control,” they are wreaking havoc leading to plunder, despoilation and lawlessness, clearing the way for bulldozers and industrial anarchy.

First, the Department of the Interior redefined “harm” under the Endangered Species Act so that habitat destruction is no longer considered harmful to threatened and endangered species. That’s like saying we could take away food, shelter, heat, water and clothing from people and it would have no effect on their well-being. No........

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