Technically, of course, the government hasn't come out and said they're intentionally trying to destroy the planet and all life on it; but they're demonstrating with their actions that this is exactly what they're trying to do. And by refusing to provide any significant discussion on the subject, or downplay the damage, they add to the evidence they're covering it up to prevent solutions.
The evidence is overwhelming showing that if those running the government and media don't know they're causing an Ecocide, it's because they don't want to know and they're lying to themselves. If many of them do know, they're intentionally going along with the program aware they're contributing to Ecocide.
Also, the most important part of the solution, assuming they try to solve the problem, will involve conservation and not buying things people don't need; yet instead of discussing this they do the opposite and push a constantly growing economy wasting as much as it takes to enrich those that already have more money than they can ever spend.
There's no shortage of evidence showing that we're destroying the planet, faster than we repair past environmental destruction, which is, by definition, Ecocide, that will eventually destroy ourselves if we don't reverse this before it's too late. In past articles, including Is the truth for sale on commercial media? I pointed out "One good source, Which Countries Destroy the Environment the Most (and Least)? 05/01/2017 says that we started using natural resources faster than the planet could produce them back in 1970, and that it's been getting steadily worse since then."
Since then we have begun using as much natural resources as the planet can replenish in a year no later than August or September, if not sooner. Since the planet is so large, almost 8,000 miles in diameter, with almost three quarters of it under water, we've been able to do this for fifty-five years and we can probably continue doing this for decades longer, although I haven't seen any studies telling how many decades, assuming we aren't destroying the planet in other ways, which we are, and most of this destruction is in areas where the poor live, especially in the third world. But, of course a significant amount of environmental destruction has taken place in the United States, a large portion of it before most of the country realized how much damage was being done, but most of this was still done in areas where poor people lived, especially minorities.
If anything, instead of cleaning up more polluted sites than they create they're almost certainly polluting more sites than they clean up, even in the United States, and it's almost certainly much worse in the third world, although most sources indicate they're not gathering enough data to know how much worse. Wikipedia's List of Superfund sites seems to imply they may be cleaning them up faster than they create more Superfund sites; however, even if this assumption were true, they've only cleaned up 457 sites, and there are another 1,340 that need to be cleaned up, with 39 more sites proposed to be added. Some people might get the impression that at least we're moving in the right direction and that we could pick up the pace, however just by looking at the archives of Wikipedia from March 2014 it shows they only had 1,319 Superfund sites then with 375 being cleaned up, which means, assuming this data is complete and accurate, that the number of Superfund Sites is still growing, even in the United States, and sacrifice Zones in the Third World are virtually guaranteed to be worse, but few if any people are keeping accurate records of that which I can find. The EPA site Wikipedia uses as a source shows similar results, although the Wikipedia page might be slightly out of date, compared to an archived page from December 2015.
And, of course, the more you read from environmental news sites, the more you'll find that the worst pollution virtually always goes to areas were poor people live, especially minorities. One of the best researchers of this is Robert Bullard author of Dumping In Dixie: Race, Class, And Environmental Quality 1990. Another more recent source shows Superfund Site Cleanups Ignore Communities of Color 09/18/2020 which also writes "It also seems that sites whose cleanups were completed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 were likely done so for political expediency, according to a recent report from Politico."
The article he cites, The One Incredibly Green Thing Donald Trump Has Done 09/07/2020, clearly claims that Trump is much better than expected, and also indicates Obama was much worse than the media portrayed him. It also says Scott Pruitt was also much better than expected, and even made polluters pay for the clean up, which is hard to believe since he was notorious for doing the opposite, but considering how he was portrayed, he couldn't have been worse than expected. I certainly hope they're right that Trump and Pruitt are much better than expected, although like many environmentalists, I find it hard to believe. But as the first article citing this says it was partly done "for political expediency." Trump was also notorious for cutting regulations to protect the environment in both his first term and his second, and often brags about drilling more. But one other out of character actions are that he recently banned artificial food dies, or at least he allowed the scientists at the FDA and RFK Jr. do this, and there is scientific evidence to show this is a good idea according to some reports I've read; I'm not positive, but I think this is mentioned in "Doubt is Their Product" by David Michaels 2025; he definitely discusses dyes and food additives, but the dyes may be for other purposes. This article also indicates the most clean up was during Clinton's first six years, it dropped off in Bush's presidency, and even more during Obama's presidency.
Even though this article claims Trump was much better than expected, the overall implications of it is that efforts to protect the environment are being rolled back, and even if he did increase the number of Superfund Sites taken off the list, it was after a large drop the media didn't widely report during the Bush and Obama years, and the article also speculates about the possibility that he took credit for work begun under the Obama administration, which is actually more common than most people suspect. Most government activities don't abruptly change when a new administration takes office, and the results of many activities, for better or worse, often happen in the next administration, since it may take time, but the media rarely reports on this adequately.
The growth of Superfund Sites isn't the only threat to our environment, by far; another important threat is the privatization of water or other activities destroying our clean water supplies as pointed out by several good researchers, including Maude Barlow author of Blue gold" 2002 (This is the short paper available free, but she followed it up with a good longer book under copyright), "Blue covenant" 2008 and several other books on the subject. And, of course, the threat that the media actually does talk about some of the time is Climate Change, which all credible scientists claim is real, although they can't agree on the details, and admit some of it is unpredictable.
In 2018 the so-called "Squad" ran on a progressive campaign to solve many social problems, including Climate Change, and one of the studies they used to support their campaign claimed that we had no more than twelve years to act to stop climate change from being irreversible, which some people falsely claimed that it would destroy the world in twelve years. What the study actually said was that Climate Change would be irreversible in twelve years and that it would get steadily worse after that if we don't act almost immediately. We're now seven years past that and the establishment has done nothing and they hardly even discuss it in a serious manner.
The Squad abandoned their push for major changes as soon as they got into office and the first thing they did was come to Nancy Pelosi's rescue when there was a challenge to her leadership without getting anything in return, so she could block the reforms they pretended to support.
It's been decades since the Democratic Party did more to protect the environment than they did to create propaganda enabling them to pretend to protect the environment without actually doing it. The only question is whether they did a good job pretending to defend the environment without actually doing it since at least the Clinton Administration, and often they would have done a terrible job pretending to defend the environment, except for the fact that traditional media minimized the coverage of their blunders, including the infamous "Summers Memo" which most people forgot, and traditional media never mentions.
The Summers Memo only got a modest amount of attention from traditional media when it happened, even though I paid close attention to mainstream media at that time I never heard about it until over ten years late. But it got much more attention in alternative media outlets and non-fiction books, especially those concerned about the environment. He infamously wrote
"The measurements of the costs of health impairing pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity and mortality. From this point of view a given amount of health impairing pollution should be done in the country with the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages. I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that. ..... I've always though that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly UNDER-polluted. ..... The concern over ..... prostrate cancer is obviously going to be much higher in a country where people survive to get prostrate cancer"
The complete Memo was published here Summers' Memo at Whirled Bank 12/12/1991 The clear implication is that he thinks that corporations should be allowed to profit by polluting those with the least amount of political power; this was an internal memo which wasn't supposed to be leaked to the public for obvious reasons. When he was nominated for Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in 1993 many of the Democrats that were supposedly among the most progressive and most interested in protecting the environment bent over backwards to praise him during his hearing, even though even at that time there was an enormous amount of evidence showing he would be a disaster, as he turned out to be, but traditional media hardly covered this hearing so few knew about it.
If you read US Senate hearing for Summers' nomination to Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs in 1993 PDF you'll find that they treated the Memo as a joke and accepted the false claim that it was a mistake, even though he acted on it as if it was serious, and the only reason they had to address it at all was because it was leaked to the public. Many people would be justified to wonder how many other brazen comments about abusing the poor are made in private that weren't leaked. The hearing began when Senators Max Baucus, Bill Bradley, and Representative Joseph Kennedy II talk about how great and admirable Lawrence Summers is, falsely claiming he would be good for helping the Third World, before bringing the Memo up.
When the Memo finally came up Summers says “When I make a mistake, I make a big one,” and Mayor La Guardia said, “You don’t make many, but when you make one, it’s a beauty.” Then Summers goes on to say “No sane person favors dumping toxic waste near where anybody lives or thinks that places could be better off with more toxic waste;” however Lawrence Summers and many other wealthy economists and businessmen demonstrated, both before and after the Memo and this hearing, that they would dump toxic waste in areas where poor people live, and that's what was clearly said or implied in the Memo showing he understood that and intended it. At one point someone came to Summers defense by claiming he was using reverse psychology trying to draw attention to this problem so he could do the opposite, and protect the environment, but his actions never indicated he wanted to do this, instead his actions clealy indicated he meant it, and was only sorry that the memo leaked out. Apparently, at times, he or his allies claimed it was a forgery or doctored, but at other times, like his hearing, he clearly seems to admit he signed it, and, as I said, his actions indicate he meant it.
The Whirled Bank, which is no longer online, but still available on the Internet Archive, which posted the Memo at Summers' Memo at Whirled Bank 12/12/1991 also reported the following:
After the memo became public in February 1992, Brazil's then-Secretary of the Environment Jose Lutzenburger wrote back to Summers: "Your reasoning is perfectly logical but totally insane... Your thoughts [provide] a concrete example of the unbelievable alienation, reductionist thinking, social ruthlessness and the arrogant ignorance of many conventional 'economists' concerning the nature of the world we live in... If the World Bank keeps you as vice president it will lose all credibility. To me it would confirm what I often said... the best thing that could happen would be for the Bank to disappear." Sadly, Mr. Lutzenburger was fired shortly after writing this letter.
Mr. Summers, on the other hand, was appointed the U.S. Treasury Secretary on July 2nd, 1999, and served through the remainder of the Clinton Administration. Afterwards, he was named president of Harvard University.
This is part of a much bigger pattern of behavior, where those serving the interests of the wealthy keep getting jobs in government over and over again, and those serving the public rarely getting jobs and are often fired much quicker. Lawrence Summers has an incredibly long and horrible record, often exposed by alternative media like Larry Summers Is Not Your Friend 07/02/2020 yet he keeps coming back and people like Jose Lutzenburger virtually never work in our government, and when they get jobs in other governments they're at risk of losing them if they speak out against the wealthy who are betraying the majority in favor of the majority. Even his own Wikipedia page Wikipedia: Lawrence Summers shows he was opposed to protection of the environment, which says, "Summers was a leading voice within the Clinton Administration arguing against American leadership in greenhouse gas reductions and against US participation in the Kyoto Protocol, according to internal documents made public in 2009,[24]" but there was evidence of his views in 1991, when his Memo leaked and much more now, yet the Democratic establishment is constantly bringing him back into new governments, like Biden's, Obama's and presumably the next Democratic administration, if he's still alive and healthy.
Lawrence Summer's wasn't the only Democratic official that pretended to protect the environment while doing the opposite, the entire establishment is like that, including Gina McCarthy, former head of the EPA for Obama and was widely criticized in the article I cited above claiming Trump was better than expected, or any other head of the EPA from either parties, although Democrats do a better job pretending to try to defend the environment, and the same goes for Biden's new position for political purposes, the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, which was John Kerry for most of his term, and his record in that position clearly indicates he did the opposite of what they claimed, he was replaced by John Podesta, who isn't expected to be much if any better, before Trump declined to full the position again.
John Kerry made some of the most absurd claims about protecting the environment and addressing Climate Change when he Rushed to defense of "climate activist leaders" who use private jets 03/27/2023 and he claimed "Global leaders who fly private 'are working harder than most people' to solve climate change," even though they use much more carbon than the vast majority of the public and they're doing little or nothing to encourage conservation for the rest of us, often doing the opposite. We often hear hypocritical claims about how we should stop using plastic straws or bags, which may be a small part of the solution, but isn't nearly as important as major changes in our economic system or massive waste by wealthy people like John Kerry and many of his wealthy allies who also pretend to be concerned about environmental destruction
He also demonstrated he's far more concerned with the legal protection of the rich than the most effective ways to protect the environment and stop Climate Change when Kerry rejects “Climate Reparations” but praises "Loss and Damage Fund." 07/14/2023 This article describes how Brian Mast asks if he would “planning to commit America to climate reparations” and Kerry interrupted him saying “No. Under no circumstances.” as if it was a joke and added that he should add an exclamation point, which both Kerry and Mast laughed about. Apparently he had no objection to donating to a "Loss and Damage Fund," which presumably doesn't involve any admission of guilt for destroying the environment, despite a mind-boggling amount of evidence showing advanced countries are overwhelmingly responsible for massive environmental destruction, including that causing Climate Change. No one in the political establishment seems remotely interested in figuring out what is true and how to protect the environment based on accurate facts, instead they use their ideological beliefs to make important decisions.
The same goes for many other subjects, where wealthy elites also replace good science and research with their false ideological beliefs, and they use their control of the media to repeat their claim over and over again, without allowing good academics access to traditional media so they can expose their lies, making these false claims seem true. One of the most brazen examples of this is the military and constantly fighting wars based on lies, including the current wars in Ukraine, Gaza and other parts of the Middle East. Not only do Wars based on lies do massive amounts of damage to local areas but tehy keep the majority of the public distracted from other environmental problems that may turn out to be as damaging or much worse than local Wars. And, like environmental damage, the rich are the ones making decisions while the poor pay the price for them.
Of course, I'm not arguing that we should ignore the wars based on lies so we can focus on protecting the environment, especially since the one in Gaza also includes a genocide, and there are many other wars around the world not getting enough attention; instead we have to address all of them, even if few of us can keep track of them all. I covered both in at least a couple of my previous articles, Who's Next After Gaza? Another War & Ecocide? and Apocalypse Now? What Other Explanation For Cult Control? There's much more where that came from, I can only mention a sample in a relatively short article, even long books can't cover all the damage, but one of the most brazen examples is Vieques Island in Puerto Rico as indicated in this article ‘I thought they’d kill us’: how the US navy devastated a tiny Puerto Rican island 05/01/2023 and one of the best books about it is Jon Mitchell "Poisoning the Pacific: The US military's Secret Dumping of Plutonium, Chemical Weapons, and Agent Orange 2020 which writes about massive amounts of pollution going back decades, including some pollution from the Second World War, the Korean War and Vietnam. The amount of massive pollution in Vietnam is actually much worse than even a good author like Jon Mitchell can cover in one book, but he covers a significant portion of it.
Other examples include after the Iraq War when they couldn't find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq they did find them buried in Alabama, from our own military, poisoning the soil and water of local residents, among the worst polluters in Cancer Alley. The military does far more to pollute the public than to protect it, especially when you consider wars based on lies incite retaliation. One of the biggest aspect of military pollution many researchers focus on is their carbon pollution as indicated in this article, US Military Pollution: The World’s Biggest Climate Change Enabler? 11/12/2021, and several others below, but they cause much more pollution than that, including what was found in Vieques, Alabama and many other sites near military bases around the world, and they're often not required to disclose it because they claim "security" is more important, even though the environmental damage is worse than external threats. This is demonstrated in this article Warfare’s Climate Emissions Are Huge but Uncounted 06/01/2024 and this one Military Exemptions: How One of the World’s Largest Polluters Gets a Free Pass 07/22/2023 among many others.
Numerous good authors far more credible than mainstream politicians catering to business interests are far more concerned about protecting the planet from destruction, and they recognize that if we don't protect the environment the economy will be destroyed anyway, so we need a sustainable economy, or what some people have called a "Steady State Economy," which is concerned with protecting the planet and the quality of life for all, not just the rich, instead of a constantly growing economy that our current system is based on that increases the wealth of a small fraction of the public, temporarily, while destroying the quality of life and the environment for the majority. A couple of the best researcher promoting this are Bill McKibben author of Deep Economy 2007 (Free first Chapter) and Naomi Klein author of "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate" 2014 (Free book online)
When it comes to all the details, there's much more to research including the most effective solutions, which are very complicated and have to be addressed. The most obvious part of solutions can be done by anyone by changing their own behavior, and stop buying things they don't need and conserving as much as possible. Clean energy and recycling are also important, but tehy have limits, for example most plastics can't be recycled as efficiently as deceptive ads claim, and lithium for batteries cause additional damage which offsets some of the clean energy it helps prevent. This is often pointed out by many conservatives that are trying to convince us that clean energy does more harm than good, but these conservatives aren't concerned with the greater damage done by fossil fuels; we need to address the legitimate concerns, not the exaggerations. This list of 100+ WAYS TO HEAL THE PLANET is a good start, and, as I said, the most important factor throughout the list is conservation, either eliminating products and services we don't need or using the least damaging products that we don need.
Although many details of what causes the problem and how to prevent it are complicated and require a lot of research and planning summing it up is quick as this environmental cartoon demonstrates "Yes the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders," which is an accurate business plan for our entire political establishment, traditional media and Wall Street, whether they admit it or not.
The following are some additional sources on the subject, including some free books, and there's, of course, much more where that came from:
'Ecocide' movement pushes for a new international crime: Environmental destruction 04/07/2021 A growing number of world leaders advocate making ecocide a crime before the International Criminal Court, to serve as a “moral line” for the planet. (Cover Photo)
Sacrifice Zones Mapping Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution
Poison in the Air 11/02/2021 The EPA allows polluters to turn neighborhoods into “sacrifice zones” where residents breathe carcinogens. ProPublica reveals where these places are in a first-of-its-kind map and data analysis.
The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution in the U.S. Updated 08/28/2023
UN report names the world’s most polluted places 03/13/2022 Pollution kills more people than all wars, murders and other forms of violence combined
Sacrifice Zones 50 of the most polluted places on Earth
Are sacrifice zones becoming more common? Yes, there is evidence suggesting that sacrifice zones are becoming more common, particularly in areas experiencing heavy industry, mining, and climate-related environmental changes. Additionally, the emergence of "green sacrifice zones" linked to the energy transition further suggests a growing concern about the impacts of development.
Revealed: the 20 firms behind a third of all carbon emissions 10/09/2019
The 20 most polluting companies in the world 10/09/2019
Top 10 Most Polluting Industries in the World (2025) 02/06/2024
US Military Pollution: The World’s Biggest Climate Change Enabler? 11/12/2021
Who Were the Worst Climate Polluters in the US in 2021? 11/21/2022
The world’s biggest polluters are killing us – they should pay for it 11/11/2024
Richest 1% emit as much planet-heating pollution as two-thirds of humanity 11/20/2023
‘Elephant in the room’: The US military’s devastating carbon footprint 12/12/2023 The US military emits more than entire industrialized nations like Portugal and Denmark, yet evades scrutiny.
Why the Pentagon Is the World’s Biggest Single Greenhouse Gas Emitter 10/07/2022 A new book explains how the US military came to consume more fossil fuels than most countries—and what we can do about it.
The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions by Neta C. Crawford 2022
The defense sector is among the world’s biggest polluters. But it’s invested in getting greener 08/12/2024 Greenwashing? Are they "investing in getting greener" by ending wars based on lies or slashing their emissions?
Warfare’s Climate Emissions Are Huge but Uncounted 06/01/2024 Nations aren't required to report their military climate pollution under the Paris Agreement. Experts say that should change.
The US military-industrial complex pollutes more than 171 countries 12/07/2021
Military Emissions Are Too Big to Keep Ignoring 01/17/2024
The U.S. Military Emits More Carbon Dioxide Into the Atmosphere Than Entire Countries Like Denmark or Portugal 01/18/2022 But no one knows exactly how much, because the Pentagon’s reporting is spotty. A Humvee gets between four and eight miles per gallon; an F-35 requires 2.37 gallons per mile.
The Hidden Threat: How War Pollutes Our Planet 08/08/2025
US military 'one of the biggest polluters in the Middle East' 11/06/2021 US military emissions are playing a significant and under-reported role in climate change, say activists
Pollution From World’s Militaries in Spotlight at UN Summit 10/17/2024 Should international climate pacts require militaries to comprehensively report the amount of greenhouse gases they release into the atmosphere?
Military Organizations Produce Significant Amounts of Unreported Greenhouse Gases 01/18/2022
Military Exemptions: How One of the World’s Largest Polluters Gets a Free Pass 07/22/2023 Despite pledging to be more climate-friendly, militaries don’t have to report on their emissions, raising questions about the need for comprehensive transparency and genuine efforts by the military in tackling climate change.
NATO Military Among World’s Largest Polluters 07/09/2024
#68 Military Pollution
The media are complacent while the world burns 04/22/2019
(Video) Steven Donziger: BREAKING: In a deeply unfair trial, the Energy Transfer pipeline company won a $700m verdict against Greenpeace today in North Dakota over phantom “damages” from the Standing Rock protests. This is an attack on Indigenous peoples, the climate movement, and the right to protest.⤵️ 03/19/2025
(Video) Lee Camp [Redacted]: 99.9% of scientific articles on climate change SAY WHAT?! 04/05/2025
What is a sacrifice zone? 04/16/2021 Welcome to the Massachusetts Clean Heat, Clean Air campaign educational building block series! This series was created by Mothers Out Front members to share key concepts and terms from our campaign for healthy homes & communities. These building blocks are intended to be short, easy learning opportunities for busy advocates.
Sacrifice Zones—a Personal and Cultural Perspective 12/20/2024 Norma Jean Schue Kreilein, MD, FAAP .... The Mississippi River Chemical Corridor, between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, accounts for 25% of the petrochemical production in the United States. It is a well-known sacrifice zone, but southwest Indiana and the Houston Ship Channel are less publicized examples.
Millions suffering in deadly pollution ‘sacrifice zones’, warns UN expert 03/10/2022 Businesses blamed for rise of toxic hotspots hitting poor communities hardest. .... “There are sacrifice zones all over the world, in every region: in the north, in the south, in the east, in the west, in rich countries, in poor countries,” David Boyd told the Guardian.
“Sacrifice Zones” in the Green Energy Economy: Toward an Environmental Justice Framework 2017 The environmental justice movement validates the grassroots struggles of residents of places which Steve Lerner refers to as “sacrifice zones”: low-income and racialized communities shouldering more than their fair share of environmental harms related to pollution, contamination, toxic waste, and heavy industry.
In Chile, a ‘sacrifice zone’ waits on a better future 09/20/2024 The city of Huasco has suffered in the shadow of the country’s largest coal-fired power complex. As it faces closure or conversion, doubts remain over the road ahead. ..... It is because of the high levels of pollution from these industries that Huasco has come to be considered one of Chile’s “sacrifice zones”, a term used for areas of concentrated industrial activity, where environmental harms have often brought poor health and economic impacts for local residents.
U.S. “Sacrifice Zones” – Are you Living in One? 12/06/2021 ProPublica’s work reveals that many of these “Sacrifice Zones” can be found in the Texas and Louisiana petrochemical corridor known as “Cancer Alley.” However, these Zones can be found throughout the country, including in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee and, as anyone who has grown up in the Ohio Valley would likely guess, West Virginia. Meanwhile, Americans remain largely in the dark about these threats until it is far too late, often mistakenly trusting their government to offer the most basic protection for human life.
SACRIFICE ZONES: Are some ZIP Codes too toxic to live in? July 2020 Visualizing the Environmental Justice Impacts of Industrial Pollution in Texas
The World Overlooked: Integrating Science and Art Spring 2019 After years of being polluted by harmful chemicals these people stand up and these areas then become sacrifice zones (Lerner Sacrifice Zones ). These areas are polluted because they are less important and less valuable than other lands (Natalie Deep Water Horizon). Some of the most famous examples of sacrifice zones are Love Canal, Three Mile Island, and the Gulf of Mexico. For example, the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico near the mouth of the Mississippi is a dead zone or a sacrifice zone. Before the spill, it was a dead zone because the enormous amounts of fertilizers and other harmful chemicals that have been dumped into the Gulf from the river. These people and lands are taken advantage of because they are low income communities that do not have the power to stand up and fight for justice. These lands and communities are forever changed just for other people to make money.
Wikipedia: Chernobyl exclusion zone
Wikipedia: Three Mile Island accident Yes, Three Mile Island Unit 2's containment building is still radioactive, but the radioactive releases from the 1979 accident had negligible effects on the health of individuals or the environment, and the levels are not believed to be dangerous. This isn't from the Wiki page but shows up when Googling "Is Three Mile Island still radioactive?"
Is Three Mile Island Still Radioactive and Is It Operating Today? 05/04/2022 Yes, technically Three Mile Island is still radioactive today but its levels of radiation are not believed to be dangerous to humans or nature, according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Although, as seen in Meltdown: Three Mile Island, this has been disputed by local civilians and former employees who worked at the plant who speak of adverse health effects caused by the accident to this day.
PG&E cleanup in Hinkley drags on decades after landmark lawsuit 12/03/2024 Hinkley, California, the town made famous by Erin Brockovich, remains plagued by toxic chromium-6 contamination decades after its water crisis gained national attention. Chromium-6 levels in Hinkley’s groundwater remain dangerously high, with some wells testing at 2,500 times the state’s safety standard. PG&E’s cleanup, ongoing since the 1990s, has removed 89% of the contaminant but faces criticism for slow progress and a push for relaxed regulatory goals. The contamination has left Hinkley largely depopulated, with many residents experiencing serious health issues and others abandoning their homes.
The Ugly Truth: Mass. Superfund Sites Still Toxic Nearly 30 Years And More Than $1B Later 05/22/2011 In all his years as an attorney, Jan Schlichtmann has had few lawsuits so profoundly affect him as a 1982 case involving eight Woburn families and a public water supply contaminated by toxic chemicals. Profiled in numerous newspaper, television and radio accounts along with the movie “A Civil Action” starring John Travolta, the lawsuit became a watershed event in environmental politics for Massachusetts and the nation.
Port Arthur, Texas: American Sacrifice Zone 11/13/2014
The Titans of Plastic: Pennsylvania Becomes the Newest Sacrifice Zone for America’s Plastic Addiction. 09/15/2022
Sacrifice Zone: Eagle Ford Shale 10/11/2023
“Ohio has already been designated as the sacrifice zone for fracking” 04/26/2017
Life in the Sacrifice Zone: A Farmer and Artist from Fracking Country Brings His Sculptures South 07/02/2024
Previous Superfund Remedial Annual Accomplishments
Superfund Site Cleanups Ignore Communities of Color 09/18/2020 It also seems that sites whose cleanups were completed in 2017, 2018, and 2019 were likely done so for political expediency, according to a recent report from Politico.
The One Incredibly Green Thing Donald Trump Has Done 09/07/2020 At the time, I was covering the EPA’s aggressive deregulatory efforts for Outside magazine, and the environmentalists I interviewed scoffed at the Superfund proclamation. The Trump administration would dedicate itself to remediating the most polluted parts of the country, they said, while simultaneously rolling back regulations designed to stanch pollution? The movement collectively rolled their eyes and went back to the dreary work of suing the agency to halt rule changes and scraping government websites for climate data before it could be deleted.
Still, no one denied that the aging Superfund program was in trouble. The billion-dollar cleanup program, birthed by the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, gives the EPA enormous power to compel polluters to clean up their own messes. Early in its life, it was touted as the most potent environmental rule anywhere. But decades of systemic underfunding and neglect have slowly neutered Superfund. In the late 90s, during President Bill Clinton’s second term, the EPA averaged 87 completed cleanups per year; over the first six years of the George W. Bush administration, the number dipped to 40; Obama’s first year in office saw 20 completed clean ups and in 2014 the number dived to a piddly eight. By the tail-end of the Obama years there were still 1,300-plus sites on the Superfund National Priorities List—the worst of the worst—and some 53 million people living within three miles of one. The program “was neglected in the Obama administration,” Brett Hartl, the Center for Biological Diversity’s government affairs director, told me. “Not maliciously, but neglected.”
EPA’s Superfund Program Turns 44 This Year: It’s Making a Difference 04/22/2024
“We’re Dying Here” 01/25/2024 The Fight for Life in a Louisiana Fossil Fuel Sacrifice Zone
Green Sacrifice Zones, or Why a Green New Deal Cannot Ignore the Cost Shifts of Just Transitions 11/20/2020
Are they cleaning up superfund sites in areas with white or wealthy people, not poor people of color? No, studies indicate that Superfund site cleanups do not prioritize areas with white or wealthy populations over those with poor people of color. In fact, research suggests a historical bias against cleaning up sites in black, urban neighborhoods. However, after 1994, when environmental justice became a formal policy concern, there's evidence that cleanups are now prioritized in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. // This answer contradicts claims from numerous sources that say minorities are less likely to have polution cleaned up.
Big Oil Propaganda: From advertorials to Instagram | The Listening Pos 09/08/2022
Special Delivery - Energy Transfer Full Commercial, Natural Gas and Oil Used In A Hospital 04/09/2023
Fact-Checking Big Oil's Ad on a World Without Fossil Fuels 06/29/2023
The forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing 11/18/2021
Big Oil Launches Propaganda Campaign to Thwart US Energy Transition 01/12/2024
Life Runs On Energy, Connected by Oil and Natural Gas, Energy Transfer TV Commercial 11/24/2021
Big Oil spent $10 million on Facebook ads last year — to sell what, exactly? 08/05/2021 A report found that the ads peaked when politicians were poised to act on climate.
Mainstream Media Aiding And Abetting Ecocide In Progress
US Senate hearing for Summers' nomination to Secretary of the Treasury in 1993 PDF p.4 good for the third world p.12 “When I make a mistake, I make a big one.” Mayor La Guardia said, “You don’t make many, but when you make one, it’s a beauty.”
Wikipedia: Lawrence Summers Summers was a leading voice within the Clinton Administration arguing against American leadership in greenhouse gas reductions and against US participation in the Kyoto Protocol, according to internal documents made public in 2009.[24]
Why it's cheaper to poison the poor 02/01/1992
Summers' Memo at Whirled Bank 12/12/1991
Larry Summers Is Not Your Friend 07/02/2020 Recent reports indicate that Larry Summers is advising Joe Biden’s campaign. This is not good, because Larry Summers is very bad: his entire career has been spent protecting the wealthy few at the expense of the many.
Fed-Up with Larry Summers 08/13/2013
A Larry Summers Comeback Would Threaten Climate Justice 04/20/2020
Larry Summers’ War Against the Earth 06/15/1999
8 Times Elites Took Private Jet Trips…And Then Chastised You For Climate Change 09/14/2022 Wow, the millionaire and billionaire moguls are really fighting climate change while they glamorously globe-trot via private jets for both major events and mundane travel needs! When John Kerry Was Named Presidential Climate Envoy Despite His Private Jet Habits
Global elites took 150+ private jets to fight climate change in Davos 01/23/2023 Private jet travel is by far the most carbon-intensive mode of transportation. They are about 10 times more carbon-intensive than commercial planes and 50 times more carbon-intensive than trains, according to a 2021 report from the group Transport & Environment.
John Kerry, Biden’s Climate Czar, Sells His Private Jet After Criticism 02/15/2023 Sold to a hedge fund that specializes in renewable energy and clean technology investments. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry’s family quietly sold their private jet to a New York-based hedge fund following intense criticism of the plane’s carbon footprint in light of Kerry’s work fighting global warming.
‘Climate czar’ John Kerry can’t answer a question about his own staff — let alone his private jet 07/13/2023
Climate Envoy John Kerry Pressed on Private Jet Ownership, Use 07/13/2023
John Kerry's family private jet emitted over 300 metric tons of carbon since Biden took office 07/19/2022 Special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry arrived in Berlin, Germany on Tuesday for the Petersberg Climate Dialogue
John Kerry rushes to defense of climate activist leaders who use private jets 03/27/2023 Global leaders who fly private 'are working harder than most people' to solve climate change, John Kerry says
Kerry rejects “climate reparations” but praises loss and damage fund 07/14/2023
US 'under no circumstances' will pay climate reparations, Kerry says 07/13/2023
Poisonous Profit 03/05/2025 Lead Waste Mining and Children’s Right to a Healthy Environment in Kabwe, Zambia
Sacrifice Zones 101
Desert or garden? Energy sacrifice zones, territorial affordances and competing visions for post-coal landscapes: The case of the Czechoslovak Army Mine Jan. 2025
The Gulf Coast is home to one of the last healthy coral reefs. It’s surrounded by oil. 05/09/2024
Sacrifice zones: the places being destroyed by our toxic system – and the dangerous ‘climate solutions’ that could make them worse 04/19/2021 2021 hasn’t been great for climate news in the UK so far. Boris Johnson seems to have conveniently forgotten that Parliament declared a climate emergency less than two years ago – kicking off this year by initially refusing to halt plans for a new £165m coal mine in Cumbria, backing a cut in air passenger duty on domestic flights, freezing fuel duty yet again, investing £27 billion in a roads programme, and cutting the majority of the £1.5 billion promised for the flagship home energy efficiency programme.
(Video) The Sacrifice Zone: Zambia's most polluted town | People & Power Documentary 03/14/2024
Madagascar and the New Frontiers of Sacrifice Zones 04/19/2023
Let's Talk about Sacrifice Zones 05/13/2021
Sacrifice Zones—a Personal and Cultural Perspective 12/20/2024
Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States June 2011 Reviewed by: Robert D Bullard Check for free copy
Steve Lerner Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States 2010
‘The Sacrifice Zone': Myanmar bears cost of green energy 08/09/2022
Beneath the Green: A Critical Look at the Environmental and Human Costs of Industrial Cobalt Mining in DRC 03/09/2024
Most polluted countries in the world: 2022 ranking 10/28/2024 China is worst followed by the United States and India; but China and India produce a lot of polution to export products to the United States.
Best and worst countries by different environmental indicators 06/15/2022 (Mostly pre-COVID data) Many years ago, I compiled seven different national-level measures of environmental degradation to show that countries with the largest human populations, and hence, the largest economies, had done the most environmental damage — not only to their own resources, but to the world’s in general. ..... Using this absolute metric, the countries with the greatest overall damage are Brazil (largely due to the destruction of the Amazon and its other forests), the USA (for its greenhouse-gas emissions and conversion of its prairies to farmland), and China (for its water pollution, deforestation, and carbon emissions). On the flip side, this means that the smallest countries with the fewest people are ranked ‘better’ because of their lower absolute contribution to the world’s total environmental damage.
As climate chaos accelerates, which countries are polluting the most? 01/02/2024 Once again, China is worst followed by the United States and India; but China and India produce a lot of pollution to export products to the United States.
Wikipedia: List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions
Wikipedia: List of countries by air pollution
Which countries are the world’s biggest carbon polluters? 05/17/2021
The 10 Best (and Worst) Countries for Environmental Prosperity 01/12/2017 The United States isn't listed in the 10 best or worst. This does not take into consideration that third world countries export products to developed countries, but keep the pollution. This means that some from the best ten, and the United States, are largely responsible for pollution in third world countries, including the ten worst.
2018-2024 World's most polluted countries & regions
Which countries are most threatened by and vulnerable to climate change? 2019? Ten worst
The Best and Worst Countries for Environmental Democracy 05/20/2015 The United States ranks 4th best, indicating it doesn't take into consideration the pollution caused in other parts of the world by our imports.
10 countries at risk of climate disaster 03/20/2023
15 Countries With The Worst Environmental Sustainability CPIA Ratings
The 8 Countries Most Affected by Climate Change 04/21/2023
10 Worst Countries for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Since 1990 11/09/2021
The most and least environmentally friendly countries 12/13/2024
Victims of Vietnam’s Formosa Toxic Spill Deserve Justice 05/14/2024 Government Represses Peaceful Protests, Prosecutes Environmental Activists. In April 2016, Vietnam experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in its history when Formosa Ha Tinh Steel, a subsidiary of the Taiwan-based Formosa Plastics Group, discharged toxic chemical waste off the coast of Ha Tinh province, killing millions of fish and destroying the livelihoods of fishing communities.
What to Know About Vietnam’s Persistent Crackdown on Environmentalists 09/21/2023
China and Vietnam cause most damage to South China Sea’s corals: report 02/12/2025 The report, which also lists the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan, says the claimants’ activities have caused ‘irreparable’ damage
Vietnam pushes green vehicles as air pollution ranks among Asia's worst 03/29/2025
Viet Nam's heavy air pollution needs stronger action 06/05/2024
Hanoi's air quality ranked second-worst globally by IQAir on Friday 11/01/2024
ENMOD: Dead Letter or Environmental Lifeline? 03/18/2025
Are We at War with the Environment? 02/14/2025
Managing the environmental impacts of war: What can be learned from conflict-vulnerable communities? 06/01/2024
Lasting environmental and health impacts of U.S. chemical warfare in Southeast Asia – 50 years on 11/11/2021
A ‘Silent Victim’: How Nature Becomes a Casualty of War 04/13/2022
The Invention of Ecocide: Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think About the Environment 2011 by David Zierler
The Invention of Ecocide: Agent Orange, Vietnam, and the Scientists Who Changed the Way We Think About the Environment 2011 by David Zierler Chapter One Introduction
Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam 2018 by David Andrew Biggs
Footprints of War: Militarized Landscapes in Vietnam 2018 by David Andrew Biggs Dokumen.pub
Laurel Sefton MacDowell (editor) Nuclear Portraits: Communities, the Environment, and Public Policy 2018
The History, Use, Disposition and Environmental Fate of Agent Orange 2009 by Alvin Lee Young
War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age Charles Closmann 2009
The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions by Neta C. Crawford 2022
War and the Environment: Military Destruction in the Modern Age Charles Closmann 2009 Dokumen.pub
Naomi Klein "This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate" 2014
Scientists on Survival: Personal Stories of Climate Action 2025 by Scientists for XR
Climate Changed: a personal journey through the science by Philippe Squarzoni, 2014
The Survival of Civilization - John D. Hamaker 2009
Frank Dunnivant and Kari Norgaard "Environmental Success Stories: Solving Major Ecological Problems and Confronting Climate Change" 2017
Jason Smerdon "Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future" 2018
Joshua P. Howe (editor) "Making Climate Change History: Documents from Global Warming's Past" 2017
Kirstin Dow and Thomas E. Downing "The Atlas of Climate Change: Mapping the World's Greatest Challenge" 2016
Robert Henson "The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change [2 ed.]" 2019
Graciela Chichilnisky and Peter Bal "Reversing Climate Change: How Carbon Removals Can Resolve Climate Change and Fix the Economy" 2020
Shelley Streeby "Imagining the Future of Climate Change: World-Making through Science Fiction and Activism" 2017
Danny Chivers "No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change : The Science, The Solutions, The Way Forward" 2011
Suhaib A. Bandh (editor) "Climate Change: The Social and Scientific Construct" 2022
Robert De Saro "A Crisis like No Other: Understanding and Defeating Global Warming" 2023
Ronald C. Kramer and Rob White Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes 2020
Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement 2000
John Claborn Civil Rights and the Environment in African-American Literature, 1895–1941 2017
Dorceta Taylor Toxic Communities: Environmental Racism, Industrial Pollution, and Residential Mobility 2014
Paul C. Rosier (editor) Environmental Justice in North America (Themes in Environmental History) [1 ed.] 2023
Christopher Schlottmann (editor) Environment and Society: A Reader 2017
Robert D. Bullard Growing Smarter : Achieving Livable Communities, Environmental Justice, and Regional Equity [1 ed.] 2007
Robert D. Bullard (editor) Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices From the Grassroots 1993
David E. Camacho (editor) Environmental Injustices, Political Struggles: Race, Class and the Environment 1998
Unequal protection : environmental justice and communities of color by Robert D. Bullard, 1994
Unequal Environmental Protection: Incorporating Environmental Justice in Decision Making" by Robert D. Bullard 1994
