The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉
Main Topic: Trump’s Anti-Woke Attack on Climate Justice
Dear Diary. I am going on record to state that Donald Trump is a racist, but I along with many others have known this for decades. This conclusion is not much of a leap considering Trump’s attack on President Obama, his statements on the Central Park Five, or his “there are good people on both sides” statement after the Charlottesville incident. Back in 1989 Trump wanted five black men to be excited that were later exonerated by the justice system.
Fast forward to the present, Trump’s racism permeates through his executive orders to end climate justice. The Biden Administration and others have set up programs to aid mostly poor black neighborhoods near refineries and other polluting facilities through regulation. Trump is trying to kill anti-pollution measures in a racist manor.
Here are more details from Common Dreams:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-environmental-justice-offices
The Environmental Protection Agency flag flies outside the EPA headquarters in Washington on Thursday, February 6, 2025. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
‘A Disgrace’: Trump Admin Targets Multiple Environmental Justice Offices
“Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors,” said one environmentalist.
Feb 06, 2025
The Trump administration plans to place over 100 workers who are employed with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights on administrative leave, according to Wednesday reporting from The Wall Street Journal, which cited unnamed sources.
Other outlets have since reported on the development, including The Washington Post, which wrote Thursday that Trump appointees at the EPA told staff that they plan to close the office.
This move targeting the EPA, one the latest efforts by the Trump administration to drastically reshape federal agencies, was panned by multiple environmental organizations, who accused the White House of turning its back on vulnerable communities.
“The EPA’s environmental justice office was created to challenge the historic pattern of pollution disproportionately affecting low-income communities and communities of color,” said Chitra Kumar, managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Kumar was also formerly an official with the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
“Once again, the Trump administration is sidelining both science and the nation’s most overburdened people,” she added.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also reportedly working to “remake” the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, which defends the U.S. government’s environmental actions in court and brings cases against individuals who violate federal environmental law. The Washington Post reported that Trump appointees at the Department of Justice said they plan to fire roughly 20 workers at the division, “among other actions that have sent morale there plummeting.”
The Office of Environmental Justice within the division has already “been eliminated,” and the five people working in that office have already been put on administrative leave, according to the outlet.
And in one of her first acts as U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi undid a Biden-era directive ordering the Department of Justice to emphasize enforcement of environmental laws in disadvantaged and low-income communities.
Trump administration attacks on what the White House deems “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) initiatives were expected. On his first day in office, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order mandating the end of all federal DEI programs, goals, mandates, and plans. The order also specifically called for the termination, “to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions.”
“By shuttering these offices, Donald Trump has decided that we do not deserve clean air or water, and our right to a livable and safe planet comes second to further enriching his fossil fuel friends and donors,” said Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous in a Thursday statement. “Trump has been on the job for less than a month, but every single day he is making our communities less safe.”
Like Kumar at the Union of Concerned Scientists, senior VP of environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council Matthew Tejada (also an alum of the EPA’s environmental justice office) said that the country’s most vulnerable communities would lose out.
“Shuttering the environmental justice office [at the EPA] will mean more toxic contaminants, dangerous air, and unsafe water in communities across the nation that have been most harmed by pollution in the past,” said Tejada. “Trump EPA is turning its back on those who need a cleaner environment more than anyone. This is a disgrace.”
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Eloise Goldsmith is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Here are more “ETs” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:
Here is some new January 2025 climatology (More reports are archived on prior daily February 2025 posts.):
Here is More Climate News from Tuesday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)