For all that you love rise up

The Fight for Environmental Health and Justice Goes On

Published on November 15, 2024

We will fight on, because we all know what’s coming next.  

We saw what the first Trump Administration meant for environmental health and justice.  It took hundreds of actions that threatened vulnerable communities, worsened the climate crisis, and, had they not been blocked, would have undone many of the country’s most important protections for clean air, safe water, and environmental justice.

But please remember the response to the challenge then, and please remember the role the Ecology Center played.

We joined with progressive advocates in Michigan and across the country, and our collective efforts helped blunt most of the rollbacks and attacks of the first Trump Presidency.  It’s widely believed that Trump 2.0 will be better organized than the last version, but so will we.

The next Administration will have fewer federal guardrails to constrain the MAGA anti-environment, anti-health, anti-justice agenda. Still, there are powerful countervailing forces that will rise again to challenge it. The Ecology Center plays a critical role – in Michigan and beyond – in several of them.

One countervailing force is the power of state and local governments, where much of the United States’ regulatory authority resides, and where the country’s most progressive laws were first adopted.  The Ecology Center is a leader in the work for strong environmental health and justice protections at the state and local level. In 2025, we’ll be working to see, among other priorities, that Michigan’s ambitious new climate and lead poisoning prevention laws get rolled out equitably, unimpeded by federal intervention.

Second is the power of consumers and market forces, which are moving the private sector toward sustainability, whether or not the federal government requires it.  The Ecology Center has been a long-time leader in campaigns to push companies and industries to make cleaner products in safer ways; in recent years, nowhere more notably than in the transportation sector, where the industry’s biggest players have invested heavily in moving away from fossil fuels.   Finally, we collaborate with dozens of nonprofit advocates, whistleblowers, and community activists, using science and people power to block threats to already overburdened communities – whether they’re dealing with air pollution, PFAS contamination, lead poisoning, or other issues. During the past four years, some meaningful steps have been taken at the federal level – like the Justice40 initiative – to address the disproportionate burdens on these communities.  The new Administration will likely move to walk back these steps, but we will fight with Michigan’s frontline communities to build power and work for lasting environmental justice.

Right now, many of us are reeling, angry, despondent, and disturbed about the election. Many of you are probably struggling just to make sense of it all.  We know that some of our colleagues and communities face much more risk and uncertainty in the coming months. It’s important to reach out in your community, to grieve and process it with others.  Please know that you’re not alone.  We need to come together, and when we do, we will rise together.  And that’s how we will eventually build a just and healthy world.

I do not underestimate the threats and challenges we’ll be facing over the next four years, but at this moment, I want to be clear with you about our commitment.  As we have for over 54 years, the Ecology Center will be there.  We will never stop fighting for healthy people, healthy communities, and a healthy planet, in Michigan and beyond.