So much for us

Years ago on the southern California coast, certain beaches were often covered with tar. It was just part of going to the beach. One thing that had to be included with the beach balls, towels and plastic shovels and buckets was a can of turpentine. That was to clean off the tar before going home.

Also Catalina Island, famously 26 miles off the coast (at least according to the song) was often obscured by a dirty brown band of pollution that blew over the channel from Los Angeles.

In 1957, the International Geophysical Year marked greenhouse gases as one of the environmental dangers in the future.

Now, the tar is gone. The smog is diminished. Greenhouse gases are no longer speculation.

Obviously, a lot has changed since then. Many more environmental changes have taken place as commitment and awareness increased.

Concerns for the environment have changed. Today, they are wrapped around creeping climate change. Although many of the causes for climate change are beyond human influence, it is widely thought that human activity is contributing to the change.

For America, the Environmental Protection Agency is mandated to oversee such things. Its name clearly identifies that mandate.

The agency is now run by Scott Pruitt, a man who staunchly denies climate change.

He is, at least at this writing, in charge of the administration's dismantling of many of the country's environmental regulations.

Gone already are some limitations on greenhouse emissions from power plants. Gone is concern over the Keystone oil pipeline. Most famously, gone too is America's involvement in the Paris climate accord.

New assaults on efforts to cut the human contributions to climate change have been announced. Pruitt is cutting requirements for reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector. Established emission and mileage standards are being reversed.

The reversals will have national and global consequences apart from the impact on the environment.

Pruitt, of course, is able to do these things only because of support from the President and his administration.

Many are applauding the moves. Some businesses and industries see them as loosening the grasp of government.

They are, in fact, applauding shortsightedness. The administration is more than unravelling policies and regulations. It is defying the world and its future for immediate gratification.

So much for us.

Gordon Forgey

Publisher