WHEN THE WORLD'S ON FIRE...

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: VOX POPULIST

For millions of people around the globe, especially young people, the pressing issue of our time is this: The world is on fire!

It's on fire with climate change, creating a new and intensifying norm of deadly weather extremes that makes a dystopian future a distinct possibility--constant wildfires, rising seas, desertification, global crop failures, widespread hunger, water shortages, and so on.

Luckily, we are a sentient species with the scientific ability to know that the chief cause of this global destruction is not angry gods, but us--specifically, humankind's massive extraction and burning of oil, gas, coal, and other fossil fuels. So, naturally, there's a rising chorus of people shouting "FIRE!" And, sure enough, our national government is rushing to the scene to put an end to it.

Unfortunately, our President and his rightwing brethren in Congress are not directing the government's hoses at the corporate extractors, but at the people, scientists, environmentalists, and other activists who've dared to point to the flames and call for global action to stop the conflagration. They seem to think the problem will go away if they can pretend it doesn't exist. They also think us protesters will go away, Worse, the Trumpsters are fanning the flames by turning the Environmental Protection Agency into the Polluters Protection Agency. Rather than fight climate change, they're going all out to coddle the drillers, strip miners, frackers, pipeliners, refiners, exporters, and other fossil fuel profiteers by slashing the regulatory restraints that We the People have put in place.

For example, Trump & Company are working to throw out rules that protect neighbors who live near Big Oil facilities from being poisoned by toxic methane emissions, which also are potent causes of global warming. And, at a time when the United States should be taking the economic, environmental, and moral lead in phasing out fossil fuel production, they are opening up vast regions of our public lands and waters to environmental plunder while simultaneously fighting our nation's rational shift to a green energy future.

The good news is that the people are revolting (in the very best sense of that term!) against our corrupt leaders' rush toward climate catastrophe. Our hope is not in "leaders," but ourselves--as it has been throughout American history.

From the Boston Tea Party forward, creative and gutsy public protest has been democracy's best friend. We must accept an awful...