Why Capitalism Relies On Nature And Care Work It Does Not Pay For
Gunnar Rundgren – Photo: LinkedIn
02-04-2026 ~ Modern economies depend on unpriced ecosystem functions and undervalued care and reproductive labor—essential inputs that are difficult to commodify. This tension helps explain environmental degradation, social strain, and the limits of market systems.
Modern economies depend on a range of essential inputs that are not fully priced or exchanged in markets. These include ecosystem functions—such as clean air, climate regulation, and biodiversity—as well as care and reproductive work, including raising children, maintaining households, and supporting the elderly. Despite their immense value, they have been privatized or commodified only to a limited extent. This presents a tension at the core of capitalism: a system expected to be expansionist and to convert ever more aspects of human life into markets continues to rely on forms of nature and human activity that resist enclosure, ownership, and pricing, even as they are subject to degradation. In this sense, the system depends on conditions it does not fully reproduce and may, over time, undermine.
One explanation for this limited commodification is that many ecosystem functions are inherently difficult to define, enclose, and trade. Even the term “ecosystem services” can be somewhat misleading, as it suggests a bounded, deliverable output, whereas many of these processes are better understood as ongoing functions or flows within complex systems. They are not easily reduced to discrete units of ownership, and in many cases, they are mobile, such as the air we breathe or species that migrate across regions. Others are not mobile enough to capitalize on, as their benefits are tied to specific places—you can only make use of the shade of a tree where it stands. These functions cannot be stored, and their reproduction depends on intact ecosystems rather than isolated production processes. Most are also non-exclusive, meaning that many people benefit from them simultaneously. Those natural resources that can be more easily enclosed and measured—such as farmland or mineral deposits—have largely already been privatized, leaving behind a set of ecological functions that are structurally resistant to commodification.
The limited development of markets for nature reflects these constraints. Environmental markets that do exist are typically not spontaneous outcomes of market expansion but are created through administrative or institutional frameworks. Carbon trading systems such as the EU’s Emissions Trading System are a prominent example. Their effectiveness depends less on market dynamics than on externally imposed limits, such as emissions caps set by governments. Within these systems, market mechanisms may determine the allocation of emissions among participants, but they do not necessarily generate new value in aggregate or drive capital accumulation as conventional markets do. The overall level of emissions is set politically, not by supply and demand, which means that the “market” operates within boundaries that it does not determine. In that sense, what is often described as a market for nature is, to a significant extent, an administratively constructed mechanism.
A related line of argument questions whether nature can be meaningfully assigned a monetary value. If money is understood not simply as a representation of value but as the system through which value is defined and measured, then those aspects of the world that are not priced may appear to have no value within economic systems. This turns a common assumption on its head. Rather than money reflecting pre-existing values, it may be more accurate to say that monetary systems play a central role in determining what counts as value in the first place. Ecosystems may therefore be treated as valueless not because they lack importance, but because they fall outside the forms of valuation that markets can recognize. Attempts to calculate the value of ecosystem “services” can be seen as efforts to translate complex, interdependent processes into monetary terms, often with limited success and significant simplification. Read more
How Flawed Are Weapons Estimates?
John P. Ruehl – Independent Media Institute
04-02-2026 ~ As munitions grew in number and complexity, reported figures have often misled the public. In modern conflicts, many of these figures are little more than fiction.
Missile inventories have become a focal point in the ongoing military confrontation with Iran. The Alma Research and Education Center estimates Iran’s ballistic missile count has fallen from 2,500 at the beginning of the conflict to around 1,000, and U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has pointed to the almost “complete destruction” of Iran’s missile industry and stockpile.
But according to U.S. intelligence, Washington can only confirm that roughly a third of Iran’s missile arsenal has been destroyed by late March. Israeli officials have meanwhile blended depletion estimates with expectations of rapid recovery by warning that Iran could produce 8,000 ballistic missiles by 2027, while Russian and Chinese missile imports have further upended clear estimates about the true scale of Iran’s remaining arsenal. Iranian officials do not publish precise totals, but insist their arsenal remains intact and safely underground.
American officials have been similarly guarded about their own munitions. As operational strains emerge, outside estimates, such as those from the Payne Institute, suggest that a third of U.S. THAAD interceptor missiles had been spent by late March, and it could take years for the stockpiles of interceptors to be completely replenished. According to government insiders, roughly 25 percent were already estimated to have been used in the June 2025 Iran strikes. Acknowledging shortages could embolden Tehran and expose the limitations of U.S. missile defense policy, which is designed for short, high-intensity conflicts, rather than prolonged engagements.
Partial and anonymous munitions disclosures do not provide definitive accounting, and missiles are just part of this pattern. It accompanies decades of disagreement over Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles and widely cited figures that contest Iran’s breakout period to build a nuclear weapon. Israel has, meanwhile, embraced nuclear ambiguity through a longstanding policy of neither confirming nor denying its arsenal stockpile, thereby avoiding nuclear oversight while preventing attacks. Estimates by other countries, like those referenced in the British House of Commons, provide some insights into the subject, filling the gap.
Yet figures on weapons stockpiles produced by governments, think tanks, or open-source analysts are widely filtered and often distorted before reaching the public. They are used to deter enemies, reassure domestic audiences, secure allied support, or justify increased military spending or policy changes. Rather than being neutral, they function as messages of statecraft, employing exaggerated or selective claims to advance political interests.
Development of Ammunitions Distortion
Governments have inflated military strength for centuries, with ancient states regularly overstating military power and troop sizes, when the use of simpler weapons limited the extent to which facts could be obscured. That began to change with the rise of centralized state power under Napoleon Bonaparte, whose wartime bulletins became a template for state-backed deception. He projected overwhelming strength, but his opponents had little ability to accurately track supply lines or reserves, boosting domestic morale while confusing enemies.
The rise of industrial warfare in the mid-1800s further exacerbated this situation. Mass conscription, coupled with large-scale production, created militaries with vast, poorly understood stockpiles. Governments could misrepresent capability and supply, while even their own planning struggled to keep up with the scale of industrial warfare. Naval powers maintained deliberate obscurity around shipbuilding programs, helping fuel the arms race, and in the lead-up to World War I, intelligence failures meant major powers consistently misjudged each other’s capacity.
It also became harder to define what counted as a weapon. During World War I, the British ship RMS Lusitania was carrying munitions and had defensive armaments for the Allies, but after its sinking by Germany, it continued to be presented as a purely civilian ship to shape public opinion. Read more
Attacks On Transgender Women Are Part Of A Larger MAGA Agenda
Sonali Kolhatkar
03-31-2026 ~ There is a broader context for the Olympics committee’s recently announced ban on transgender women athletes—one that wants to turn back the clock on gender politics.
Just days before, March 31, 2026, International Transgender Day of Visibility, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a ban on transgender women participating in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The committee released a statement saying, “Eligibility for any female category event at the Olympic Games or any other IOC event, including individual and team sports, is now limited to biological females.”
Although the IOC didn’t explicitly say it was caving in to pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump, the ban is consistent with Trump’s scapegoating of transgender people throughout his tenure. The White House lauded the decision, taking credit for the IOC’s decision.
In Trump’s worldview, even those who are biologically born as female are not woman enough if they don’t live up to Western conventions of femininity. Algerian boxer Imane Khelif and Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting, who won gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics, found themselves at the center of MAGA’s gender policing when Trump falsely claimed they were men.
Given the hubbub over transgender athletes, one would be forgiven for concluding that they routinely compete at the Olympics. According to a 2026 Associated Press report, “It is unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at an Olympic level.” Moreover, no transgender women competed in the 2024 Olympics. The explicit ban by an institution against a community that has little to no representation in that organization is a clear indicator that it is not about a ban as much as about feeding the collective Trump-led pile-on against trans people, and the broader policing of gender that is at the heart of a patriarchal yearning for outdated gender-based societal roles.
In its recent announcement, the IOC didn’t just stop at banning transgender athletes. It also announced it would require one-time genetic testing for women who compete in the Olympics or any other IOC events to ensure they were born biologically female. Doctors have rejected such testing as notoriously unreliable.
In 2018, the World Health Organization called on nations to end the barbaric practice of “virginity” testing that is still conducted in some nations to “establish marriage eligibility or from employers for employment eligibility,” and “assess their virtue, honor or social value.” The IOC’s genetic testing of women is a modern-day version of such a misogynistic custom. It harkens back to a time when bodily autonomy was reserved for men, and women had to prove purity.
In today’s version of the medieval misogyny that is making a comeback under the guise of “Make America Great Again,” only straight white Christian men are trusted to define their own bodies. The MAGA-verse’s gender policing is a response to such men being forced to compete with diverse communities for jobs, relationships, and positions of power.
The MAGA movement dreams of straight white Christian couples to prolifically procreate to counteract the imagined (and laughable) fear of a “white genocide.” White women are therefore not looked upon kindly if they refuse to bear white children and convert to other religions, or are single, lesbians, and born biologically male.
Viewed through such a lens, the Trump and MAGA approach to gender and sexuality becomes clearer. Take reproductive care and gender affirming care. For women—especially white women—to terminate pregnancies is antithetical to MAGA’s desire to grow the white population. And white transgender women taking hormone replacement therapy or engaging in surgical transition also results in fewer white babies. To that end, Trump’s defunding of reproductive care and banning gender affirming care are consistent with his movement’s gender politics.
The MAGA approach to gender also intersects with economic policy. Child care is a good example. Across the nation, child care is in crisis. It is too expensive for parents, while those working in these facilities —mostly women—are underpaid. The state of New Mexico, meanwhile, shows that what is needed are government subsidies. New Mexico’s recently enacted universal free child care system is being paid for by oil and gas royalties and enables people to reenter the workforce after having babies. Paying for a largely female-based workforce so that other women can compete with men to get jobs is the opposite of MAGA’s gender politics, which is why Trump is intent on defunding state-supported child care.
Trump’s immigration policy is also central to his promotion of patriarchal white supremacy. He has reveled in the mass deportation of nonwhite immigrants, especially those from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, and expressed a yearning for white European immigrants. A 2026 ProPublica report also finds that the Trump administration separated 11,000 children who are U.S. citizens from their immigrant parents and deported the parents. Authorities appear to be specifically targeting immigrant mothers, who are among the MAGA-undesirables alongside lesbians (like Renee Nicole Good, the U.S. citizen killed by ICE agents in Minnesota), transgender women, and working women.
The undercutting of social services is also part of the project of patriarchal white supremacy. Government benefits must be reserved for white Americans—until they start to benefit immigrants, people of color, LGBTQI+ people, and women seeking abortions. For example, a viral claim by a white supremacist account on X in 2025 falsely suggested immigrants were the largest beneficiaries of government food stamps, when in reality, white Americans are the ones consistently relying on such benefits. In order to justify cutting food stamps, Trump supporters need only believe that “undeserving” people are benefiting from them.
Even the MAGA approach to the Epstein files is consistent with the movement’s gender politics. For as long as the sex trafficker’s accomplices were largely unknown and possibly Democrats, Trump’s supporters were rabidly in favor of releasing the names in Jeffrey Epstein’s files. But, as soon as it became clear that wealthy white men, including Trump and other conservative men, were also involved, there was silence, and the MAGA demands for transparency and justice vanished.
The MAGA-verse is desperate for a world where white women are well-behaved stay-at-home moms, tradwives whose sole raison d’être is to care for white men and babies. In this world, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQI+ people, and liberal whites are undesirable. For the IOC to acquiesce to Trump’s gender policing is a deeply troubling sign.
The response to the authoritarian demand for conformity must be roundly rejected. Rather than try to appease patriarchal white supremacist forces, the rest of us need to double down on our right to proudly display our identities, insist on full bodily autonomy, and demand services, benefits, opportunities, and anything else the MAGA-verse believes is only reserved for straight white Christian men.
By Sonali Kolhatkar
Author Bio: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly subscriber-funded television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her books include Talking About Abolition: A Police-Free World Is Possible (Seven Stories Press, 2025) and Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and was a senior editor at Yes! Magazine covering race and economy. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.
Credit Line: This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Israel, Oil, And Megalomania Are Behind Trump’s Iran War
David N. Gibbs – Professor of history at the University of Arizona
03-31-2026 ~ Why did Trump suddenly move so sharply in favor of war in his second term, turning against his popular base and his promises of no new wars? In an interview, historian David N. Gibbs offers some answers.
The world’s two major rogue states, the US and Israel, attacked Iran on February 28, 2026 by using an imaginary threat to overthrow the Iranian regime and hoping in turn to install in its place a “friendly” government. There is no end to war in sight after one month as Iran hasn’t lost the capacity to retaliate and there has been no rebellion inside Iran. Moreover, there are very strong indications that the US is preparing for ground operations in Iran, a move that, if it materializes, will unleash hell in the neighborhood and beyond.
In the interview that follows, renowned historian David N. Gibbs describes the war against Iran by the United States as a prime example of the “extraordinary subservience” on the part of President Donald Trump to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The Butcher of Gaza had long hoped to drag the US into direct military confrontation with Iran and has finally succeeded doing so. But the interviewee also points out that Trump may have had in mind objectives of his own when he decided to go to war with Iran.
David N. Gibbs is a professor of history at the University of Arizona, who specializes in political conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe, and Afghanistan, as well as US economic history. His most recent book is Revolt of the Rich: How the Politics of the 1970s Widened America’s Class Divide.
C. J. Polychroniou: David, as the Iran war rages on and threatens to engulf the entire Middle East region and beyond, I want to start by asking you to reflect on the following. The first Trump administration proved to be less warlike than both the Obama and Biden presidencies. Why do you think Donald Trump is pursuing such a bellicose foreign policy during his second term?
David N. Gibbs: One of the most striking features of Donald Trump’s second presidential term is the belligerent, violent stance, much harsher than what was seen in his first term. This has been true across the board, from the streets of Minneapolis to the Caribbean and Greenland; and now very dramatically in the Persian Gulf. This is a pure war of aggression, since Iran presented no imminent security threat to the United States or to Israel, as intelligence specialist Joseph Kent, who recently resigned from the Trump administration, has made clear. Accordingly, the war is a violation of the United Nations Charter, which prohibits wars of aggression not authorized by the Security Council. Trump has also violated the US Constitution, which stipulates that international treaties that are signed by the United States—such as the UN Charter—form part of “the supreme Law of the Land.”
In launching war against Iran, Trump II is acting very much like previous presidents from both parties. He is following in the grand tradition of the US president as war maker. Consider George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, which was equally reckless and destructive, producing enormous costs in both dollars and lives, with no security benefits whatsoever. And yet it was backed by both parties, with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) acting as a loyal supporter of the war. The extraordinary subservience that Trump is now displaying toward the Netanyahu government—despite his promises of “America First”—also follows a long tradition of pro-Israel activities by previous administrations, since at least the 1970s.
And there have been many more cases of disastrous US interventions, besides Iraq, including the violent regime change operations against governments in Libya and Syria, with negative consequences for both the inhabitants of those countries and for regional security. In 2014, US officials helped to overthrow the elected government of Ukraine, thus destabilizing the country and laying the groundwork for a later war with Russia (and in doing so, they violated the Charter of the Organization of American States, which prohibits all forms of external intervention). In the 1990s, NATO bombing campaigns in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo augmented the scale of human suffering, while US officials blocked negotiated settlements that could have settled these conflicts through peaceful means.
Consider too the weaponization of economic sanctions by US presidents, which over the past 50 years have killed many millions of innocents, according to one recent study. American officials in previous administrations have shown remarkable callousness, when queried about the deadly effects of sanctions. While his bizarre communication style is unique among recent presidents, Trump’s penchant for violence is not unique.
It should be emphasized that Trump’s newly aggressive foreign policy seems fundamentally different from what we saw in his first term: In the first term, Trump showed many disturbing tendencies, including the assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and the breaking of a perfectly viable US-Iranian agreement that limited Iranian nuclear enrichment. What Trump did not do in his first term was start any new wars, and in this respect, the first Trump presidency stood out historically. Many on the left bristle at this idea—but the fact is that first term, Trump was indeed one of the least warlike presidents since 1945.
Why did Trump suddenly move so sharply in favor of war in his second term, turning against his popular base and his promises of no new wars? My best guess is that Trump—in his instinctive megalomania—wanted to be not merely a two-term president, but also a great president, comparable to Abraham Lincoln or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a war-winning leader fit for Mount Rushmore. Other motives included a desire to enhance US control of world oil, to be used as an instrument against challengers, such as China; to open up through force new investment opportunities for US companies; to enable old-fashioned corruption of the type that almost always is associated with war and covert operations; to please the ubiquitous Israel Lobby; and to distract from Trump’s embarrassing associations with Jeffrey Epstein. On balance, however, I assume that Trump’s quest for greatness loomed large in his decision to wage war.
Obviously, Trump’s aim for Mount Rushmore is failing, as his glorious war against Iran is already producing political and economic disaster. The preparations for war seem remarkably superficial, in a way that is once again, reminiscent of past wars. Recall the numerous failures associated with the War on Terror. What most impresses me most about the Iran war is how similar it seems to past US foreign adventures. Read more
How Microplastics Threaten Marine Ecosystems And The Food Chain
Erica Cirino – Photo: exxpedition.com
03-30-2026 ~ Microplastics are pervasive pollutants that accumulate in marine ecosystems and enter the human food chain.
Microplastics, plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters, can be found in land, air, and water, and have infiltrated our food chain, resulting in far-reaching health consequences for humans and nonhumans alike. In 2020, scientists discovered the “highest level of microplastic ever recorded on the seafloor,” revealing the extent of their impact on the marine ecosystem.
The lead author of the study, Ian Kane from the University of Manchester, said: “Almost everybody has heard of the infamous ocean ‘garbage patches’ of floating plastic, but we were shocked at the high concentrations of microplastics we found in the deep-seafloor.”
These microplastics enter the marine ecosystem directly and indirectly, for example, from landfills, where they are carried by wind into rivers and seas. “It is estimated that 8 million tonnes of plastics enter the seas and oceans each year,” stated a 2021 study published in MDPI.
Mussels can act as sentinels to assess and monitor microplastic pollution. Globally distributed in both freshwater and saltwater ecosystems as filter feeders, mussels are both sensitive to environmental pollution and play a key role in engineering aquatic ecosystems by processing huge quantities of water.
With serious concerns about microplastic contamination of food, particularly seafood, and human bodies growing, mussels will inevitably serve as an increasingly important bioindicator of microplastic pollution from the present into the future.
The Impacts of Plastic Disintegration
Manmade, fossil fuel-based plastics don’t biodegrade like natural materials; instead, they break up into increasingly tiny plastic particles. Scientists categorize these particles by size: those 5–10 millimeters are called “mesoplastics,” those between 1 nanometer and 5 millimeters (about the diameter of a pencil eraser) are called “microplastics,” and those 1 nanometer (a human hair is 80,000-100,000 times nanometers wide) and smaller are “nanoplastics.” While nanoplastics are too small to be seen, microplastics and mesoplastics are fairly visible.
Microplastics that are “intentionally produced” for inclusion in cosmetics or exfoliating products, such as soap scrubs and toothpastes, are typically manufactured as tiny beads or flat pieces of glitter. These ready-made microplastics are called “primary” microplastics. Primary microplastics also include nurdles—small pellets of plastic melted down into the plastic products we are familiar with. Nurdles are often discharged into waterways through industrial wastewater runoff from plastic production facilities, and during shipping fires and spills from cargo ships. About 445,970 tons of nurdles are estimated to directly pollute the environment globally every year, especially aquatic ecosystems.
Plastic particles that form due to the disintegration of plastic materials are called “secondary” microplastics. These particles may be pieces of plastic film, fibers (from textiles and rope), foam, hard or soft fragments, and lines (such as from fishing gear). They break down from plastic packaging, synthetic textiles, paint, and other plastic materials used in our homes. Plastic’s breakdown is accelerated by sunlight, extreme temperatures, exposure to bacteria, fungi, and water, and by weathering.
These particles were first documented in marine ecosystems in the early 1970s and have since been found in indoor and outdoor air, drinking water, fresh and processed foods, fresh waters, household dust, plants and trees, oceans, soils, and in animals—including humans.
Plastics are not only harmful to our health but also impose significant economic costs. “Estimates suggest that plastic pollution causes about $75 billion per year in environmental damages, with $13 billion of this tied to marine ecosystems. For example, plastic pollution can deplete fish stocks and impact coastal tourism by littering popular beaches. It can damage infrastructure like urban drainage systems. It can even de-operationalize or sink ships by entangling propellers or clogging water intake systems responsible for cooling their engines,” pointed out the World Resources Institute.
Microplastics Threaten Marine Life
While plastic particles have virtually contaminated the entire Earth due to their constant movement through the biosphere, marine ecosystems in particular are a major repository for mesoplastics, microplastics, and nanoplastics. Freshwater systems empty into the oceans, and populous coastal areas—especially those that have been industrialized—are major sources of microplastic pollution in marine ecosystems. About 80 percent of plastics in the oceans are estimated to have traveled there via rivers and other freshwater systems. Flooding and weather events can push microplastics into rivers in significant quantities.
A 2021 report by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) stated that plastic accounts for 85 percent of marine litter, and by 2040, we can expect the volume of plastic pollution to nearly triple if we don’t take preventative measures.
Fish and other marine animals are exposed to microplastics in waters and sediments, from the sea surface to the seafloor. Many animals, including some fish species that people eat, consume nurdles and other round microplastics because they resemble their usual food sources, such as fish eggs and other plankton. Some fish species and marine animals are attracted to the smell of weathered plastic particles. Even relatively small amounts of plastic can be deadly to marine wildlife. For example, a 2025 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests consuming the equivalent volume of less than one sugar cube of plastic can kill one in two Atlantic puffins; less than half a baseball’s size in plastics can kill one in two Loggerhead turtles; and the amount of plastic in less than a sixth of a soccer ball can kill one in two harbor porpoises. Read more
Why Climate Change Legislation Hits A Wall In Washington D.C.
03-29-2026 ~ Decades of political battles, shifting public opinion, and evolving advocacy strategies shaped the path of U.S. climate policy from early scientific warnings to major federal investment.
On February 8, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson inadvertently made history—but not the kind that would be noted in textbooks. “Air pollution is no longer confined to isolated places,” President Johnson said in a Special Message to Congress on Conservation and Restoration of Natural Beauty, delivered mere weeks after his 1965 inauguration. “This generation has altered the composition of the atmosphere on a global scale through radioactive materials and a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Yes, LBJ—in the 1960s, before words like global warming or climate change were commonplace vernacular—was the first commander-in-chief to warn his fellow Americans of a steady increase in carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.
Culturally, in the post–World War II era marked by the advent of disposable everything and a stark turn away from the rationing imposed by generations prior, Americans weren’t yet tuned in to eco-friendly tasks such as throwing garbage into a trash receptacle or curbing industrial pollution. LBJ started to change that, but sadly, the first U.S. president to be briefed by scientists on the dire threats posed by climate change wouldn’t be the last. Not even close.
The Global Change Research Act
Fritz Hollings was fascinated by the weather and the ocean. The Democratic senator from South Carolina, elected to the Senate in 1966, was a believer in “practical conservationism.” In the early 1970s, the World War II veteran and lawyer—with a Southern accent so thick, one of his colleagues used to joke he was the only senator who needed his own interpreter—was a driving force behind early environmental policies protecting the ocean, including the National Coastal Zone Management Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Ocean Dumping Act, and the Fishery Conservation and Management Act. Hollings channeled his dual interests of weather and ocean to help President Nixon establish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency housed in the Department of Commerce that brought the first of America’s physical science–focused agencies together under one umbrella in order to consolidate the federal government’s research efforts in the field of oceanic resource management.
NOAA, with its focus on oceans and the atmosphere, is home to most of the climate science conducted by the federal government. The agency remains an employer to many groundbreaking climate scientists, including those now known for testifying before Congress on the perils of climate change.
Charged by the advancement of new satellite technology and supercomputers, believing they held the promise to collect data and offer a more sophisticated understanding of the greenhouse effect and its impacts, a group of leading scientists assembled a proposal to establish a U.S. Global Change Research Program, which President Bush subsequently used his presidential authority to create in 1989. Encompassing thirteen federal agencies, the Program, which exists today, seeks to understand global warming and the changes it’s causing the Earth.
Congress codified the Program—so that a future president could not disassemble the effort without an act of law—one year later, under the leadership of Senator Hollings, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, which had jurisdiction over the bill. The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed by both the House and the Senate unanimously, and President Bush signed the measure into law the day after he signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. Though Hollings is not a name typically synonymous with global warming legislation, the bill solidified his climate legacy—and that of President Bush.
A nine-page research bill that passed with barely any debate and no opposition might sound like it wasn’t important. But the Global Change Research Act was and still is critical. By permanently creating the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the government has a body to coordinate global warming research across the federal agencies. But most vitally, one of the mandates in the law requires that, every four years, the Program send to the president and Congress an assessment of its findings on the effects of global change and on current and major long-term trends in global change. By 2023, five National Climate Assessments have been issued (federal agencies sometimes fall behind schedule), and this ongoing assessment of the science and the risks transcends political party.
As EPA administrator Reilly noted, Bush was “committed to [a] very substantial research budget to [make] major investments by NASA on upper atmospheric ozone monitoring and on climate monitoring. NOAA was well-funded.”
However, despite these initial investments and early efforts, for some environmental activists, the government was not moving nearly fast enough to address global warming. Read more