Climate change

Guardian - A second Donald Trump presidency would represent a serious threat to dealing with the toxic impact of PFAS “forever chemicals”, as well as other toxins, and could be a danger to the health of millions of Americans, experts and environmental campaigners warn. For example, over the last year, the Environmental Protection Agency developed groundbreaking drinking water limits for highly toxic PFAS compounds, and designated several of the “forever chemicals” as hazardous substances, a move that will force industry to clean up its pollution. The steps represent a major win for the water quality and taxpayers, but a new Trump administration would likely shred the rules.

Statements from former Trump EPA officials, the far-right Project 2025 plan, and the Trump-allied American Chemistry Council target those rules, but also suggest industry and a second administration’s aims are much deeper. They are proposing administrative changes designed to cripple the EPA’s ability to protect public health from chemicals like PFAS.

Prism Reports -  Climate change will continue to cause larger, more frequent, and more devastating impacts that will test the limits of our social and ecological systems.  Prisons are already at that limit. Even without climate change, prisons around the country have billions of dollars worth of deferred maintenance just to stop the walls from crumbling and keep the lights and the heat on. Now, climate change is turning already miserable conditions inside of prisons into life-threatening ones. As wards of the state, incarcerated people are completely dependent on prison management for their safety. They cannot flee, they have no control over their environment, and they have limited ability to make behavioral changes to adapt to extreme heat, floods, or toxic air quality. 

We have a legal—and moral—imperative to keep incarcerated people safe. Yet incarcerated people are systematically excluded from most state climate adaptation plans, and, in the rare cases that contingency plans for climate hazards exist, they are often unaware of them.  Unless we immediately decarbonize and stop extracting fossil fuels, climate hazards will only become more frequent and severe.