Birds — and the planet — win with a Biden presidency
Birds do more than just sing songs — they keep entire ecosystems in balance.
Birds do more than just sing songs — they keep entire ecosystems in balance.
But human activity has left 40% of bird species worldwide in decline. The United States alone has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970. And climate change will keep making everything worse.
Last week, birds caught a much-needed break: On Wednesday, a New York federal judge rejected changes to the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act that would have allowed the killing of thousands of birds if the individual or corporation could prove it wasn’t intentional.
“It is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime,” U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni wrote, quoting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. “That has been the letter of the law for the past century. But if the Department of the Interior has its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country will be killed without legal consequence.”
This decision halted the slide the birds were on, at least for now. In 2017, the Trump administration proposed these bullshit changes, changes that would have given protection to megacorporations like BP, which was responsible for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that killed an estimated 1 million birds, if BP could prove killing all those oil-slicked birds wasn’t on purpose.
But that’s on brand for the Trump administration, which has repeatedly tried to dismantle decades-old environmental laws in favor of the fossil fuel industry. In his first four years, Trump dismantled 68 rules — weakening Obama-era protections of clean air, water, land — and has 32 more in the works.
Not only will these rollbacks kill our feathered friends, though — they’ll significantly increase greenhouse gas emissions and lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths from poor air quality and extreme heat each year.
“No species is going to escape some pressure,” Brooke Bateman, leader of the climate science team at the National Audubon Society, told National Geographic. “Things are happening in decades that used to happen in thousands of years. Birds are going to have to move even further to stay within the conditions that they’ve evolved to inhabit.”
The good news is that if Joe Biden wins the U.S. presidency in November, he’d likely undo most of these rollbacks. The bad news is that it could still take years. The really bad news is if Trump gets another four years, birds — and the planet — may not have time to recover from any additional rollbacks pushed through.
Last decade may be defined by its record heat. But this decade can be defined by the people who do something about it. 2020 marks the beginning of the “decade of action,” meaning we have just 10 years to get our act together to avoid the planet’s biggest climate losses. We need fast-acting leaders, ones that will put people and the planet first.
We can’t let this opportunity fly by.