With health problems occupying me, I have had little focus for writing. Nonetheless, I continue to find I am otherwise occupied with the same things as always. It is hard to avoid. Every day it seems I read of yet another outrage committed by our pseudo-president, a man neither qualified in terms of the basic experience or training to be a public servant, but also a man who has no sense of service at all. He is entirely focused on painting a flattering image of himself for all the world. This preoccupation is native to his personality, but it also serves his fundamental motivation for making money however he can. His outrages are constant, and I think he enjoys especially offending the concerns of more liberal people. He often pursues his outrage by tossing a wild place or the wild creatures themselves into the greedy maw of industries, especially extractive industries. He is most consistent (no he is not a stable genius or stable anything) in his pursuit of “energy independence” which translates into unbridled extraction of coal, oil and natural gas. He makes clear that he does not like renewable energy sources, probably because that cuts into the profits of the extractive industries he serves.

Our President is not unique in his service to the extractive industries. It seems that all conservatives, or at least all Republicans serve the oil industry especially. In return they are showered with 10’s of millions of dollars for their campaigns. Their careers are aided by the straight out of the box tools that the industry provides. The tools are preconceived ideas, ready to speak talking points, and ready to submit legislation. No real effort is required. Follow the script, talk the talking points, hold the line against environmentalists and Democrats, and you get elected in the conservative states, In these states, conservative radio and Fox News populate the airwaves with nothing but conservative orthodoxy, which includes of course, the hatred of environmentalists, liberals, and anyone who lives a lifestyle that was not acceptable in the year 1950. And not too surprising, an increasingly unsubdued form of racism is allowed to sprout up like crab grass.

For me, as a liberal, I get to be essentially one of the ‘owned’ libs that brings joy to the conservative masses. But for me, as a scientist, a biologist, a lover of all living things and the beautiful planet that I grew up on, I feel alternately or sometimes simultaneously outrage, murderous anger, sadness, and hopelessness. I live in the most powerful nation in the world, and one that used to be an example of progress for the world. Now we are backward and led by leaders that revel in their backwardness, their antipathy to science, their intolerance, and even their cruelty. I do what I feel I can to try to counter this situation. But beyond voting, writing and trying to inform people however I can, and giving what tiny amounts of money I have to conservation organizations: Audubon, Sierra Club, Center for Biodiversity, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, the Student Conservation Association, Natural Resource Defense Council, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, and more. I feel powerless next to those who are declared more important because of their great wealth, in a world where I am told that I should let the market decide, not just at the level of products, but also in the political sphere. Money is speech, corporations are people, and the more money you have, the louder your speech. Thus I am left to feel relatively powerless.

But the powerlessness is rendered even more sad when I look at what is happening to the planet I grew up on, and the many small and large, unique, bizarre, wonderful, or beautiful creatures that were born here, evolved here over 100’s of millions of years, and now become extinct with most humanity not thinking about it and many not caring. What it is more sad than a creature not being able to find a mate, because all others of its kind are gone? How am I supposed to feel when migrating song birds fly hundreds, even thousands of miles and stop off at the same exact location, year after year, generation after generation, and then one day arrive to find that the food source they depended on to power their long journey was not there? Maybe they needed a plant to producie blooms just in time, but the warming climate caused the blooms to be finished by the time the bird arrived. Maybe the bird needed shelter to sleep or to protect it from the weather, but the shelter was gone in a world dominated by human development. In a world where human development translates into a perfectly ordered and completely sterile environment. In this sterile world, where insecticides that kill all insects without prejudice and persist for long, long periods are just part of ubiquitous lawn maintenance. Why would anyone care about a bug anyway? But I do. They are fellow travelers in a world that we have a tenuous grasp on at the most. Our indifference to our fellow creatures is an arrogance that has no shame.

One of the most compelling expressions of how I feel about these things and especially climate change, the biggest killer in our list of sins: Greta Thunberg’s shaming of world leaders at the recent UN Climate Action Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU). Her emotion-fueled, but eloquent, open criticism of the adults who are failing her world is an amazing and inspiring call to action. I can only hope there will be action in response.

For my part, I try each day to fight for the living world that I see being abused routinely around me. I feel I am failing my own wishes, as well as the needs of Greta Thunberg’s generation. Still each day I try. I can only hope that enough people of our world get the message, and learn for themselves the precious nature of our planet, before the cascade of destruction is irredeemable. We can change our course and maybe even reverse climate change, but only if we change our minds — now. All living things, including our own young and my friend, the verdin, depend on it.