Make Smog Great Again: Trump puts pollution profits over people

In 1976, the film Network premiered, featuring one of the most iconic scenes in film history. Howard Beale, played by Peter Finch, unleashes a rant that would be right at home in the present day: 

“We know things are bad—worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms.’” 

He was right, then and now. And while Beale was raving against the media’s pursuit of sensationalism over journalistic integrity, we see the same thing happening today. Things are indeed bad, to put it mildly, and we do not have the luxury of hiding away in our living rooms. 

In early January of this year, a New York Times headline read, “The EPA will stop considering lives saved when setting pollution limits and instead calculate only the cost to businesses.” The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is openly letting the American people know that it does not care about us. Dead people are just the cost of doing business, and boy, business is booming.

In yet another glaring example of the business owners and the ruling class placing profits over people, the EPA under the current Republican administration is shifting its policy from environmental protection to the economic costs of regulations. The EPA will no longer track the health impacts of air pollution or quantify the financial impacts of health improvements; instead, it will focus on the financial impact of regulations on businesses. The return of the days when smog was a staple in large metro areas is looking to make a comeback, and it’s only a matter of time before the Cuyahoga River catches fire again. 

The shift at the EPA is at odds with the Make America Healthy Again movement, but then again, so is nearly everything else in this administration. While the MAHA movement continues to wage a war against vaccines, thereby ensuring a victory for preventable diseases, the American people will soon be dealing with a rise in air pollution. Clean air and water, once considered a human right, are an impediment to big business shareholders, and the Trump administration sided with big business. 

At the same time, the EPA under the Trump administration revoked all scientific findings that greenhouse gases endanger public health. This revocation comes on the heels of the past three years being the hottest years on record. While states and cities grapple with the escalating costs of dealing with extreme weather, the federal government has not only effectively abandoned them but also removed years of climate research and findings.

“President Trump will be taking the most significant deregulatory actions in history to further unleash American energy dominance and drive down costs,” said White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt. Lower costs are not only a plus, but they will also be necessary, as we will need more money to offset the rising healthcare costs associated with polluted air. 

Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees, said, “Communities across the country will bear the brunt of this decision–through dirtier air, higher health costs, and increased climate harm. The Trump EPA is surrendering its responsibility, turning its back on families and communities already facing the highest pollution and health risks, and dismantling decades of science and progress.” 

It comes as no surprise, then, that Big Oil spent almost half a billion dollars on the last election. Oil company CEOs and shareholders need allies in powerful places, and it doesn’t get any higher than Congress and the President. And no one spends that much money without expecting large dividends. 

A panel of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) recently released a statement reading, in part, “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute.” The current argument against this is “nuh uh,” often used by the dumbest people you went to high school with, making it very difficult to know who to believe. 

The most recent National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, reported that temperatures in the contiguous U.S. have increased by 1.4 °C since 1970. The frequency of annual heat waves has tripled since the 1960s, while storms are producing heavier rainfall, and wildfires have become more severe. Since the Earth is on track to reach 2-3 °C, we are rapidly approaching the point of no return, where climate scientists say that no matter what we do to mitigate climate change, it will be too little, too late. 

Recent scientific findings point to tipping points that, in turn, lead to feedback loops. The destruction of the Amazon rainforest releases carbon into the air that would otherwise not have been released, thereby amplifying global warming. Capitalists are actively killing the planet in the name of profit, and since money is all they care about, there is no incentive for them to stop. It also doesn’t help that most of them are sociopaths. And because there is a lack of class consciousness in the U.S., this Steinbeck quote is all the more relevant: “I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”

The ruling class loves to place the blame on the working class, insisting that we carpool and recycle our cardboard boxes and plastic bottles. And while we should do these things, that alone will not solve our problem, and it ignores the fact that over 70% of emissions come from 100 corporations. They want us to carpool so they don’t have to pay for public transportation, and they want us to recycle our cardboard so we feel like we’re saving the planet from the comfort of our living room. We do not have that luxury, which means Howard Beale was right.

As with all news-analysis and op-ed articles published by People’s World, the views reflected here are those of the author.

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