Michael Sauers
April 23, 2025
Earth Day is a bust. It has been reduced to people cleaning garbage along roadsides. Whoopie! Environmental activism is a mere whimper. Climate change is already upon us and is/will continue to have drastic effects for centuries to come. Even if fossil fuel emissions stopped immediately, global warming will plateau and persist. Climate change deniers and fossil fuel multi-nationals have prevailed and they will be remembered for their egregious behavior.
Hotter temperatures, changing seasons, severe storms, increased drought, sea level rise, shrinking glaciers, shifting habitats, food web and species disruptions, invasive species creep, coral bleaching, species extinction, ocean acidification, air and water quality decline, increased risk of disease and significant economic impact are/will continue to happen. It is unavoidable.
Capitalists are addicted to global warming denial. They are like hyenas, wild dogs and lions in their inability to stop eating their prey alive. Driven by short term profits, they refuse to back off. Like the above predators they have blood all over themselves. They will be held accountable even if they attempt to hide in “Freedom Cities”.
In 1990, Greenfire Coalition formed and put on an “in your face” Earth Day event. This occurred in Hazleton, PA. Why? If ever there was/is a poster child for ecological disaster, Hazleton is the place. Like much of the northeastern part of the United States, capitalists devastated the wildlife (furs/meat) and Native American tribes, clear cut forests, drained swamps and altered streams/creeks. Coal became king and subsequently polluted both land and water. When King Coal died, a self-appointed and cloistered group of pseudo economic development mooks began developing sprawling industrial parks. This meant habitat destruction on a large scale. They attracted some of the most polluting industries available resulting in a “world class” municipal dump containing a staggering array of toxic carcinogens. According to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, some of the recruited industries poured hundreds of tons of carcinogens into the air on a yearly basis. Toxic pollutants were also dumped into the Black Creek as well as illegally dumped into abandoned mine tunnels. This environmental nightmare resulted in scores of “superfund” sites many of which continue to be monitored.
Fast forward to today where the plan seems to be to decimate additional 1000’s of acres of habitat and erect “warehouses” which appear to be speculative and empty. These abominations receive large amounts of corporate welfare from local, county, state and federal governments. Politicians, like Governor Shapiro, calls these incentives but they are clearly funneling taxpayer money to entities that already have money or can easily borrow it. This is a perverted form of crony capitalism.
This has all evolved like a slowly developing cancer. Interestingly enough, the cancer rate in Hazleton has always been high.
In 1990 much of the above was in place so the Earth Day event invited and called out the principals. They did not attend.
Earth music, vegetarian food and children’s activities punctuated the air. Workshops on sustainable development, wetlands, landfills, superfund sites, cancer rates, incinerators, organics, streams/forests, recycling/waste reduction, mine land reclamation, acid mine water/Nescopeck Creek, sewage treatment/Black Creek, illegal dumping, co-generation plants, etc. educated the community. Rick Makula, a world class Lepidopterist gave the keynote. We named names.
Greenfire fought the good fight and made good trouble for five years. Its accomplishments were significant and are documented via Newspapers.com and Greenfire Coalition. As it usually does, life intruded; school, marriage, death, relocation, diverging strategies and work broke up Greenfire. Life went on.
Happy Earth Day!