Q: So, you’ve spent decades studying chemicals and the link to reproductive health. Was there a single moment in your career when you realized, “This is much bigger than I thought?”

I think a turning point was when I was asked to join a committee of the National Academy of Sciences that had been formed to answer the question: Are these chemicals in the environment that affect our hormones — which they termed hormonally active agents in the environment, what we call endocrine-disrupting chemicals — something that might be affecting human health?

The committee was formed to answer that question: Are these chemicals affecting human health? And this committee, which was in D.C., was composed of three categories of people: neutral people who didn’t know at that point; people who strongly believed that these are harmful — yes, the chemicals are affecting human health; and the other, no, which tended to be more industry-influenced.

So there were three groups, and I was in the middle because I had never actually heard of these chemicals. I had studied lots of environmental factors, but not this class of chemicals. So that was interesting for me, and I learned a lot. And yeah, that turned me around, I think, in terms of my thinking.

Q: When we think about human health and plastics and these chemicals — these endocrine-disrupting chemicals — what do you think people get completely wrong about that link?

That’s a good question. Well, I think it depends which people. Some people ignore it completely. Some people are pretty diligent about reducing their exposure, and some people think it’s a problem, but it’s just too big to do anything about.

So I think what we should be paying more attention to is, yes, we can reduce our exposure, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that. But we should also keep in mind that it’s not really our job to do that. This should be taken care of by the government and by the manufacturers. And so I think that’s the main thing that people get wrong, is not to really recognize who is responsible for regulating this. It’s not me and you.

Q: Your research has truly helped uncover how environmental chemicals affect our bodies. Looking at the evidence today, what do you want people to know about the connection between these chemicals and reproductive health?

I think the first thing I want people to know is that the organism that is most sensitive, and whose exposure will matter the most in the future, is the unborn child. The unborn child is totally captive in this environment and is exposed continually throughout gestation to these chemicals at a time, or times, that the organism is just developing and is most sensitive in the organism’s life to these chemicals.

So if I had to stress one thing, it would be protecting the unborn child. Backing that up a little bit is protecting the environment that the unborn child will enter. And what makes that happen? That is the egg and the sperm. And the male plays a role here, of course. In terms of toxics, exposures to the male before conception can influence that development, as well as what the mother-to-be is exposed to while she’s pregnant.

Q: I was digging into your research a little bit more, and I read that sperm counts have declined dramatically over the past several decades. When you first saw that data, did you realize it would fundamentally change the conversation? We’re having a conversation about it today, about environmental health. Or were you concerned that the findings wouldn’t be taken seriously?

I don’t think I ever believed they would not be taken seriously, because the study you’re talking about — the first meta-analysis study of all the papers in the world that we could find on this topic — gave us information about how sperm count had changed over time, and also how it varies geographically. And this is so fundamental to all of reproductive health.

Of course, it’s the male side, and we can come back to the female side, but that’s much harder. But yes, I believed that this was important to do, which is why I did it with my colleagues. We all thought it was important to do and that it would change the conversation. But honestly, I was not prepared for the huge impact of this study.

It was one of the most highly cited papers in the world according to Altmetric, which is a metric that tracks that, and it’s still talked about. And by the way, I think you know that we followed that up with a second meta-analysis to update it, and we found things that were even more alarming, and we might continue that.

So I think it’s a moving target, but it’s not getting better.

Q: It’s getting worse. Why do you feel it’s not getting better?

Because when we do later updates to the meta-analysis, we see the slope — the rate at which sperm concentration and count are declining — increasing. So it went from around 1% per year to over 2% per year in studies after 2000.

And we don’t know what it is right now because now we’ve moved along. We could look at studies after 2020 or 2025, or whatever we decide to do in the next one, but we want to keep tracking this. We don’t want people to feel it’s a done deal. We want them to realize that it’s an ongoing problem. It’s not a past problem.

Q: Many people today, especially women, wonder whether environmental exposures play a role in infertility and reproductive-health challenges. From your standpoint, what does the science tell us, and what are the biggest questions researchers still need to answer?

When it comes to infertility, there are so many unanswered questions. I guess the one really, really critical one is: What kinds of chemicals are we most concerned about?

Reproduction is governed by hormones. And so if we can isolate and identify chemicals that alter the hormones that are critical to successful reproduction, if those are changing, and we show that those chemicals are causing — I’m using that word deliberately — causing us to be less likely to conceive, which is what I believe, that’s really, really important.

But I have to say, we have much more information on the male side than the female side.

Q: Why is that?

You can pretty easily get a sperm sample. Actually, there are companies — Fellow, for example — where men pay a fee, get a kit, collect their semen at home, send it in, and then get their results: their count, concentration, motility, morphology. These are very reliable. There are a couple of very good, reliable companies.

What do you do on the female side? I don’t know what your experience is, but many, many women know how hard it is to learn about their ovaries and their eggs, their egg count and the health of their eggs, how many are left, and so on and so forth. It requires an ultrasound — things that are quite difficult and costly and sometimes painful. It’s not like giving a semen sample.

And so we actually have much less information. I don’t think we’ll have a meta-analysis of ovarian decline because I don’t think the data are there. It’s just too hard to get this information.

So it’s unfortunate. There are some things we can track. We can track, for example, something called premature ovarian failure, which is the cessation of menstruation earlier than expected. We can measure and keep track of menstrual function: How often do women have their periods? How painful are those periods? How irregular are those periods? And so on and so forth.

There are things we can do by testing hormones to see how hormone levels in the body have changed. But the female side is way behind the male side, and it’s just because the testicles are hanging out. They’re very easy to get a sample from. The ovaries are not.

Q: Switching gears for a minute, for decades we’ve treated environmental protection and public health as separate conversations. Do you think science has shown us they’re actually one and the same, and that we need to adjust the way we communicate about the two?

I do. And I think it’s even more — I’d add a couple of layers to that. I would say the picture involves health, reproductive or other, but it also involves the health of not only humans, but other species.

And then, in terms of when you get to the causes, it involves fossil fuels. So I like to talk about the triple threat: climate change, biodiversity loss and reproductive decline. They’re all part of the same picture.

I like to use this image of a three-headed Hydra sitting in a pool of oil. You know what that is, that monster? There’s a monster sitting there, and it’s producing climate change, of course, coming from fossil fuels, biodiversity loss, and then failure of reproductive health.

These are not separate problems. They’re all interlinked. But the problem is, with the Hydra, you can’t cut off one head. You can’t just control, say, biodiversity loss — even if you could — and get rid of the fossil fuel problem and so on. You have to deal with all of them together.

Q: At EARTHDAY.ORG, we have launched a global campaign around food because we truly believe that what we eat connects climate, environmental health and human health. When you think about plastics and food and chemical exposures, do you think people should start asking not only, “What’s in my food?” but also, “What has my food been exposed to before it reaches my plate?”

They’re really not separate questions, right? Because what food has been exposed to along the way — if you want to think of it from farm to fork — the things that matter are the things that stay with the food. If there’s something transient and it’s not going to show up in the final product in some way, then why would you worry about it?

But in fact, everything seems to matter that the food meets along the way. The soil that it’s grown in, what’s in the water that it’s watered with, the pesticides that it’s exposed to, what’s in the transport mechanisms, and then how it’s processed. Processing is a huge source of contamination.

It’s processed typically through plastic. I like to think of the tomato as an example. You pick the tomato and it travels in some kind of train or truck, perhaps to a processing plant. In that plant, it’s broken down and we’re going to make sauce out of the tomato. Then it goes through various steps, including being passed through plastic tubing.

Now, it’s not typically tested for chemicals at that point. But I want to tell you that there are other things that are passed through plastic tubing that are tested. One very dramatic example is children in the neonatal intensive care nursery. This sounds very different, but it actually is similar because those children are being fed and given various things through tubes.

Those tubes are made of soft plastic. Soft plastic is soft because phthalates are added to the material that makes the tube. And those phthalates lower testosterone. They interfere with hormone function. They interfere with reproductive hormone function, and they affect the growth of those children.

How do we know that it plays a role? It’s very simple. You can count the number of tubes that are going into an infant in the NICU, and then you can get their urine, because that’s how you test the level of phthalates in the organism. You run it through a lab that tells you how much phthalate is contained in that urine. And that turns out to be proportional to the number of lines that are going into the newborn.

Here’s another very different example. They did a study in Eastern Europe on a farm — a very clever, simple study. They milked cows the old-fashioned way with a hand milker, and then they milked the same cows on another day with a milking machine. The milking machine contains plastic tubing.

They tested the milk in both cases for phthalates. The hand-milked milk did not contain phthalates, and the machine-milked milk contained phthalates. So whatever you’re passing through this plastic tubing is going to pick up.

The phthalates are put into the plastic matrix to make it soft and flexible. And then when you use it — particularly if you heat it — the phthalates that are put in there to make it soft and flexible are not chemically bound to the matrix. And so they leave it and they go into the food, the milk, the baby. And then we can measure it.

This is why you can’t heat food in plastic. When you heat it, those chemicals can migrate into the food.

Q: Your recent intervention study, featured in the Netflix documentary The Plastic Detox, found that participants who made practical lifestyle changes showed measurable reductions in BPA and phthalate levels — common chemicals found in everyday consumer products — in just a few months. What did that research teach us about our ability to reduce exposure, and how can we educate the public to really understand and test those levels?

Just for people who haven’t seen the movie — and I hope everyone watching this will see the movie — it’s a Netflix movie. What we did was enroll a very small number of couples, and this was only a pilot. By the way, we are applying for federal funding to do this in a much larger sample, and we’ve published it in a scientific journal. So it’s not big science, but it is science.

We enrolled these couples, and there were six originally, and one dropped out. Then we worked with a company called Million Marker. Million Marker did two things. Later, when we got the samples from the subjects, they tested them for these chemicals. But they also spoke to all of these people very personally and often during the three months of the intervention.

They asked them: What did you put on your face this morning? What did you wash your clothes with? How do you store your food in the kitchen? How do you cook your food? And on and on — all the areas where we can get these chemicals. They asked them to try to understand what they were doing and what products they were using that might impact their levels.

Then they talked to them about how to reduce those exposures — actions they could take. You might store your food in glass instead of plastic. You might change out your frying pans so that they’re not nonstick — and by the way, that’s not phthalates, that’s PFAS. You might change your water bottles. Those hard water bottles are actually bisphenols, not phthalates or PFAS, and so on.

So they went into these different areas where people could make changes and suggested these changes. And then this is the hardest part and the most dramatic: I went to their houses. I went to all of their homes.

I brought a big box. This box was actually about $500 worth of products, and I gave it to them as a present. In it were alternative products: different toothbrushes, different soap, different laundry soap, different storage jars, different frying pans, and so on and so forth — things that they could use that would reduce their exposure.

Then we got urine samples at the beginning, at the middle and at the end — at the beginning, six weeks and 12 weeks. It was a 12-week intervention. We asked them what they were doing at those points, and then we looked to see what their levels of these chemicals were in their bodies.

We also had the men give us semen samples, and we looked at the quality of their semen. So the hard measures were their sperm count and so on, and what their body burden was.

And finally, we had quite a few pregnancies, which was really exciting because these couples had been trying for a long time to get pregnant unsuccessfully. It was pretty incredible.

By the way, there were some unexpected benefits that we hadn’t tracked or hadn’t built into the study protocol. We asked them about their sleep and got reports. These are soft endpoints that I wouldn’t put a lot of weight on until we study them in the next study, when they’ll be systematically collected. But many reported sleeping better, many reported being less anxious and many changed their lives.

For example, you’ll see in the movie that one of our men is a preacher. That’s Eric. Eric was so impressed and convinced by this little intervention that he entered law school, and he is now studying law to pursue environmental law. This is his life now.

Q: A lot of our constituents always like to know, “What can I do?” So if you walked into my home today, what are the first three changes you’d recommend to reduce my exposure to plastics and harmful chemicals, and which one would make the biggest impact?

I’ll answer your question, but I’ll say first that there are tools that the film team has produced. One of them is the Unplastic Your Life campaign, where you can go through a house and see where the culprits are — the things you might want to change. In addition, there are some tools that are not related to the film directly.

One of them is EWG, Environmental Working Group. If you’re holding up a new bottle of sunscreen and you say, “Wait, should I have gotten this? Is this okay?” then you go to EWG, go to the consumer guides, look at sunscreens and it ranks the sunscreens. It’s very simple and helpful.

Another simple thing to do is to download an app called Clearya. Clearya does kind of a similar thing but a little differently. You scan the barcode of something you’re thinking of buying in the supermarket, and it gives you a ranking based on what the ingredients are.

Now, I have to say both of these sources do not actually test products. So it’s maybe a little misleading. You might think, “Oh, they’ve tested all these things.” No. What they’ve done is looked at the ingredient list. Then they go to lists out there, like the Proposition 65 list and so on, compare them, look at the number of bad ingredients that are on the list and then rank it that way. That is very useful, but it’s not the same as actually testing.

When you asked me where the science has to go, I mentioned testing products on a global scale. I think that’s a challenge that we as a field are facing, and connected to that is defining what it means for a product to be safe.

If you think about this, it’s not an easy question, because you can ask: Safe for whom? At what stage in life? And so on. I won’t get into the details of that. But the third thing that is probably the hardest of all is to say: What are the safe alternatives? We are all struggling with that, whether it’s biologically based plastic that has a lot of interesting possibilities and some downsides as well.

So I think those are the major problems that we as a society, as a civilization, have to come to grips with. We don’t actually know what it means to say that product A is safer than product B.

Q: A lot of people assume that the kitchen is the biggest source of exposure, possibly because there’s just a lot of plastic. But are we overlooking things like the air we breathe or the clothes we wear by focusing mainly on the kitchen?

Absolutely. The kitchen is, I would say, an easy target, and it’s obvious in some sense — not that it’s unimportant at all — but there’s the bathroom and all the cosmetics.

These chemicals are put into cosmetics because they help absorption. You put some hand cream on your hand, and then you come back and it’s gone, right? Fifteen minutes, gone. So the phthalates make that happen faster. They also hold scent and color. And so anything that’s perfumed is going to have phthalates in it. We showed in our study that women who said they used perfumed products had more phthalates in their urine. It’s measurable.

The air that we breathe contains many chemicals. And now there’s a lot of attention to microplastics, those tiny particles. Those are in the air we breathe all the time and in the water that we drink all the time. So it’s not just one room or one set of shelves that we have to worry about. We have to worry about our total environment.

Q: Thinking about back-to-school season, parents and guardians are thinking about everything from lunch boxes to backpacks, school supplies and snacks. What are some changes families can make to reduce their children’s exposure to harmful chemicals without feeling totally overwhelmed?

I’ll tell you in a minute, but I want to preface this by saying these changes are often not cheap, and so the ability to protect yourself is not an equal-opportunity activity for everybody.

First of all, communities or people that are disadvantaged don’t have the time to learn about this, read about this and find out what the alternatives are. They’re disadvantaged, and they may not have the resources in their neighborhood. There may not be a market nearby that has fresh food, and they may not have the money to buy organic food.

So I’m going to tell you a few things, but recognize that this is a disparity — not everybody has the same ability or possibility of protecting themselves.

One thing we hadn’t mentioned — you mentioned clothes in passing — is that fabrics are really important. Fabrics are my sofa, my rug, my curtains, my clothes. My clothes, particularly if they’re waterproof or stain-proof, are going to contain PFAS.

So one thing you could think about, if you can afford it, is to buy natural fabrics. You want to buy clothes made of linen, wool and cotton. Those are more expensive, absolutely.

Water is a really big concern for me: drinking, showering, bathing. You can do things, but you have to do them carefully because you don’t want your distiller or your filter to introduce more plastic into the water. You have to buy devices or use techniques that don’t make things worse.

And I can’t avoid saying the microwave is a tricky device. It’s helpful and it’s dangerous because we can’t microwave in metal, of course, we know that. But we can’t microwave in plastic either. Many foods are designed to be microwaved in plastic, and that just blows me away. It will introduce the chemicals into the food directly. So don’t do that. Don’t put food in a plastic container and heat it if you want to consume that product.

Q: It’s kind of wild that there’s no regulation. How is there no oversight on this yet, when we know it’s directly affecting our bodies and the bodies of our unborn children?

I want to come back to that because there’s something called the phthalate syndrome.

It’s interesting. I don’t know of any other medical developmental syndrome that is named after a chemical class. So how did that happen?

First of all, human urine was tested and found to contain phthalates. We all have phthalates in our bodies. This is a representative sample of the U.S., so a high percentage of people have phthalates in their bodies.

Around the time they were finding this, the National Toxicology Program started saying, “Okay, it’s in everybody. Let’s see what it does. Start with animals.” What does it do to the offspring of mice or rats that are fed phthalates during pregnancy?

The result was really striking. What they found was — and this was affecting male offspring; other chemicals affect females — the phthalate syndrome affects males. They found that the pups, when they were born, were not completely masculinized.

What does that mean? I hope this isn’t too technical for just a minute. The genital tract in the developing fetus is the same in males and females initially. And then when testosterone comes on board — testes create testosterone — it acts on the genital tract and makes it differentiate between males and females. So you have this divergence into genetic male and genetic female. But it requires that testosterone.

Now, if the organism is being given a chemical that lowers its testosterone, that won’t happen as fully, or maybe at the right time.

The National Toxicology Program saw this. What did they see? First of all, they saw that the testicles were less likely to descend into the scrotum. The penis was smaller. There were other changes — I’ll leave those aside because they’re a little more technical — but the most dramatic was how much space the genitals took up, how much “real estate” the genitals took up.

That’s the distance from the anus to the genitals — the anogenital distance, or AGD. If you work in a lab, you see that this measurement from the anus to the genitals is typically about twice as long in males as in females.

When the mother is exposed to phthalates at the right time, that distance reflects undermasculinization in male offspring: it’s more feminine, it’s shorter. So, in short, AGD is a reflection of what they call the phthalate syndrome.

Then I said, “Well, that’s interesting. What about humans?” Over a period of several years, I conducted two studies. In the first one, we found the phthalate syndrome. We took urine from pregnant women and tested it for phthalates. We couldn’t expose them deliberately — you can’t feed people phthalates when they’re pregnant. They’re exposed through their daily lives.

So we could see what was in their bodies when they were pregnant. Then we said, “Would you bring your child back so we can examine him or her?” And we did that.

We saw that when the phthalate levels were higher in the mothers during pregnancy, in the critical period, the male offspring were affected. The males had anogenital distances that were shorter and more feminine. They were more likely to have undescended testicles, and they were more likely to have smaller genitalia.

So we found the phthalate syndrome in humans, and we did it again in a whole other study. It was a very important study, and it took a long time and a lot of money to do this twice. But we did establish the phthalate syndrome in humans.

Now, we don’t know what other syndromes are present in humans from other chemicals, and that’s part of the work that we need to do.

Q: We’ve talked a lot about what individuals can do, and we touched earlier on governments. Where do you think the greatest opportunity lies for governments and industry to connect the dots and make this planet a healthier place for all of us and for generations to come?

Jillian, I’m going to answer your question, but first I’m going to point out the story of BPA.

BPA, unlike phthalates, makes plastic hard. And it is estrogenic, not anti-androgenic, which phthalates are. So I like to think of it as the evil twin.

When people started getting alarmed about BPA, manufacturers said, “Oh, no problem, we’ll take it out.” And they took it out and replaced it with BPS and BPF, and now some others. Then they could put a tag on their bottle saying “BPA-free.” But what they didn’t tell consumers was that there was this other phenol in there that actually did a very similar thing. That’s called “whack-a-mole” in our community.

It’s a trick in a way. They can go on making their product and people think they’re safe because it says “BPA-free.” It’s misleading.

So I think what we should have in this country is what they have in the EU under REACH. If a manufacturer wants to add BPS or BPF, for example, they should not be allowed to do that until the replacement or newly introduced chemical is shown to be safe.

That’s the assumption: harmful until proven safe. It’s like guilty until proven innocent. And that’s what exists in the EU. In the U.S., we do not have anything like that. The way we find out if something is harmful is to give it to millions of people and then see what the health effects are over the next 10 or 15 years — all that time exposing people to something that hasn’t been tested.

That, to me, is the biggest challenge we face now. We have to test for safety. And I admit that this is difficult, and we have a lot of work to do on that. Test for safety before a new chemical is introduced into the market. And don’t assume, as TSCA does, that a chemical that has been around for a long time has got to be good and is grandfathered in. “It’s okay, it’s been here forever, we’re used to it.” Never mind about that one.

Q: If we sat down ten years from now, what would you hope has changed in the way that governments, industry and everyday people think about not just plastics, but chemicals and human health?

Of course, I would like a REACH equivalent to be worldwide — good luck on that — so that a chemical will be tested before it’s put into commerce.

And I would like people to be aware of the potential for chemical exposure from things that they might not consider. Who would think that a wonderfully smelling perfume could be lowering their testosterone? But it does, and so on and so forth.

There needs to be an awareness that it’s not all safe until somebody points out a harm. It’s potentially harmful if it’s man-made, and particularly if it’s fossil-fuel-based.

The post Chemicals, Fertility, and Our Future: 22 Minutes with Dr. Shanna Swan appeared first on Earth Day.

International Women’s Day is celebrated on March 8 each year to recognize the achievements, leadership, and contributions of women across every sector of society and around the globe. It is also a moment to reflect on the ongoing challenges women face and the work that remains to achieve gender equality. The day highlights how empowering women strengthens communities, economies, and movements for justice everywhere.

This year’s conversations around International Women’s Day emphasize the connections between women’s leadership and broader global challenges, including climate change, democracy, and social justice. Many Leaders argue that investing in women and supporting their leadership expands the capacity of movements working toward a durable and inclusive path forward.  

To explore these connections more deeply, EARTHDAY.ORG President Kathleen Rogers spoke with Rachel O’Leary Carmona, Executive Director of the Women’s March. Their conversation focuses on how women’s leadership strengthens movements for environmental justice, democracy, and community resilience. They discuss the ways climate change, gender equality, and social justice intersect, and how collective action — led by women and communities — can help build a more sustainable and equitable future.

Q: Could you introduce yourself and tell us about the work you’re doing?

Of course. My name is Rachel O’Leary Carmona. I’m the Executive Director of the Women’s March, and I’m really happy to be here today. I’m very interested in talking about the interconnectedness of feminism, women’s rights, and climate justice, and what environmental justice looks like.

Sometimes people question why the Women’s March talks about environmental issues and ask why we’re out of our lane. But this is very much our lane, so I’m happy to talk more about why that connection exists.

Q: The theme for International Women’s Day reminds us that investing in women strengthens communities and societies as a whole. From your perspective, how does supporting women’s leadership expand the capacity of movements working for justice, democracy, climate action, and public health?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we build power and what actually wins for movements. It’s not a secret that there have been troubling rollbacks on women’s rights all across the world, certainly here in our own communities. At the same time, we’re seeing a troubling rise of authoritarianism and challenges to democracy.

When we talk about these issues, one of the underlying forces shaping them is climate. Climate disasters are driving many of the challenges we face today. For example, when we think about migration, some of it is related to social policy and foreign policy decisions. But what we will increasingly see is migration driven by climate disasters.

At the same time, our country is facing many challenges—threats to democracy, global conflict, and extreme weather events. We recently saw an ice storm where we were unable to mobilize the resources necessary to support the people who needed help most. The people who are hardest hit by climate disasters are often women and families. Women and children are the most affected during disasters and war. Because of this, one of the most important things we can do is invest in communities by investing in women and children, supporting peace-building efforts, and building sustainable economies that move us toward climate justice.

Often when people talk about International Women’s Day or women’s rights, they assume the conversation will focus on issues like abortion or maternal mortality. Those are important issues, but climate change should also be at the forefront of what we’re talking about.

Climate disasters displace people, destabilize communities, and create new political and legal challenges. That impact is growing every year.

Q: With so many overlapping crises today, what do you see as the most urgent opportunity for action?

I don’t think there’s a single answer. One of the challenges is that women don’t really have the luxury of single-issue thinking. For example, you might have a mother in Flint dealing with water contamination, wage theft, and childcare at the same time. The issues people face are complex and interconnected.

To mobilize people, movements often try to simplify issues. But the reality is that the issues we face are not simple. Large mobilizing moments like the Women’s March play an important role. The Women’s March was the largest single-day mobilization in the United States. But I also think a lot about what happens after the march.

Traditionally, movements bring people into the streets and then try to absorb them into organizations. That builds membership organizations, which are important. But many of our community institutions have weakened. People aren’t joining membership organizations, churches, or unions the way they once did. Without those spaces, we lose places where people can practice democracy together.

Q: What changes do movements need to make to strengthen participation?

We need to find ways to practice democracy and build relationships with one another. One approach is bringing the movement to people rather than expecting them to come to us. That means creating decentralized networks where communities can organize themselves.

We’ve seen examples of this in places like Minneapolis, where community groups built decentralized organizing structures around issues of safety and justice. This approach requires trusting people and letting go of some of the control organizations traditionally hold over messaging or branding. It means building a movement that belongs to everyday people, not only professional activists.

Movements are more sustainable when they become part of people’s daily lives rather than something that happens only during major political moments.

Q: How do you see women shaping a sustainable future while also benefiting from a green economy?

Research consistently shows that when women lead, leadership tends to be more democratic, inclusive, and community-focused. People often think of those qualities as soft skills, but they’re actually essential for building sustainable systems.

When we think about change, we have to remember that the unit of change is an individual person. We also can’t bring about a new future without changing the inputs that shape it. That means the way we pursue change matters just as much as the outcomes we want to achieve.

Issues like climate justice, bodily autonomy, immigration, and economic inequality are deeply interconnected. In places like Texas, where I live, policy decisions about reproductive rights, healthcare access, and immigration all intersect with broader political and economic systems.

Ultimately, a very small number of powerful individuals are making decisions that affect billions of people. Women’s leadership is essential in challenging those structures and building more inclusive systems.

Q: How does the women’s movement influence environmental protection and climate justice?

Women play a crucial role within communities, especially when systems fail. There’s a sociologist named Jessica Calarco who argues that many countries have social safety nets, but the United States often relies on women as the safety net. I think that’s true in many communities.

When systems break down, women organize mutual aid networks and support their neighbors. They help communities share resources and respond to crises. These contributions are often invisible, but they are incredibly important. For example, during climate disasters, women frequently organize neighborhood responses—sharing supplies, offering shelter, and coordinating recovery efforts. Organizations like Organizing Resilience also help fill the gaps when disaster response systems fall short. Groups like the Women’s March often help fundraise to support these community efforts.

Women play both visible roles in leadership and policy, and invisible roles in building the social infrastructure that keeps communities functioning.

Q: As we recognize International Women’s Day and look ahead to Earth Day, what message would you share about the role women can play in building hope for the future?

I would say two things: first, hope is a discipline. I go to the gym a lot. When you work out, you don’t see immediate results every day. You just have to stay committed to the habit and the discipline. Hope works the same way. You have to stay committed to it even when you don’t see immediate progress. Social media often thrives on negativity and doom-scrolling. That environment encourages people to abandon discipline and focus on discouraging narratives. Instead, we need emotional discipline and a clear commitment to the work we’re trying to do.

Second, take action where you are. You don’t need to come in like a hero and save the day. That’s not how change happens. Real change happens through contributions. Be where your feet are. Take action in your community and contribute in whatever ways you can. Make your contribution and practice the discipline of hope.

As we recognize the leadership and impact of women this International Women’s Day, it is also an opportunity to highlight the power of collaboration. Partnerships between organizations reflect a shared belief that lasting environmental progress happens when communities, sectors, and generations work together. Around the world, women are leading efforts to protect ecosystems, strengthen communities, and advocate for policies that safeguard both people and the planet. Their leadership shows that meaningful change often begins at the community level, where individuals organize, educate, and inspire others to act.

The spirit of collective action is central to Earth Day 2026 and its theme, Our Power, Our Planet. The campaign highlights how people everywhere — from classrooms and local neighborhoods to national institutions — can help drive environmental progress through education, advocacy, and community engagement.

Photo credit: Stephanie Keith | Women’s March

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The theme for Earth Day 2026 remains Our Power, Our Planet, but its application reflects current global economic, environmental, and civic conditions. 

In 2026, Our Power. Our Planet. refers to the role of people and communities worldwide in sustaining environmental protections that affect the cost of living, public health, infrastructure reliability, and long-term stability. Environmental conditions influence food systems, water availability, energy access, disaster risk, and economic resilience across all regions. Community participation has historically shaped these outcomes across countries and political systems. 

Since the first Earth Day in 1970, civic action has helped establish and strengthen environmental institutions, laws, and international norms. These measures have been associated with reductions in pollution-related illness, improved access to clean water, and long-term public health and economic benefits in many parts of the world. 

Earth Day 2026 calls on communities worldwide to take action during Earth Week to support clean air, clean water, clean energy, protected natural resources, and climate stability. These factors are directly linked to human health, economic predictability, food security, and cross-border infrastructure performance. 

Why “Our Power, Our Planet”?

Environmental protections are facing pressure worldwide due to economic stress, conflict, climate impacts, and shifting political priorities. In many countries, regulatory frameworks governing air quality, water safety, land use, and energy systems are under review or revision. 

Environmental policies influence costs borne by households, local governments, and national economies. Changes to these policies affect utility prices, agricultural productivity, insurance availability, disaster recovery expenditures, and public health systems. Community engagement provides a mechanism to maintain continuity and accountability when institutional capacity varies. 

“Our Power. Our Planet.” reflects the documented role of collective action in shaping environmental outcomes beyond formal governance structures alone. Across regions, public participation has influenced standards, enforcement, and local implementation where impacts are felt most directly. 

Pillar One: Resilience and Institutional Continuity 

Local environmental action contributes to resilience and continuity in diverse contexts. Community-based initiatives such as decentralized renewable energy, local waste reduction programs, ecosystem restoration, and water stewardship have been associated with improved service reliability, reduced exposure to environmental hazards, and more predictable costs. These initiatives often persist despite national policy shifts because they are embedded in local institutions and address immediate needs. 

By reducing vulnerability to pollution, resource scarcity, and climate-related disruptions, locally driven efforts help ensure the continuity of essential services and economic activity. Institutional resilience at the community level contributes to stability within broader regional and global systems. 

Pillar Two: Shared Interests and Interconnected Outcomes 

Environmental systems are globally interconnected. Air pollution crosses borders. Water systems span regions. Food production and supply chains depend on shared ecosystems. Infrastructure disruptions in one location can affect markets, trade, and livelihoods elsewhere. 

Environmental protection serves as a preventive policy by reducing downstream costs associated with healthcare, disaster response, migration pressures, and economic disruption. Actions taken in one community contribute to collective resilience and shared stability. 

How You Can Take Action 

EARTHDAY.ORG is calling on individuals, communities, schools, elected officials, faith groups, and organizations worldwide to organize Earth Day events and actions in cities, towns, and regions on April 18 and throughout Earth Week. 

Peaceful Demonstrations and Marches 

Public action has influenced environmental decision-making across countries and cultures. The first Earth Day in 1970 followed calls for teach-ins and public action that mobilized millions. Similar approaches have since been used globally to raise awareness and prompt institutional responses to environmental challenges. Nonviolent demonstrations remain a documented means of expressing shared concerns and influencing policy priorities. 

Voter Registration and Civic Participation 

Civic participation takes many forms across political systems, including voting, public consultation, and community decision-making. These processes influence environmental regulation, infrastructure investment, and public health standards. Where applicable, individuals can register to vote here. Vote Earth. 

Convening Town Halls and Dialogues with Decision-Makers 

Environmental challenges manifest differently across geography, climate, and economic contexts. Local dialogues help align solutions with community conditions. 

EARTHDAY.ORG convenes students, educators, local leaders, and policymakers through town halls, roundtables, and community forums to discuss renewable energy, resource management, and workforce development. These conversations support practical solutions that enhance resilience, employment, and long-term opportunity. 

Global estimates project significant growth in green jobs by 2030. Education systems and community institutions play a critical role in preparing people for these transitions. 

Grassroots Organizing to Protect Environmental Laws and Standards 

Grassroots organizing supports the implementation and enforcement of environmental laws and standards worldwide. EARTHDAY.ORG partners with organizations across regions to support protections for air quality, water safety, ecosystems, and public health. You can find partners for Earth Day 2026 here. 

Teach-Ins at Schools, Universities, and Community Spaces 

Environmental education supports informed participation and long-term resilience. Climate and environmental literacy help translate global objectives into local understanding and action. EARTHDAY.ORG provides educational resources globally and invites participation through the Pledge to Support Climate and Environmental Literacy. 

Community Cleanups 

Waste and plastic pollution impose environmental and health costs worldwide. Community cleanups reduce pollution, protect ecosystems, and improve local conditions. Through The Great Global Cleanup, Earth Day supports cleanup efforts across countries and regions. Individuals can locate or register for cleanup events using the map provided. 

Reforestation, Oceans, and Ecosystem Restoration 

Ecosystem restoration contributes to climate regulation, biodiversity protection, food security, and long-term resource stability. Forests, oceans, and wetlands support livelihoods, regulate climate, and preserve biological diversity. Protecting these systems also safeguards genetic resources relevant to medicine, agriculture, and science. The Canopy Tree Project supports reforestation efforts worldwide. 

Why We Will Succeed

Environmental protections and collective action are measured by improvements in public health, ecosystem stability, and economic resilience across many regions. Earth Day’s global legacy demonstrates people’s capacity to work together across borders to protect shared resources and reduce risk. Participation in Earth Day 2026 continues this pattern by supporting systems that manage costs, reduce environmental risk, and strengthen communities worldwide. 

Earth Day’s enduring legacy is the power of people rising together. Join us on April 18th, April 22nd, and throughout 2026 to preserve the progress we have made. You can also create and post an event, sign up to receive updates on Earth Day, or become a partner of Earth Day 2026 and add your organization’s logo.

Our Power. Our Planet.

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With so much happening in the world, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, helpless, and even immobilized.  When it comes to the climate crisis, that feeling is widespread: nearly two-thirds of adults in America alone have reported experiencing some form of anxiety about climate change. 

But young people are the ones most impacted; in 2021, 84% of young people between the ages of 16 and 25 said they were at least moderately worried about climate change, and 59% reported being very or extremely worried. This climate anxiety doesn’t just cause unease, but triggers feelings of despair and defeatism. Which can actually stop young people from being part of the solution and acting. But this inaction does not come from a lack of care; it’s a symptom of not knowing what to do.

Earth Day is here to help! This year, April 22 was Earth Action Day; an opportunity to take any step, no matter how small, towards finding how we can all help slow down climate change.  Let’s keep that momentum going for National Speak Up for Service Day, and to inspire you EARTHDAY.ORG staff have some tips for how you can take action.

Evan Raskin, National Campaign Manager – Campaign for Communities

Today reminds us all of the importance of speaking up; it’s one of the greatest acts of service we can contribute to our community. Each of us has the civic duty to speak up and make our voices heard in decision making at the local, state, and federal level. When we all speak up, our society makes choices that benefit all of us. 

Here at EARTHDAY.ORG, we’re speaking up for the environment and encourage you to join us. Make your voice heard by sending a letter to your Congressmembers urging them to protect families and communities by voting against a provision that would grant pesticide manufacturers legal immunity, even when their products hurt people.

It takes 5 minutes but it’s a great way to make a difference and get involved.

Lee Franklin, Volunteer Coordinator – Earth Day Champions

As Earth Day 2026 approaches we are launching the Earth Day Champions Program! Earth Day Champions are individuals who want to step up and do more to protect our health and our environment. Earth Day Champions will participate in and help organize actions like clean-ups or clothing swaps. 

But Champions can also amplify the voice of the majority of Americans who want to see MORE renewable energy, STRONG protections for clean water, air, and human health,  and ACTION to combat climate change. Champions can help us advocate for these principles at local, state, and federal levels. You can view opportunities to become an Earth Day Champion here. 

Michael Karapetian, The Great Global Cleanup Coordinator – The Great Global Cleanup

Through the Great Global Cleanup, people, especially young activists, are standing up to protect their communities from the plastic pollution that threatens their health, wildlife and our future. Across the world, young leaders are organizing cleanups not just to remove the waste that is poisoning their communities, but to call out the systems that allow it to exist in the first place. 

My favorite part of this movement is seeing cleanup organizers become the cornerstone of the environmental movement in their cities, and not just cleanup the mess, but demanding that their local leaders stop plastic at its source. In The Great Global Cleanup, speaking up for service means standing up for our rights to have a future free from plastic. 

Join us and by finding a clean up near you, or registering your own cleanup on our Great Global Cleanup map. 

Dennis Nolasco, Education Coordinator – Climate Education

As the world prepares for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, now is the time to speak up for the next generation. Climate education empowers students with the knowledge and civic skills they need to build sustainable communities, enter the green workforce, and take meaningful action on climate change. 

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Climate Literacy Petition calls on world leaders to make climate education a core component of their national climate commitments. By signing and sharing the petition, we can urge governments to ensure that every student, everywhere, has access to quality, interdisciplinary climate education.

Aminah Taariqu-Sidibe, Plastic Free Manager – End Plastics Initiative 

Plastic pollution is one of the most urgent environmental challenges of our time; devastating ecosystems, endangering wildlife, and threatening human health around the world. Microplastics have now been found in human blood, brains, lungs, and even reproductive organs, raising alarms about long-term health effects including inflammation, hormonal disruption, and links to cancer. 

Through the End Plastics Campaign, EARTHDAY.ORG is mobilizing advocacy for a 60% reduction in fossil fuel-based plastic production by 2040, education and awareness about the health impacts of the plastics lifecycle, and full accountability for industries driving pollution. Plastic pollution transcends borders and so must our response. The UN Global Plastic Treaty represents a historic opportunity for nations to come together and commit to a legally binding international agreement to end plastic pollution by regulating the entire lifecycle of plastics, from production to disposal.

Join us by adding your name to the call for a strong, binding Global Plastic Treaty. 

Aidan Charron, Associate Director of Global Earth Day – Canopy Tree Project

Reforestation is one of the most practical, powerful ways we can fight climate change, and its impact goes far beyond the environment. Through The Canopy Tree Project, EARTHDAY.ORG is working with communities around the world to plant trees that restore ecosystems, support local economies, and strengthen neighborhoods.

From the Sundarbans to the High Atlas Mountains, we partner with local leaders to ensure each tree planted reflects the needs and values of the people it serves. Whether it’s shading schoolyards, preventing flooding, or providing food and income, trees become part of the solution; rooted in place and purpose.

Join us by supporting The Canopy Tree Project; whether by donating, dedicating a tree, or helping us expand to new areas.If you are feeling inspired (as I am sure you are) you can take any of the movements above. You can also make them your own and register your action on our Earth Action Day site.

The post We Know How Solve Your Climate Apathy appeared first on Earth Day.

It’s hard to believe this is still up for debate, but let’s talk about clean, affordable energy that creates jobs, will power data centers and keep our energy costs down.

Renewable energy is no longer a fringe idea; it’s a booming, unstoppable force in the global economy. In the U.S. alone, electricity from solar, wind, and hydropower provided over 22% of total electricity generation in 2024, and globally the generation from renewables just surpassed that of coal for the first time the same year. These renewable energy sources are not some pipe dream, they’re here and growing. 

Jobs? The clean energy industry employs more than 3.56 million Americans; for every million dollars invested in renewable energy, solar alone provides 2.7 times the number of jobs than fossil fuels. Over the next decade, wind turbine technicians and solar photovoltaic installers are projected to be among the fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. economy, offering competitive pay and improved safety compared to many other jobs.

And these benefits don’t even factor in how renewable energy significantly reduces air pollution, which in turn will help to lower the estimated  $820 billion spent in annual health costs, caused by  fossil fuel use (as of 2021). From a financial standpoint alone, adopting renewables is a no-brainer.

But instead of leaning into the prospect of the U.S. becoming a world leader in this new energy technology, the Trump administration is digging in its heels, and doing everything it can to sabotage this progress and back 19th century fossil fuels. Not just with incorrect statements that influence public perception (like Trump’s claim that wind turbine noise causes cancer), but with actual policy that blocks and delays clean energy projects.

Given that Great Britain invented the steam engine – the key to the Industrial Revolution, the locomotive, the World Wide Web, the telephone, television, the concept of vaccinations, the jet engine, the Hovercraft, antibiotics, discovered the structure of DNA, and invented radar – amongst many other things – we can be pretty assured that Britain is a ‘smart county’. And what is this smart country doing now? Rapidly embracing renewables, which accounts for 50%of its electricity generation. 

Here are five ways the Trump administration is trying to kill renewable energy and set the United States backwards in the energy industry:

1. The One Big Beautiful Bill – Spending Billions to Fall Behind

Subsidizing fossil fuels in 2025 is like investing in Blockbuster while Netflix takes off…but that’s exactly what this administration is doing. 

The 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill” significantly increased federal subsidies for fossil fuels. According to a report by Oil Change International, the bill added nearly $40 billion in new subsidies over the next decade, raising the annual total to at least $34.8 billion. This includes $4 billion in additional subsidies each year, marking the largest single-year increase in fossil fuel subsidies in recent years.

At the state level, fossil fuels rack up more public money. Texas handed out approximately $1.4 billion in 2023 alone. In Wyoming, taxpayers could be on the hook for up to $900 million to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells, because fossil fuel companies aren’t required to set aside nearly enough money to cover the cost of plugging them. In Jefferson City, Wyoming alone, taxpayers are looking at a $35,000 clean up. A report from Public Citizen estimates that cleaning up over 89,000 wells on federal lands could cost between $2.9 billion and $17.7 billion, with the highest costs concentrated in states like New Mexico and Wyoming. Across the board, the public is footing the bill so that wealthy oil companies can keep drilling.

What are we getting for all this public spending? Not energy security. Not price stability. While subsidies could be justified politically as tools for energy affordability and security, they are failing on both fronts. The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) notes that fossil fuel subsidies distort markets and undermine energy diversification, leaving countries more vulnerable to global supply shocks.

Recent global oil and gas volatility, compounded by geopolitical tensions around the world, shows that fossil fuel price swings persist even when producers receive large publicly funded subsidies. In other words, subsidies stabilize corporate margins, not consumer prices we all pay. One of the reasons U.S. oil and gas production is still considered profitable is because of these vast subsidies. Over 60% percent of fossil fuel companies are still dependent on government support that we all pay for. That’s not a healthy market.

Our oil-based society depends on non-renewable resources. It requires relentless probing into vast reaches of pristine land, sacrificing vital bioregions, and irreplaceable cultures… We must all move shoulder to shoulder in a unified front to show this administration that the true majority of people are willing to vote for a cleaner environment and won’t back down.

Leonardo Dicaprio, Founder, The Leonardo DiCaprio FoundationRenewables are the answer to our energy independence and have historically received less federal support than fossil fuels. We have still seen renewable energy projects and generation capacity increasing exponentially. Imagine how much progress we could make if even a fraction spent on fossil fuel subsidies were redirected to renewables; lower electricity cost, creation of tens of thousands of new jobs, and true energy independence.

2. Trying to Kick Wind and Solar Off Public Lands

In August 2025, the Department of the Interior (DOI) issued Secretarial Order No. 3438, instructing agencies to reevaluate whether federal lands should be used for solar and wind projects. The new criteria prioritize “capacity density”, or how much energy you can get per area.

 It sounds logical to want to limit our use of resources, until you realize it’s a smokescreen. According to a 2017 report, wind and solar need more space per megawatt, but they come with no risk of oil spills and virtually no risk of other pollutants.  

Fossil fuel drilling, on the other hand, leaves behind polluted air, poisoned water, and soil erosion. Because of this once the fossil fuel companies leave the land they leave behind  is often left unusable for decades or even centuries. In contrast, renewable energy projects stay confined to the same pieces of  land  decades without depleting or contaminating it. 

3. They’re Undermining Offshore Wind

On August 8, 2025, the Trump administration launched a full review of all offshore wind regulations, including projects already underway. Officials claim  they want to ensure compliance with Trump’s “energy dominance” agenda and eliminate “preferential treatment” for offshore wind.

Offshore wind is a massive opportunity for the U.S. It could generate more than 2,000 GW of power by 2050, nearly double the current U.S. electricity demand. And it’s not some distant dream. As of 2024, there was an increase of over 27 GW of offshore wind projects in the pipeline, representing tens of thousands of jobs and billions in investment.

Killing these projects doesn’t just waste potential, it hands the future to other countries. The UK, Germany, and China are all aggressively expanding offshore wind projects, while the U.S. stalls. In fact, China already leads the world in installed offshore wind capacity. If we keep dragging our feet, we lose our shot at global leadership and homegrown clean energy jobs.

4. They Eliminated the Renewable Leasing Schedule, So Developers Are Left Guessing

On August 5, 2025, the Department of the Interior (DOI) axed a rule that required the government to publish a 5-year renewable energy leasing schedule. This schedule kept things clear and predictable for companies investing money into clean energy projects on federal land – information that is  essential to any investor.

Renewable energy projects have a lot of moving parts and so take time and dedication to plan, finance, and build. Without a leasing schedule, developers face costly delays and regulatory uncertainty that can derail entire projects. 

For perspective, the permitting process for building a large solar project on federal land usually takes about 3 to 5 years; that includes picking a  location, environmental reviews, and hooking it up to the power grid. But without a clear and predictable process, a lot of that time gets wasted just waiting for approvals or decisions that might never happen. 

5. They’re Burying Every Wind and Solar Project in Red Tape

In July 2025, DOI leadership mandated that all wind and solar decisions be subjected to multi-agency review, including sign-off by the Secretary of the Interior. Again they claim it’s about ending “preferential treatment” for renewables while fossil fuels still get faster reviews and much larger subsidies.

This new red tape seems designed to specifically delay clean energy development, while fossil fuel projects continue to sail through the system, under Trump’s “energy dominance” policy. Meanwhile, the world is heating up and energy prices for U.S consumers are rising fast. 

An Unstoppable Movement

100 percent renewable energy is 100 percent American.Mark Ruffalo

Despite renewable energy’s numerous benefits, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to put the brakes on progress; rigging the rules, rewriting policies, and pushing red tape, all in the name of protecting outdated, polluting industries.This isn’t just short-sighted. It’s dangerous.

The fossil fuel industry has poured $96 million in donations, lobbying and advertisements that directly supported Trump’s re-election campaign and affiliated PACs. Some administration officials even hold personal financial stakes in fossil fuel operations, like Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (whose approval is needed for all wind and solar projects), and profits from oil leases on his own land. 

But here’s the good news: we don’t have to accept it.

If you believe in clean air, good jobs, and a future that runs on common sense, sign the Our Power, Our Planet petition to demand renewable energy now. Send a message to your state lawmakers asking them to stand up against the rollbacks and invest in renewable energy.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use with attribution. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

The post 5 Ways the Trump Administration Is Trying to Kill Renewable Energy (And Why It’s a Terrible Idea) appeared first on Earth Day.

In 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets on the very first Earth Day. They demanded these three things: clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and a healthy future for their families. Just a few months later, Republican President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A) to deliver on that vision – the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts soon followed.

Now, over 50 years later, the E.P.A is under attack. Let’s meet some of the groups and people, who seem to be working to undermine our fundamental right to clean air and clean water. These are our nominees for the alternative E.P.A – the Environmental Pollution Agency. 

1) E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D. of the Cornwall Alliance of the Stewardship of Creation, (CASC)

This group, led by Calvin Beisner, who holds a Ph.D. in Scottish history,believes “…that by God’s design Earth and its physical and biological systems are robust, resilient, and self-correcting. We deny that they are fragile,” as noted in point 9 of their 30 point ‘affirmation’ page. 

Climate science is often disputed to be a ‘false religion’ by groups that deny climate change. 

Mr.Besiner has testified as an expert witness on the ethics and economics of climate and energy policy before congressional committees and argues that environmental action is a deception which can potentially harm impoverished people more than others. The people living in “Cancer Alley,” who cannot afford to move away from petrochemical plants, might beg to differ. The cancer rates in “Cancer Alley” have been documented as being 12-16% higher than the rest of the US.  

Plus, if Administrator Zeldin eliminates E.P.A enforcement efforts that focus on prioritizing the protection of ‘poor communities’ – will Mr. Beisner actively campaign against these measures? Given that he feels that impoverished people should not be harmed more than others? You can find out more about how our rights to clean water and clean air are under attack HERE

2) “Big Oil” 

ExxonMobil, with a market capitalization of over $492 Billion as of September 25, 2025, i.e. the total value of all its outstanding shares, has, according to research first published in the journal Science,  been accused of spending decades misleading the public about climate change.

A 2017 Harvard study comparing ExxonMobil’s internal documents and peer-reviewed papers vs. its advertorials found that 80% of internal documents/peer‑reviewed work acknowledged human-caused climate change, while 81% of Exxon’s public advertorials expressed doubt. Their own internal documents show that their scientists understood the science of climate change and the role of greenhouse gases back as far back as the 1970s. 

Exxon has consistently denied the accusations that it misled the public.

Chevron, with a market cap of over $321 billion as of September 2025, inadvertently helped to create the legal doctrine that became known as, “the Chevron Deference”. This 1984 ruling gave the EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) the broad authority to interpret and enforce ambiguous laws, including those regulating pollution. But in 2024, the Supreme Court overturned this doctrine significantly reducing the EPA’s regulatory power. 

Chevron, like most major fossil fuel companies, is a member of the American Petroleum Institute, (API), a powerful lobbying group for the oil and gas industry. The API has criticised the Endangerment Finding and hopes the new Trump administration will loosen emission regulations.

Chevron contributes to the ​​Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), which is aligned with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.), and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF).  

Shell, with a market cap of around $212 billion, as of September 2025, publicly supports the Paris Climate Agreement and pledges to reach “net zero” emission by 2050. Howevert Shell spends tens of millions on lobbying groups that oppose clean energy policies. 

As of 2019 lobbying disclosures, Shell spent $49 million on lobbying in the U.S. — nearly more than any other oil company that year.

3) U.S Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright

Chris Wright, is President Trump’s U.S Secretary of Energy, and Wright has built a career on downplaying climate change, this year he said that “climate change isn’t a crisis”.

A self proclaimed “outdoor enthusiast” he doesn’t seem that keen on protecting the outdoors.  He used data to argue that reducing greenhouse gas emissions could hurt the economy more than rising global temperatures would. 

In March, 2025, Secretary Wright spoke at CERA Week, one of the world’s premier annual energy conferences, in Houston, Texas. Sadly just a few weeks later, some 200 miles southeast in the Central Texas Hill Country – tragedy struck when devastating floods killed at least 135 people.  While it is almost certainly true that natural weather patterns and geography caused the immediate flooding, it is also most likely to be true that climate change made these floods more extreme and therefore more deadly. Both things can unfortunately be true at the same time.

Wright champions fossil fuels as he believes they help to drive the U.S economy, but the real cost of his unbridled support are potentially, likely to be more extreme weather events across the U.S, with the homes and lives of Americans destroyed by climate change. 

4) Senator Ron Johnson (R‑WI)

Senator Ron Johnson ran a plastics manufacturing company (PACUR) before entering politics. He has called climate change “bullsh*t” and stated that carbon dioxide “helps trees grow.” It does. It also powers climate change when too much of it is released into the atmosphere. Again, two things can be true at the same time.

The science is proven. There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate, and more than 99.9% of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human activities—chiefly the burning of fossil fuels—are the main cause.

This consensus is supported by evidence ranging from the rapid rise in global temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide, to melting ice sheets, rising sea levels, and shifting weather patterns measured across the globe by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As well as pretty much every major national science academy worldwide. 

The League of Conservation Voters, revealed in 2022, that Senator Johnson’s office accepted over $700,000 in donations from the fossil fuel industry and voted to deregulate domestic oil drilling. 

5) Alan Carlin Ph.D.

Alan Carlin, has a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology (CIT). 

In 2009, while a senior operations research analyst at the E.P.A’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE), he wrote a 98-page report attacking the science behind greenhouse gas regulation. It was largely discredited by climate change experts but widely cited in the conservative media.

This is not true. In fact global temperatures have risen dramatically since the mid-20th century. According to NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the global average surface temperature has increased by at least 1.1°C (1.9°F) since 1880. With most of that occurring after 1975. In fact the five hottest years on record (as of 2023) have all occurred since 2015. 2024 was either the hottest or second-hottest year ever recorded, depending on the data set. In 2010 Carlin resigned from the EPA.

How to Take Action to Protect Clean Air and Clean Water For Us ALL

At EARTHDAY.ORG we just do not think that belief systems should determine the quality of the air we breathe or the water we drink. 

Only facts, science and strong government regulation should do that. Right now your family’s health is on the line.  The time to act is now. Nobody, no matter how rich or powerful lives in a bubble. We all breathe the same air in the end. 

Want to make a difference? On a related issue, you can speak out by writing to strongly oppose Section 453 of the Interior Appropriations Bill, which would grant pesticide manufacturers broad legal immunity, even when their products cause harm.

The post Do These 5 People Care If We Breathe Dirty Air? appeared first on Earth Day.

On July 28, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin made a big announcement: the agency plans to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding. That might sound like something out of a Marvel movie, but it’s actually the cornerstone of U.S. climate policy. The Finding legally establishes that greenhouse gas emissions, from new motor vehicles, threaten public health and welfare.  It gives the EPA the power to regulate these emissions not just from cars, but from power plants, factories, and other major pollution sources.

Without it? The EPA’s hands are tied when it comes to regulating emissions. This move raises eyebrows and questions, and the agency released a one-pager explaining their decision. We read it. We checked it. Here’s our fact check of their one pager HERE and here’s the highlights: 

1) Making it Easy… or Not?

EPA Claim: “Through this reconsideration, EPA will give the public a chance to weigh in on the science, law, and policy choices at issue in the Finding”. 

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: While the EPA says it’s opening the floor to debate, the federal government is cutting off the tools that make public comment more accessible; specifically, the API (Application Programming Interface) that allows people to submit comments through third-party platforms instead of directly through their Regulations.gov website.

In other words, yes, you can weigh in, but only if you go through the official portal, which many grassroots campaigns and advocacy orgs can’t easily access anymore. So it’s like being told you can speak… but only if you do it exactly the way they want. 

2) Driving an Unbiased Dagger into our Hearts

Claim: “EPA cannot prejudge the outcome of this reconsideration process.”

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: Okay, sure. But if the EPA isn’t prejudiced, why did Administrator Zeldin recently declare: “”We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion…” That’s not exactly a “wait and see” kind of comment. That is clearly a judgment. Also, let’s be clear: climate change isn’t a religion. It’s science. Hard science. As in, 99.9% of peer-reviewed studies agree that climate change is real and caused by human activity. 

3) What is the Endangerment Finding & Why Does it Matter?

Claim: “The 2009 Endangerment Finding was the first step in the Obama-Biden Administration’s overreaching climate agenda… That evasion ends today.”

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: Let’s unpack this one, because it’s doing a lot of heavy lifting.The claim here is that the Endangerment Finding kicked off, “trillions of dollars of cost on Americans” and by rescinding it we will save $54 billion in costs annually. Funny how Zeldin doesn’t mention the real price tag Americans are paying: climate change-linked illnesses, death, and pollution-related diseases have been know for over a decade and some studies estimate they will cost the U.S. over $820 billion annually. 

Also, those 2027 vehicle emissions standards the EPA now wants to reverse? They were projected to prevent 7.2 billion tons of CO₂ through 2055; that’s four times what the entire U.S. transportation sector emitted in 2021. 

4) Duty to Regulate 

Claim: “Massachusetts vs. EPA, held that the Clean Air Act’s general, Act-wide definition of “air pollutant” was broad enough to include carbon dioxide. Massachusetts explicitly did not hold that EPA was required to regulate these emissions from these sources.”

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: The 2007 Supreme Court ruling was very clear: greenhouse gases, such as excess carbon dioxide, are “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act. That means the EPA has a duty to regulate them unless it can show they DO NOT endanger public health or welfare. So unless Zeldin has some groundbreaking scientific discovery to share (spoiler: he doesn’t), the law still stands. The EPA still has a legal obligation to act.

5) By the Books

Claim: “The Endangerment Finding took an unorthodox approach… It never makes a straight-line conclusion that carbon dioxide from new motor vehicles is causing endangerment. It looked at this mix of six gases, from all sources over the world, … to determine that this mix contributed … an unknown amount above zero to climate change, and that climate change contributed … an unknown amount above zero of endangerment to public health. The Finding looked at U.S. vehicle emissions … and said that they were a big enough piece of the pie (some 4 percent of global emissions) to be “causing or contributing” to the mix of six gases—not to the endangerment itself.”

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: This one reads like a climate denialist word salad, but let’s chop it up. The EPA’s original Finding didn’t go rogue. It followed the law, the science, and the courts. It reviewed research from the International Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, and U.S. agencies to conclude, based on overwhelming scientific evidence, six key greenhouse gases (CO₂, methane, nitrous oxide, HFCs, PFCs, SF₆) collectively contribute to climate change.

Cars emit several of these, the most significant being carbon dioxide. That’s enough under the Clean Air Act. The law doesn’t require proof of direct causation by U.S. cars alone, just a finding that their emissions contribute to the problem. Which they very much do; in 2022, 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. came from the transportation sector, the vast majority of which were from cars and truck emissions.

This whole “unorthodox” claim of government overreach is like saying a seatbelt is illegal because it wasn’t designed to stop every car accident. It’s just not how the law, or logic, works.

6) Massachusetts Still Stands

Claim: “These legal issues require fresh scrutiny, particularly in light of major Supreme Court cases… and new developments in science and technology.”

EARTHDAY.ORG’s Position: Here’s where the EPA throws some legal spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. They cite recent Supreme Court cases, none of which overturn Massachusetts v. EPA.

Loper Bright Enterprises et al. (Loper) overturned the Chevron deference, which used to let agencies like the EPA interpret unclear laws, but not Massachusetts as the case clearly gives the EPA authority to regulate emissions. 

West Virginia v. EPA didn’t question whether the EPA can regulate emissions; instead, it said the EPA went too far by trying to shift the entire power industry from coal to cleaner energy without clear permission from Congress. So while the majority in West Virginia may have been skeptical of Massachusetts they did not overrule it.

Also, is Administrator Zeldin seriously claiming that “new science” or “new technology” means we have to reconsider whether greenhouse gases are dangerous? That’s like arguing a better thermometer means we should rethink whether fire is hot.

In fact, the latest science only makes the case for greenhouse gases being the cause of climate change stronger. We’ve seen the impacts firsthand. The climate crisis is no longer hypothetical, it’s happening in real time. So using “technological progress” as an excuse to scrap foundational climate protections isn’t just misleading – it’s backward.

This so-called “reconsideration” of the Endangerment Finding isn’t about science. The Finding has been upheld, reaffirmed, and scientifically validated. What’s changed isn’t the evidence – it’s the EPA’s leadership. Want to make a difference? On a related issue, you can speak out by writing to strongly oppose Section 453 of the Interior Appropriations Bill, which would grant pesticide manufacturers broad legal immunity, even when their products cause harm.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

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Climate change is not an opinion. It is not political. It is not a belief. Whether or not we want to believe that it is happening, it is happening. Over 99.9% of active climate scientists agree that human activity, such as burning fossil fuels, are the main contributors to the rise in global temperature. And yes there is overwhelming scientific evidence dictating that the average global temperature is increasing. 

Despite this overwhelming consensus, the current administration in the U.S. has been very outspoken about their skepticism towards the reality of climate change and have decided to call it a ‘con’ , a hoax or a ‘lie’.  

Since the 1970s, and the passing of the  Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments,  air quality in the U.S. has improved, with air toxins declining 78%. It has been the actions of  the Environmental Protection Agency in regulating air pollutants that’s driven these declines in major pollutants including lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter.

Even with these gains, health issues caused by burning fossil fuels has been estimated to cost $820 billion annually in the US alone. Yet, President Trump currently aims to roll back more than 125 environmental rules and policies. 

As New York Climate Week takes off, we should look at the things we stand to lose if we do not acknowledge climate change and take efforts to mitigate it. 

1) US Department of Agriculture and the Roadless Rule

The current administration is moving to axe the 2001 Roadless Rule, which currently protects nearly 45 million acres of national forest land, owned effectively by every American citizen both now and in the future,  from deforestation by road-building and logging. 

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins called it “too rigid” and wants to open up areas like Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, where 92% of the land is protected from  logging. That’s nearly 9.3 million acres of wild forest now vulnerable to chainsaws.

Supporters claim it would reduce wildfire risk, but scientists argue that logging can actually increase wildfire risk. Removal of the large, older trees might give lots of young trees room to grow, but many of them end up dying and then drying out. Without the canopy, the sun and wind dry the entire area more, making it easier for fires to start and to spread. 

Not to mention, logging forests seriously impacts climate change. Trees absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere as they grow and store it in their trunks, branches, leaves, and roots in a process known as carbon sequestration. This carbon can be stored for centuries in healthy, living forests.

But when trees are cut down, much of that carbon is released back into the atmosphere. Once the tree is logged, its organic material starts to decompose, releasing carbon as carbon dioxide. Some carbon is also released immediately when wood is burned. Logging equipment and transport trucks run on fossil fuels, adding even more emissions. 

In total, America’s national forests offset about 10-15% of all U.S. carbon emissions each year; so losing this environmental safeguard will have a massive impact on climate change. 

This is not all, trees also catch air particulates through their plant pores or when particles stick to their “skin.” Which means trees are actually good for our health too. In fact, people who live around trees are healthier overall.  Less trees means a decline in air quality which is linked to  asthma, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses. Water pollution caused by deforestation contaminates drinking sources, contributing to the spreading of diseases like cholera and dysentery. Plus, forest loss may increase outbreaks of malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases.

Bottom line: Fewer protections = more logging = more carbon = worse health. 

2) Climate Change Satellite

NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) is like the Google Maps of greenhouse gases,  tracking how carbon dioxide moves through our atmosphere with pinpoint accuracy. It has revolutionized climate science, helping scientists, farmers, and even oil companies understand how CO2 is absorbed or released by forests, crops, and oceans.

But the Trump administration are not fans? They want to burn it up in the atmosphere. Literally.

Despite glowing reviews from NASA,  calling OCO-2 the “flagship mission for spaceborne measurements” of carbon dioxide, the Trump White House asked the agency to draft plans to end the mission by incinerating the satellite. Never mind that it cost tax payer’s money $750 million to design, build and launch it, and only costs about $15 million a year to keep running (that’s less than the cost of one F-35 fighter jet tire.)

Even worse, they’re eyeing both OCO satellites, including one still operating from the International Space Station. Losing them would destroy one-of-a-kind data that’s used for tracking droughts, managing crops, and even forest health. Scientists are stunned. One called the satellite a “national asset”, another warning that destroying it would cripple science.

And here’s the kicker: These satellites have enough fuel to keep running for decades, but instead of letting them do their job, President Trump  is pushing to kill them off, possibly illegally, by trying to cancel programs already funded by Congress.

3) Soft Banning of Climate Research

Fulbright was once the gold standard of academic exchange.

But in 2025, the U.S. State Department quietly added a political ‘review’ to the Fulbright selection process. Projects that mention climate change or anything deemed “woke” are now flagged and often rejected, even if they had already been approved by international panels.

This is not just a U.S. issue; it is a global one. In Norway, seven out of seventeen Fulbright  finalists were suddenly cut. Applicants weren’t told why they were rejected. Many only found out later, through leaks and whispers, that their projects were likely caught by a keyword filter run by a Trump appointee – the key words being ‘climate change’.  In one case, a proposal about science education was thrown out because it mentioned that boys and girls see climate change differently.

Even current Fulbright participants are being hurt; many Fulbright scholars woke up this year not to their usual stipend payments, but to emails saying their funding had been frozen indefinitely. The Trump administration quietly paused payments for thousands of U.S. and international students in State Department–funded programs, leaving them scrambling to cover rent, food, and basic expenses. 

Some are now stranded without the ability to work due to visa restrictions, while others fear going home means giving up their studies. Officially, the freeze was supposed to last 15 days, but that was back in February, 2025. Students have been told not to speak to the media, but behind the scenes, many say they feel abandoned, stuck in academic limbo while the administration conducts vague “reviews” tied to Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders.

Is this an ill-time academic review process or  ideological screening? Trump’s State Department isn’t banning climate research outright. But they are quietly burying it, one proposal at a time.

4) Signs in National Parks

National parks are supposed to tell the story of America’s landscapes, but under Trump, that story is being rewritten with a red pen.

In 2025, the Trump administration directed the National Park Service to flag or remove any signs, exhibits, or books that might “disparage Americans”, including signs about climate change, pollution, sea-level rise, and environmental destruction.

At North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a “The Air We Breathe” sign warning about how humans have caused climate change was flagged for possibly not focusing enough on the “beauty and grandeur” of the landscape.  Given humans have caused climate change, by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere faster than ever before, this seems like an extremely petty move.

The Interior Department says it’s just “reviewing” signs, but internal docs show a plan to remove or cover signage. A project called “Save Our Signs,” has seen the public snapping photos of the original signs before they disappear, in the hope they can be reinstalled by future administrations.

5) The Endangerment Finding 

In July 2025, Trump’s EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced plans to “reconsider” one of the most important climate safeguards in U.S. history: the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which gives the EPA the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Take it away, and the EPA can’t regulate climate pollution.

Zeldin declared proudly – “We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion.” 

He claims that the Finding was “unorthodox”(despite being by the book), claims U.S. vehicle emissions weren’t a big enough contributor to matter (in 2022, 29% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. came from the transportation sectors, the vast majority of which were from cars and truck emissions), and points to recent Supreme Court decisions, none of which actually overturn the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

Massachusetts v. EPA, the landmark 2007 case that required the EPA to regulate pollution that endangers public health, still stands. Zeldin’s EPA just doesn’t want to follow it.

They also say “new science” justifies reopening the case; but in reality, that science makes climate action more urgent. Not less. 

When the real toll of climate change runs into the hundreds of billions and includes countless human lives, a claim that this proposal will save $54 billion in costs annually is not only insufficient, but morally shortsighted.

The reality is you can deny anything but that doesn’t make it go away – if it is real. Climate change is real … .and we need a grown up government that accepts that and stops pandering to the greed of a few fossil fuel CEOs.

Make your voice heard and Vote Earth. You can register to vote here.

This article is available for republishing on your website, newsletter, magazine, newspaper, or blog. The accompanying imagery is cleared for use. Please ensure that the author’s name and their affiliation with EARTHDAY.ORG are credited. Kindly inform us if you republish so we can acknowledge, tag, or repost your content. You may notify us via email at davies@earthday.org or fielder@earthday.org. Want more articles? Follow us on substack.

The post 5 Ways President Trump is Trying to Deny the Reality of Climate Change appeared first on Earth Day.

In the United States, it seems that many of us are taking every citizen’s right to vote in political elections for granted. In the 2024 presidential election, about 36% of eligible voters did not cast their ballots and in local and congressional midterm elections, the number of voters that show up to the polls in the U.S. biggest cities for example is often much lower.

Perhaps we have forgotten that for many of us, the right to vote had to be fought for. Just over 200 years ago, mainly only white Christian men with property could vote in most states. By the 1820s–1850s, property requirements were abolished, but voting was still largely limited to white men. The road to universal voting rights was long and slow. 

In 1870, the 15th Amendment barred voting right discrimination on the basis of race, allowing Black male citizens the constitutional right to vote, although it allowed individual states to determine the specific qualifications needed for suffrage. This meant that in reality many barriers such as literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, violence, and intimidation, kept Black men away from the polls in the South for example.

 It wasn’t until 1920, that the 19th Amendment granted women  the right to vote, though in practice many women of color still faced local and state restrictions. In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act recognized Native Americans as U.S. citizens, imbuing them with voting rights, though some states continued to block them from voting for decades.

In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act allowed all Asian immigrants  to become citizens and therefore vote. The 26th Amendment in 1971, lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, extending the right to millions of younger Americans.

At EARTHDAY.ORG, we know how the power of voting has never been more important. This National Voter Registration Day, we wanted to share how the experience of voting for the first time impacted some of our staff.

Evan Raskin, National Campaign Manager, EDO

“My first time voting was as a freshman at American University, where I cast my ballot in the 2016 election by mail. For students like me, voting by mail was truly a lifeline; it allowed us to participate in democracy even while we’re away from home, and it ensured that I could make my voice heard at a formative moment in my life. For me, filling out that ballot was more than just paperwork; it was my first real chance to influence society by formally engaging in civics. It gave me a sense of empowerment, a new opportunity to do something meaningful about the issues I cared deeply about. Growing up in Massachusetts, we learned that our revolutionary roots were defined by the public fighting for democracy and self determination by any means necessary. Casting my first ballot by mail allowed me to not only have a voice in national decisionmaking, but also gave me a voice in the community that had taught me so much about the importance of civic responsibility.

On Election Day itself, my friends and I walked through my Washington D.C. neighborhood, and felt the energy and excitement from people of all ages who were eager to take part in shaping the future. As we passed a local polling location housed in a church, we heard an elderly election worker call out to us. “Go get ’em boys!” he cheered with a tip of his hat. He may not have known that our ballots were already cast, but his sentiment still rang true. Democracy flourishes when we all support each other to have a voice. This is what it means to complete one’s civic duty.”

Dennis Nolasco, Education Coordinator, EDO

“I still remember the first time I voted. Back in 2010, during my senior year of high school, my government teacher made us study and take the U.S. citizenship exam as part of the class. At the same time, my dad was studying for his own U.S. citizenship test. We spent hours together at the kitchen table going over questions, quizzing each other, and stressing over whether we’d both pass; me for my grade, him for his future American citizenship.

Thankfully, we both succeeded! I passed my class, and not long after, my dad passed the real thing. By 2012, we were both eligible to vote in a presidential election for the very first time. On Election Day, on a cold November morning, we woke up early and walked together to the local elementary school polling place; the very same school I had attended as a child. I had memories of my parents dropping me to go to school here and now we were going to reach another milestone together. I remember how excited we were: getting our voting plan together, standing in line with our neighbors, sipping the coffee from the thermos my mom had provided. When I cast my ballot and got my “I Voted” sticker, I felt proud. That pride multiplied when I looked over and saw my dad wearing his.

For me, voting was something I had the privilege of being born into. For my dad, it was something he had to earn through years of hard work, determination, and resilience. Sharing that first voting experience with him made me realize just how meaningful the right to vote really is.”

Terran Fielder, Media Specialist, EDO

“From a young age, I was involved in the voting process, even before I was eligible to cast a ballot. In my last two years of high school, I would aid other students in registering to vote. And they allow minors to work at the polls, so from the time I was 16 I was joining my mom in helping community members to cast their vote. 

The first time I got to vote myself was in the 2020 election.  I was chomping at the bit to use my voice. Unfortunately, this  ended up being super anticlimactic, because if you remember by November of 2020, most of us were locked up due to Covid.  The action I had been waiting for ended up boiling down to dropping my mai- in vote into the mail box. Nevertheless, I put a lot of time, thought, and effort into the process. I researched every candidate, the policies they supported and those they were against. 

My parents are the ones who bestowed upon me the sense that voting was a responsibility and a privilege  – a civic duty no less, and every night leading up to the election, our dinner table conversation was filled with discussion and friendly debate over who were the best choices for the offices. It wasn’t until I received my “I Voted” sticker in the mail that I realized my opinion had been counted, and an overwhelming sense of pride drifted over me.”

Lee Franklin, Volunteer Coordinator

“Just a little over two months after I turned 18, I voted for the very first time in the Town Council and Mayoral elections of Chapel Hill in November of 2015. 

This election was special to me, not only because it was my first, but because the mayoral candidate who eventually won actually hailed from my neighborhood. She also had run for County Commissioner several years before, in an election which my father had also run in. So, I was familiar with the candidates and because of my dad, had a special interest in local politics. My best friend and I had even been attending town council meetings together for fun in the preceding months. We started doing it for a Boy Scout merit badge, but we thought it was interesting, so we kept going afterwards.

One of the most important issues under consideration was the construction of new developments right next to my neighborhood. The election was at the crossroads of so many difficult issues: how to manage population growth in a small community, how to preserve and expand affordable housing, and how to prevent increased runoff that could lead to flooding of neighborhoods downstream.

In high school my friends and I spent so much time wandering the swampy creeks and forests behind my neighborhood. I had waded through miles of creeks, slogged through marshes, encountered A LOT of trash, and seen the water levels rise during rainstorms. So I was very interested in preventing increased runoff caused by development. And in the long run, I wanted to daylight a portion of a creek that ran below a stripmall at the center of the proposed development, so that I could walk through the bed of the creek uninterrupted from my neighborhood all the way to the lake that fed it a few miles upstream.

I’m happy to say my preferred candidate won and served as mayor for eight years. She brought a necessary perspective to the difficult process of growing a small town that people wanted to move to. And she oversaw that growth in a responsible way. I still hope one day they will daylight the creek under the stripmall. This past June, a tropical depression caused flooding in the shopping center so severe that it lifted cars and put dumpsters through storefronts.”

Sarah Davies, Director Communications & Media, EDO

“I became a US citizen last year and while I was too late to vote in any elections back then I was excited to register. I recently ordered a new driver’s licence and took the opportunity to do just that, register to vote, at the same time. It could not have been easier or more efficient.  My new licence and voting card arrived in the same week and it made me feel like I truly am a citizen now. More so than even receiving my U.S passport for some strange reason, I think because it’s not passive, it empowers me to act. 

Nothing is more powerful than making your voice heard, no matter what you believe in or who you vote for, it’s just so important to turn up. I don’t believe in the idea that not voting is a ‘statement’ – people fought and died for this privilege and I really believe every single citizen should use this important honor, that only we have, and get out there and vote.  If you cannot be bothered to vote you cannot complain about the results afterwards if you don’t like them. And in some of these elections every single vote counts so make the time and do it – VOTE!”

Our Voice, Our Power, Our Vote!

Voting is one of the most powerful tools we have to shape our future, but it’s not the only one. After you cast your first ballot, your voice can continue to drive change in countless ways. One of them is by speaking up for strong climate action.

Right now, the EPA’s authority to regulate climate pollution is under threat. This authority comes from what’s called the Endangerment Finding, a critical tool that has allowed the U.S. to take meaningful steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions for years.

Weakening or eliminating this authority would undo decades of progress. If we want cleaner air and healthier communities, we need strong climate policies and public support to back them up.That’s where you come in. Add your name to our public comment in defense of the EPA’s ability to act on climate.Your voice matters; not just at the ballot box, but every time you speak up for a better future.

The post The Time We Cast Our First Vote appeared first on Earth Day.

We have been harnessing the power of the wind for thousands of years: it helped ancient Egyptians propel their vessels down the river Nile, the Chinese, as early as 200 BC, to pump water and from the 7th to 9th centuries in Persia was used to grind grain.

Wind energy is pretty much the rock star of renewables worldwide—and the biggest headliner in the U.S. renewable concert, providing over 10% of America’s electricity. Thanks to wind, our atmosphere dodges 351 million metric tons of carbon dioxide every year. That’s a lot of hot air we’re not letting hang around—literally! Carbon dioxide is the major greenhouse gas that traps heat like a clingy ex, driving climate change and global warming. Not something up for debate; it’s fact, plain and simple.

Now, here’s a fun stat: a 2020-model wind turbine can spin up enough juice in just 46 minutes to power your average American home for a whole month. Talk about efficient multitasking!

Yet, despite all this green goodness, wind energy still gets a bad rap. The current Administration? Let’s just say they’re not sending wind turbines thank you notes anytime soon. So, let’s blow away five common myths about wind power and show why they’re just full of hot air—because wind energy deserves better than that!

1. Wind is For the Woke?

Think wind energy is just a trend of the “woke”? Think again. Nearly 70% of America’s wind power is cranked out in states proudly flying the Republican flag. These red states are quietly leading the charge on wind energy, proving clean power isn’t just a blue state fad.

Let’s talk Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota: the wind energy powerhouses where thousands of jobs in manufacturing, installation, and maintenance are keeping the turbines spinning and the economy humming. Want proof? Iowa bagged over 1,100 clean energy jobs thanks to wind turbine projects supported by the Inflation Reduction Act alone.

Across these states and others like Georgia and Nevada, clean energy factories have whipped up more than 120,000 jobs and generated billions in economic oomph. So, when it comes to wind energy, it’s not about the color of your state’s politics—it’s about jobs, cheaper energy, and a thriving planet. Our 2025 theme,  Our Power, Our Planet, “Our Power, Our Planet,” puts wind energy front and center as the job creator and climate hero it truly is.

2. Wind Kills Whales and Other Wildlife?

While the goal of clean energy is to create a renewable supply of energy, create cheap electricity, jobs, provide national energy independence and help preserve and protect nature, there are concerns that wind turbines may be hurting wildlife.  There’s been a steady drumbeat from the present U.S administration about wind turbines killing whales.

There is currently no scientific evidence that offshore wind turbines kill whales. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a U.S. government scientific agency within the Department of Commerce, has found no credible links between wind turbine activity—such as construction noise or operation—and whale deaths or strandings along the U.S. East Coast. 

Studies show that the primary human threats to whales remain vessel strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, not wind farms. Whales are also impacted by shipping lanes, oil spills, water pollution and plastic garbage. 

Leading experts and  organizations emphasize that claims connecting whale mortality to offshore wind development are unsubstantiated by data and often stem from food old-fashioned mistruth. 

What is true is that wind turbines do pose a real risk to birds and bats, which can collide with the blades. However, the wind energy industry and researchers have developed and are implementing a range of measures to protect wildlife and minimize impacts.

During planning, wind farms carefully choose locations to avoid key bird nesting sites, migration corridors, and areas with high prey populations. Construction activities are scheduled to avoid sensitive breeding seasons. Once operational, wind farms continuously monitor wildlife activity using technologies such as thermal and radar cameras to detect birds and bats in the area.

When animals are detected nearby, turbines can be slowed or even temporarily shut down—a process called “curtailment”—to prevent collisions. Painting some blades black has also been shown to improve blade visibility and help birds avoid crashes.

Compared with other threats to bird populations such as collisions with buildings and predation by cats, bird fatalities from wind turbines represent a small fraction. Ongoing monitoring and adaptive management, combined with emerging technologies like deterrents and detection systems, are reducing risks further.

3. Wind is Expensive?

Installing a wind turbine isn’t cheap. For a typical commercial turbine, you’re looking at anywhere between $2.6 and $4 million upfront, with bigger turbines costing even more. That usually breaks down to about $1.3 million per megawatt (MW) of power, and trust me, these beasts pack 2 to 3 MW each—more juice than your average home will ever guzzle.

Fossil fuels might seem cheaper at first glance, thanks to decades of well-oiled infrastructure and government subsidies, plus that endless supply of “free” dirt under the ground. But when you start adding in the hidden costs—think polluted air, health bills, and climate chaos—wind energy wins the long game as the more wallet-friendly choice.

And here’s the kicker: wind power isn’t just holding steady, it’s getting cheaper faster than a breeze in the spring. New turbines can now churn out electricity for as low as $79 to $129 per megawatt-hour, giving fossil fuels a run for their money. Between 2010 and 2021, the cost of onshore wind dropped a jaw-dropping 68%, flipping the script from nearly double the price of fossil fuels to about half as much.

So sure, the sticker shock at first may make you do a double-take, but in the grand energy showdown—wind’s got some serious staying power.

4. Wind Takes up Land?

The topic of how much space wind turbines need often raises eyebrows—and understandably so. These tall towers require their personal bubble to operate efficiently, with turbines spaced up to 4,000 feet apart (that’s about three-quarters of a mile, or roughly the length of 13 football fields lined up end to end).

But here’s the twist: unlike smokestack-heavy power plants that hog every inch of their real estate, wind farms are more like polite neighbors. The land around the turbines remains open and multipurpose—farmers happily plant crops or graze livestock between the giant fans, collecting a second income from the breezy bonus.

And if you think wind energy is just about landlocked giants hogging space, think again. Offshore wind farms are booming, expanding America’s clean energy footprint out to sea. These projects don’t compete for your backyard lawn but instead tap the vast marine ‘real estate.’ In fact, offshore wind capacity in the U.S. jumped a whopping 53% between 2023 and 2024 alone.

So yes, wind turbines need their space, but that space isn’t wasted—it’s working double time for both energy and agriculture, and increasingly, the open ocean is joining the party.

5. Wind is Inefficient As an Energy Source?

It’s true—wind doesn’t blow 24/7, which leads some to write off wind energy as intermittent  or inefficient. But here’s the secret: wind turbines don’t need a hurricane to work. Their “cut-in speed,” or the breeze that gets the blades spinning, is typically just a gentle 6 to 9 miles per hour—think light jacket weather, not a tornado warning.

Now here’s where it gets fun: each time the wind speed doubles, the power output doesn’t just double—it multiplies by eight. So a boost from a gentle breeze to a stronger gust can supercharge your turbine’s electricity production. Of course, when winds get too wild—above a threshold called the “cut-out speed”—the turbine knows when to take a breather and safely shut down.

Even if the wind occasionally takes a break, wind energy pairs beautifully with solar and hydropower. Store the surplus juice in batteries during calm or nighttime hours, and pull from that reservoir when demand spikes. It’s teamwork that keeps the lights on, come rain, shine, or calm breeze.

How to Support Wind Power

Though no process of energy production is completely perfect, wind energy is clearly a form of renewable energy we should be embracing. Here are some ways that you can add your voice to the pro wind and renewable energy debate.

First, you can support wind and other forms of renewable energy through EARTHDAY.ORG’s 2025 theme Our Power, Our Planet, a call for renewable energy to be tripled globally by 2030. 

You can also check out some EARTHDAY.ORG quizzes like our Renewable Energy Quiz to test your knowledge on wind and other forms of renewable energy so you can easily spot misconceptions regarding these topics in the future. 

You also have the power (and energy!) to make a difference to support the planet’s health in other ways. Right now the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect us from greenhouse gases is under attack from the EPOA itself. LEt them know you care and want to safeguard the EPA’s power, write them HERE.

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