It's Earth Day

No, I don't have anything special planned for today, but then for me, just about any day is Earth Day. However, I ran across this essay by Dennis Hartley at Hullabaloo, the lead-in to his weekly film column, this time about "eco-flicks". He starts by discussing the iconic "Earthrise" photo taken by Apollo 8 crewmember Maj. William A. Anders:

He then goes on to note Trump's war on planet Earth:

Yes, that is a “pretty place down there.” Be a shame if anything happened to it:

The Trump administration’s tumultuous first year has brought a flurry of changes—both realized and anticipated—to U.S. environmental policy. Many of the actions roll back Obama-era policies that aimed to curb climate change and limit environmental pollution, while others threaten to limit federal funding for science and the environment.

It’s a lot to keep track of, so National Geographic will be maintaining an abbreviated timeline of the Trump administration’s environmental actions and policy changes, as well as reactions to them. We will update this article periodically as news develops.

Needless to say, many “updates” follow that intro (the most recent one is from April 6, and there will be more to come). Bookmark the link, if you dare (sick bag on standby).

I'm not going to go into detail on that, except to note that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been busy gutting every regulation that might help to make the planet livable -- when he's not flying off to Morocco first-class to lobby the Moroccan government on natural gas (and since when was that part of the EPA's portfoio?).

And do check out his film recommendations -- they look pretty interesting.