The meaning of the 19th-century nursery rhyme “Humpty Dumpty” has been clouded in mystery since it first became popularized in Lewis Caroll’s book Through the Looking Glass published in 1871.
Caroll depicted Humpty Dumpty as an anthropomorphic egg, fragile and impossible to repair, despite the king’s best efforts. No one has established the meaning of the nursery rhyme, although many have tried.
Don Gordon
In such a spirit, I’m going to use Humpty Dumpty as a metaphor for environmental regulation, put on the wall by the government itself, only to see a succeeding government ram the wall and knock Humpty Dumpty to the ground. Once shattered, all subsequent efforts for rehabilitation are futile. It’s just too late.
In the span of a few weeks, the Trump administration has gutted laws, agencies and regulations that have guarded environmental protections for the American people. The president has severely damaged the country’s ability to fight pollution, climate change and environmental injustice.
“The president has severely damaged the country’s ability to fight pollution, climate change and environmental injustice.”
On his first day of office, he ended America’s commitment to the Paris Climate accords, which took seven long years to corral international ratification from 200 countries. We were the only nation to remove ourselves from the treaty.
By following the $75 million in campaign contributions he received from the fossil fuel industry, we can see the economic “return on investment” from Trump’s promise to “drill, baby drill.”
With regulations out of the way, the industry is free to initiate more fossil fuel extraction efforts with little to no oversight for environmental pollution, not to mention the devasting impact of more fossil fuel emissions released into the atmosphere for future generations.
The Trump modus operandi is to cut programs, fire employees and withhold funding legally legislated by Congress, then delay the court’s ability to make a judgment about the action.
For example, funds approved by Congress in 2022 in the Inflation Reduction Act and those approved in the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill of 2021 have been withheld by the Trump administration. Funding for electric-car charging stations, wind-powered mills and subsidies for solar panels have been “paused.”
The executive branch has usurped the legislative branch’s constitutional responsibility of funding the government. The executive branch is bound the by Constitution to “execute” the legislation of the Congress, not dismantle it arbitrarily. Two federal judges have intervened to make just that point, ordering the federal government to resume funding, until otherwise directed by Congress.
John Podesta, senior climate adviser to the Biden administration said, “We followed the law and they’re breaking the law. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be allowed to get away with it.”
In a remarkable move, Lee Zeldin, acting administrator of the EPA, has recommended the agency reverse its 2009 finding by a consensus of scientists that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. That would contradict decades of scientific consensus and undermine the legal basis of the government to fight climate change. Already government websites are being scrubbed of the phrase “climate change.”
As if all that is not bad enough, the Trump administration, under the authority of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, has laid off thousands of federal employees from the EPA, the Interior Department, the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premier science agency.
About 10% of NOAA’s 13,000 employees already have been dismissed or are on the chopping block. These are people who monitor hurricanes, coral reefs and the impact of more severe weather patterns resulting from climate change, thereby providing trusted information to businesses, families, the military and building contractors.
“Trump has said he believes EPA will cut 65% of the agency’s more than 17,000 jobs.”
A federal judge ruled the firings were illegal, but it remains to be seen if that rebuke will stop Trump from ignoring the court’s rulings. Remember his haunting tweet from a couple of weeks ago: “He who saves his country does not violate any law.”
How deep are these cuts that are supposed to be directed at “waste, fraud and abuse?”
Trump has said he believes EPA will cut 65% of the agency’s more than 17,000 jobs. This would effectively gut the EPA, deeming it incapable of monitoring the nation’s environmental threats from nature and corporate tycoons.
The Trump administration is not satisfied with dismantling federal efforts to fight pollution and address long-term climate change. They also are going after states and municipalities that already have created frameworks to address environmental crises.
For example, the Trump administration is attempting to kill California’s law ending the sale of gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035. So much for the outdated Republican principles of “state’s rights.”
In a few short weeks, the Trump administration has knocked Humpty Dumpty off the wall. It’s troubling to consider that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men who come to power when the country has been decimated will not be able to put Humpty together again. It will be too late.
Trump is breaking our ability to protect the environment and the weakest members of our population. When he is done, the price of eggs may be too high for any of us to use them again.
Don Gordon is founder and CEO of C3 — Christians Caring for Creation. He also serves as pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Newton, N.C.
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