Environmental policy is security policy
As climate change and habitat destruction increase, arable land continues to shrink. As we use more and more natural resources to harvest less and less (fracking, for instance), we create a system of increasing scarcity but poisoning things like vital aquifers, and using up fresh water.
We've got a bit over seven and a half billion people in the world, and many of them are living in areas that are rapidly becoming non-arable. Farming will be impossible because there will not be sufficient fresh water to irrigate. People already living at the margins will be pushed further towards already overcrowded and overstretched communities, and there will be conflict. We are going to see wars over water and arable land within 100 years.
Meanwhile we're fishing the oceans empty, causing species to go extinct at a rate rarely seen, and still growing growing growing. We're still burning fossil fuels, making plastic (and throwing it in the ocean), burning rainforests to make room for cattle. It's all accelerating, the brakes have long since given way, there's no stopping it. Permafrost in Siberia and Northern Canada is melting releasing long-held methane and other greenhouse gases, causing a potential runaway greenhouse effect. It's too late to stop it, but we've got to take our foot off of the gas pedal.
I don't expect it to happen, just wishful thinking.
Meanwhile, this is Trump's pick for a top environmental advisor:
Link to tweet
And all I can think about is this scene from The Newsroom:
