The Planet And Democracy Both On Fire

Every year, the planet gets hotter, and the weather gets more extreme, and climate deniers continue to deny what their eyes see and their ears hear.  Lawmakers continue to give subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, and many people try to pretend it’s all normal. But it’s not normal. 

To prevent the irreversible effects of climate change, the world’s average temperature should not exceed preindustrial times by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). In 2024, global temperatures exceeded 1.5 C, triggering a tipping point, an irreversible and catastrophic shift that significantly impacts global climate patterns and human societies. A tipping point can be understood to be like a rock rolling down a hill that picks up speed and destruction on the way down and can not be stopped.

The Dismantling of Democracy

Trump ran on hatred of the government and revenge for those who opposed him, and his base was OK with that. They love Trump because he breaks the law, and he hates the same people they hate: immigrants, people of color, homosexuals, liberals, the poor, and the homeless. 

Trump is signing hundreds of Executive Orders written by Project 25 to dismantle government agencies like the Department of Education, the Consumer Protection Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency. When that happens, thousands of federal workers will lose their jobs, and billions of dollars will be removed from combating the climate crisis and advancing a clean energy economy.

Trump’s policies will cause harm to people, but cruelty is OK with him. So here we are with the Planet on Fire and Democracy on Fire.

In this chaotic political and climate crisis environment, a RALLY FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE at the state capital brought environmental and political experts together to illuminate the darkness and wake up the sleeping that the Climate Can’t-Wait. Several hundred attended the rally at Liberty Plaza.

The first speaker was Congressman HANK JOHNSON from Georgia’s 4th District.

 “We must act now for our planet’s sake and democracy. It’s time to get into the streets, as John Lewis used to say and get into good trouble. Elon Musk and his co-president, Donald Trump, are propelling us backward,” Congressman Johnson said.

Musk is illegally going into government databases and capturing data that he can use in his artificial intelligence (AI) companies to control the government. “Billionaire oligarchs will use the data to monetize it and use it to oppress, single out, and hurt people,” Johnson said.

Musk has been building giant AI programs and AI computing centers for years. He plans to put the entire government in the hands of his AI company and run the government as a giant series of AI programs. “Musk intends to make trillions from turning the government into a technofascist AI kleptocracy that enriches the investor class. Trump is a pawn enriching himself in the process of turning democracy into a computer algorithm controlled by techno-oligarchs like Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and Ellison,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a Facebook post.       

Trump and his loyal cult are shutting down government agencies and coercing employees to resign. “EPA funding for climate and clean energy programs are still frozen because we have a president who wants to be a dictator. We will not allow our democracy and our planet to be sacrificed for the sake of corporate greed or our communities to be poisoned by pollution. We will not allow our children to inherit a world ravaged by extreme weather. Let’s make our voices heard and fight for our future,” Congressman Johnson said.

The next speaker, CRISTAL VALDEZ, a Latinx environmental justice community organizer who empowers and advocates for environmental and social justice in the Latinx community and other communities affected by climate change.   

She explained that people who live in communities where the air, water, and ground have been contaminated by greed and negligence for years are dying from cancer.

 “An unhealthy planet creates unhealthy humans. How can I bring children into a world where they would inherit poisoned land, polluted air, and lawmakers who refuse to protect them? A world where corporate profits matter more than people’s right to live and breathe freely?  This is the reality for millions of brown, black, and Indigenous communities disproportionately affected by climate change,” Valdez said.

Clean energy is the solution to a sustainable future. “Over $30 billion has been invested in clean energy, creating more than 400,000 jobs across our state. But polluters and their political allies want to roll back everything by spreading misinformation and continue to deny climate change to create confusion to protect their profits,” Valdez said.

Project 2025 pushes an extreme anti-environmental agenda to dismantle protections and gut environmental policies that hurt working-class families and vulnerable communities.

To save and protect the planet, “We need bold policies protecting our health, land, and future. We need leaders who listen. We need laws that hold polluters accountable, and we need your voice, vote, and power to demand change,” Valdez said.

DR. REGINALD PARKER is the president of the Friedman Green Bank, the Green Bank of Georgia. He is a serial entrepreneur focusing on economic and environmental development in low-income and disadvantaged communities.

“I’m here to represent the people under an energy burden and talk about how the climate hits them hardest and how we, as Georgians, must look out for all Georgians. There is no planet B; this is our planet, and we must take care of it,” Dr. Parker said.

Dr. Parker shared the following statistics with the people gathered at Liberty Plaza. Georgia ranks eighth in the nation for having the highest number of energy-burdened people. An energy burden is when you pay 6% or more of your income for energy. This forces people to choose whether to pay the light bill, medical bills, groceries, or rent.

When weather-related disasters happen, they are worse for people who are energy-burdened and don’t have energy-efficient homes, generators, or solar panels.

As the Green Bank invests more money in climate change solutions, we help those burdened by energy costs. We must maintain momentum, for it is not too late. If we stop, we will lose. We must tell them that the Climate can’t wait.

Next up is BRIONTE McCORKLE, Executive Director of Georgia Conservation Voters Education Fund. McCorkle works to advance climate and environmental justice issues in Georgia.   

“With each passing year, we have reckless, greedy, dangerous corporate oligarchs and a lack of political will from our elected leaders that keep driving us deeper and deeper into the climate crisis. The climate crisis is here, telling us not to keep ignoring it. There’s a mass extinction going on,” McCorkle said.

Melting ice sheets and permafrost thaws are mass extinction tipping points, releasing potent greenhouse gases that further accelerate warming. Ocean circulation disruptions, coral reef deaths, and deforestation impact global carbon sequestration. All of this is happening now.

In September 2024, Hurricane Helene caused 219 deaths, almost $80 billion in damage in Florida and Georgia, and massive flooding in North Carolina. It was the deadliest hurricane since Katrina. We started 2025 with wildfires in L.A. Last year was the hottest on record, and 2025 may be even hotter.

In the face of all this devastation, people are fighting back throughout the country.  President Biden, Senators Ossoff and Warnock, Congressman Hank Johnson, and our congresspeople passed the Inflation Reduction Act to fund $370 billion worth of investment in the climate crisis and to advance a clean energy economy. 

But all this progress is threatened by Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and all of their corporate cronies in DC, who are attacking our democracy, attacking the Inflation Reduction Act, and dismantling our government.

“All of Trump’s executive orders are intended to stress us out, disorient us, and make us feel hopeless and powerless. But people are fighting all over Georgia, pushing back against biomass plants and Georgia Power, which wants to expand gas plants and continue burning coal. Now is not the time to give up. It is time to wake up and fight.”

“Thank you for being the people who came together and paved the way for us to survive and thrive on this planet,” McCorkle said.

The next speaker, DOUG SHIPMAN, the Atlanta City Council president, was elected in November 2021.

“I have the pleasure of serving Atlanta and will tell you the hard truth. I do not hear enough about the climate crisis in my office, nor do people ask me to invest in Atlanta’s largest surplus in climate change. I do not have people calling and telling me we need transit over roads or Marta to invest in transit, not parking lots. I do not have people calling to say we need solar on our rooftops or that Georgia Power should stop blocking solar,” Shipman said.

My contemporaries at the county, public service commission, and state legislature levels tell me the same thing. I’m asking you to call your elected representatives with specific requests about energy, transit, and the environment.

Council Shipman, what you say may be accurate, but this reporter remembers when thousands of citizens came to speak at the Atlanta City Council meeting on June 5, 2023. For 15 hours, citizens spoke for saving the Atlanta forest and against Cop City, giving heart-wrenching, passionate, inspiring, and powerful testimony.  

However, the Atlanta City Council did not listen to the people and voted 11 to 4 to approve $67 million for Cop City. That vote was about climate change and police brutality. Trees are the front-line troops against climate change, and now those trees have been cut down. 

DANIEL BLACKMAN is a distinguished public servant and environmental leader who made history as the first black man to serve as regional administrator for the US Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden-Harris administration. 

Blackman said he knows many people who work in Washington and that the Musk-Trump administration is forcing them to leave their jobs. 

Career employees who have dedicated their time and energy to protecting the environment and vulnerable frontline communities are shocked to learn that Musk stopped the funds provided by the Biden-Harris administration for environmental work.

Trump appointed Musk to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGF) to find and eliminate government waste. These billionaires are endangering millions of people in this country who rely on government grant programs for food, child care, housing, and health care. They are taking from the poor, elderly, and disabled and giving to the investor class.

Ironically, Elon Musk (a/k/a The Welfare King), worth approximately $400 billion, started his companies SpaceX and Tesla with the help of government funds. Space X has received $19.8 billion in federal contracts, and Tesla benefited from about $4.9 billion in government subsidies. He should look in the mirror to identify government waste.

Georgia received $50 million for the Clean School Bus program, which provides electric school buses to reduce emissions that compromise children’s lungs. Georgia also received $147 million for its water infrastructure. This is the type of so-called waste the Welfare King, Elon Musk, is removing.

“This is bigger than Democrats versus Republicans.  It’s about right and wrong.  It’s about communities in rural Georgia struggling with coal ash in their water. It’s about rural communities that haven’t recovered since COVID. It’s about communities that don’t have infrastructure money and cannot afford electric public transportation.  It’s about the climate, the air we breathe, and the water we drink needs to be clean,” Blackman said.

“We made it through Jim Crow, the Civil Rights era, the Reagan era, and the first Trump term, and if we stand together and fight together, we will make it through this,” Blackman said.

Georgia State Representative RUWA ROMMAN is the first Muslim woman elected to the Georgia House of Representatives and the first Palestinian elected to Georgia public office.

Representative Romman tells us of the difficulties she faced regarding the climate crisis. Younger members tell her climate change does not exist and that she needs to look at the data and facts. “Every year, it gets hotter and hotter. Our peach crop has died two years in a row.  For many people, it is now too dangerous to go outside because of heat, smog, pollen, and severe weather patterns; but if you bring up climate change at the state house, you are mocked because they say it’s not real,” Romman said.

 It must be challenging to be progressive working with a state house full of red conservatives and MAGA Republicans. She is being subjected to a lot of hostility and rudeness, which is unacceptable. 

 Republican voters are present all the time. They attend committee hearings, submit testimony, and protest. “We need our supporters to show up and help babysit our government. When you don’t show up, the opposition gets to run around unfettered and completely cut programs when it’s illegal to do so, and the people charged with stopping them are not doing their jobs. We need all of you to force people to do their jobs,” Romman said.

“When someone tells you not to take action because it doesn’t matter or will do no good, Look them in the eye and ask why they are working on behalf of the opposition. So, I implore you to not give up even on the darkest days. Fight back harder and be courageous about the issues you believe in,” Romman said.