Threats to Climate in Project 2025
While climate change makes storms more violent, heat waves more deadly and wildfires more intense, Washington struggles to adequately respond with climate action policies. As the recent catastrophic hurricanes have shown us, climate change tests our resilience, humanity and commitment to each other, especially in how we respond.
This is why the far-right policy proposals in Project 2025 are so dangerous. Through its effort to both denigrate and starve government, it seeks to undermine a critical tool for us to collectively take care of each other and shape our common future. As a recent analysis from Friends of the Earth Action reveals, Project 2025 not only slashes our ability to respond to disasters, it tears down preventative measures that could save lives.
If Project 2025 were in force, the federal resources FEMA rushed to the ground in North Carolina and Florida would likely not be there, because Project 2025 envisions shifting “the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government” Not only does this put pressure on state and local governments to respond to climate catastrophes that are occurring on larger and larger scales, but it also cuts off safety nets that provide more extensive support while communities recover.
Additionally, Project 2025 would take away federal flood insurance that enables people to rebuild their homes. Project 2025 derides this program as a “bailout” and calls for it to be “wound down” and put in the hands of profit-seeking corporations, who would likely exploit communities when they’re hurting the most.
But Project 2025 doesn’t just target disaster cleanup. The policy disparages the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which houses the National Weather Service, as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” They call for NOAA to be eliminated and for the National Weather Service to turn over forecasting to private companies alone.
Project 2025 is deeply hostile to the environment and would condemn Americans – as well as people all over the world – to ever more deadly climate disasters. Project 2025 is full of proposals that increase fossil fuel production, kneecap initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases, and nix efforts to prepare for and adapt to the impacts of climate change. It even targets studying climate change.
But beyond the climate denialism, Project 2025 is profoundly dangerous because it is bent on imposing a bleak vision of an America where everyone is out for themselves. More than 900 pages meticulously detail ways to cut Social Security, eliminate universal school lunches, and limit the number of people receiving food assistance. In short, the authors of Project 2025 have created an extremist blueprint on how to turn one’s back on neighbors in need, our elders, children and the poor.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” So as communities in North Carolina and beyond count their dead and begin to rebuild, we must get through adversity together, hold each other in community and be more creative in our altruism. We must reject the darkness of Project 2025 and its ethos of destructive selfishness. And we should redouble our efforts to create a country where everyone thrives, belongs and is cared for.
Donate Now to Hood Huggers Foundation, the NCCJC Resiliency Organizing Hub in Asheville, providing immediate and direct support in hardest hit Buncombe County.