How to Counter Trump鈥檚 Disastrous Attack on Our Public Lands

Slashing two national monuments in Utah may have received the most attention, but Trump鈥檚 Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service have been quietly, systematically ceding control of America鈥檚 public lands to fossil fuel, mining, timber, and livestock interests since the day he took office.

What鈥檚 at stake are 670聽million acres of forests, canyons, rivers, wetlands, mountains, and high deserts. Native American sacred sites. Ancient migratory pronghorn paths and towering temperate rainforests. Pristine streams that feed wild salmon and endangered pikeminnow. Prehistoric artifacts.

These lands are being plundered at a terrifying rate under the Trump administration, which has kicked the door open and let in profiteers to mine, drill, frack, log, and bulldoze. Along the way, it鈥檚 worsening the climate crisis, endangering wildlife, and divesting our natural inheritance to fatten the dividends for massive corporations.

Just this week, Trump launched a massive attack on imperiled wildlife, that could lead to extinction for hundreds of animal and plant species. The changes, which will make it harder to protect wildlife habitat from development, come in the face of urgent scientific warnings that humans have driven up to 1聽million species worldwide to the brink of extinction.

Earlier this month, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt (a former oil and mining industry lobbyist) as acting deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management. Under Pendley, who has made it his life鈥檚 work to , the ongoing fire sale of our children鈥檚 endowment is likely to worsen.

And last month, Trump鈥檚 Bureau of Land Management moved to allow fracking on millions of acres in Colorado鈥昿otentially tripling greenhouse gas emissions in a state that鈥檚 trying to scale back climate pollution鈥昦nd his Forest Service announced in national forests from public and environmental review.

Sadly, it gets worse.

Trump also has relaunched proposals for three massive copper mines that had been idled during the Obama administration and would have disastrous consequences for wilderness, wildlife and water: near Minnesota鈥檚 Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness; in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona; and in Alaska鈥檚 Bristol Bay, at the headwaters of the world’s most productive wild sockeye salmon fishery.

So far the Trump administration has leased more than in the lower 48 states for fracking and drilling, saddling future generations with the potential of nearly .

All of this comes as scientific climate reports carry dark warnings that our planet is teetering on the breaking point and the world is becoming desperate for urgent action to avert the worst consequences of climate change.

The , from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concludes that the land will be unable to sustain humanity because of being destroyed and manipulated by deforestation, industrial agriculture, and other development.

We can start addressing climate change right here and now, by ending new oil and gas leasing on our public lands.

Among other things, scientists recommend that we restore ecosystems and stop burning fossil fuels to avoid 鈥渋rreversible loss in land ecosystem services required for food, health and habitable settlements.鈥�

But here鈥檚 the good news: We can start addressing climate change right here and now, by ending new oil and gas leasing on our public lands.

causes about a quarter of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution. Peer-reviewed science estimates that a federal fossil fuel leasing ban would per year.

Current laws give Congress and presidents authority to . Hundreds of organizations鈥攊ncluding the Center for Biological Diversity, the organization where I work鈥攈ave already petitioned the federal government to end new and leasing, and the proposal is endorsed by several presidential candidates.

And more good news: With increasing frequency, courts have been of to deny or minimize the climate consequences of its actions, including decisions for more oil and gas extraction on public lands.

These cases are part of a growing pattern of judicial rulings that say federal agencies must do additional environmental review to weigh climate impacts before these projects can move forward.

Even in these terribly divisive times, there鈥檚 broad agreement that preserving landscapes for wildlife and future generations is the wise and right thing to do. The fate of the planet depends on it.