The Trump administration is racing to roll back even more environmental safeguards aimed at protecting the nation’s air, water and land. 

Over the course of four years his administration has weakened or wiped out more than 125 environmental rules and policies, including the sale of drilling rights in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

According to the Washington Post, the refuge’s vast wilderness provides habitat for more than 270 species, including the world’s remaining Southern Beaufort Sea polar bears, 250 musk oxen and 300,000 snow geese.” It is also home to Indigenous communities in Northern Alaska who are committed to protecting their sacred land.

In August, several environmental groups filed a lawsuit stating that, “drilling in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic Refuge would cause irreparable damage to one of the world’s most important wild places and takes America in exactly the wrong direction on combating climate change”

To mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, not only must the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and all remaining wild places be protected from corporate plunder, the economic and political systems that drive this plunder must be transformed.  We have no more time to lose.

For the Earth Minute and the Sojourner Truth show, this is Theresa Church from Global Justice Ecology Project.