"We have environmental laws and we protect endangered species for a reason. These laws enrich our lives and preserve biodiversity that may be key to our own survival. Setting these laws aside for a stupid wall is extremely damaging to us." (Photo: @Mmsuzdak/Twitter)
Trump's Wall an Ugly Scar Across Hot Zone of Biological Diversity
"Because Trump's border wall exists in his fevered imagination he cannot imagine that it has an impact on real, living beings. But the impact is profound, and deeply damaging."
Trump's Wall, like most Trump fantasies, is more symbolic than real, which is why he can never remember what its shape would be or what to call it. The fact is that it is just a projection of his racist anxieties, something standing between him and the rapists, murderers, and drug dealers he believes seep into his life from the south, just his worst subconscious impulses seep up to make him rape and launder money and commit other enormities. Trump's Wall is a mirror for his unfaced dark side, which he projects on the Mexican Other.
Because it exists in his fevered imagination he cannot imagine that it has an impact on real, living beings. But the impact is profound, and deeply damaging.
An important article in the journal Bioscience pointed out last summer that "The Border Wall bypasses and violates environmental laws."
The Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act can be waived by the Department of Homeland Security on the authority of the 2005 Real ID Act.
This waiver allows wall construction to evade any analysis of environmental impact or any study of "less damaging alternative strategies." There are no opportunities for public comment or legal remedies. 8 such waivers have been issued so far, for all of the four southern border states, 3 of them under Trump himself.
We have environmental laws and we protect endangered species for a reason. These laws enrich our lives and preserve biodiversity that may be key to our own survival. Setting these laws aside for a stupid wall is extremely damaging to us.
We aren't the only beings who live along this imaginary border we have drawn in our minds. There are wildlife populations there. Walls and barriers get rid of their habitats, or at the least degrade and fragment them. As this map downloaded from Bioscience shows, the area through which the US-Mexican border runs consists of six ecological regions, including "desert scrub, temperate forests and woodlands, semidesert and plains grasslands, subtropical scrublands, freshwater wetlands, and salt marshes." 1077 species of land and freshwater animals live in these regions, along with 429 plant species. Some 62 of these species are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. There are five conservation "hotspots" along the border with "high biological diversity," and which are menaced by the construction of further border walls (figure 1; Peters and Clark 2018).
Over 2500 scientists from 43 countries signed this article. They are very concerned that Trump could drive whole species extinct with this nonsense.
The Center for Biological Diversity's Laiken Jordahl observed of Trump's new wall construction in the southwest, "He just ripped a 20-mile scar through spectacular New Mexico landscape while Washington politicians fight over the difference between a 'fence' and a 'wall.' It's a ridiculous argument that's completely lost on wildlife harmed by these barriers. Congress shouldn't give Trump another cent for these devastating projects."
People don't cross from Mexico in this area of New Mexico. But it is home to migrating groups of ringtail cats, bighorn sheep, kit foxes, Mexican gray wolves and Aplomado falcon, and the style of wall Trump put in "blocks the natural migration of wildlife" according to the CBD. The scar through the desert will also increase floods and erosion.
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just four days to go in our Spring Campaign, we are not even halfway to our goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Trump's Wall, like most Trump fantasies, is more symbolic than real, which is why he can never remember what its shape would be or what to call it. The fact is that it is just a projection of his racist anxieties, something standing between him and the rapists, murderers, and drug dealers he believes seep into his life from the south, just his worst subconscious impulses seep up to make him rape and launder money and commit other enormities. Trump's Wall is a mirror for his unfaced dark side, which he projects on the Mexican Other.
Because it exists in his fevered imagination he cannot imagine that it has an impact on real, living beings. But the impact is profound, and deeply damaging.
An important article in the journal Bioscience pointed out last summer that "The Border Wall bypasses and violates environmental laws."
The Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act can be waived by the Department of Homeland Security on the authority of the 2005 Real ID Act.
This waiver allows wall construction to evade any analysis of environmental impact or any study of "less damaging alternative strategies." There are no opportunities for public comment or legal remedies. 8 such waivers have been issued so far, for all of the four southern border states, 3 of them under Trump himself.
We have environmental laws and we protect endangered species for a reason. These laws enrich our lives and preserve biodiversity that may be key to our own survival. Setting these laws aside for a stupid wall is extremely damaging to us.
We aren't the only beings who live along this imaginary border we have drawn in our minds. There are wildlife populations there. Walls and barriers get rid of their habitats, or at the least degrade and fragment them. As this map downloaded from Bioscience shows, the area through which the US-Mexican border runs consists of six ecological regions, including "desert scrub, temperate forests and woodlands, semidesert and plains grasslands, subtropical scrublands, freshwater wetlands, and salt marshes." 1077 species of land and freshwater animals live in these regions, along with 429 plant species. Some 62 of these species are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. There are five conservation "hotspots" along the border with "high biological diversity," and which are menaced by the construction of further border walls (figure 1; Peters and Clark 2018).
Over 2500 scientists from 43 countries signed this article. They are very concerned that Trump could drive whole species extinct with this nonsense.
The Center for Biological Diversity's Laiken Jordahl observed of Trump's new wall construction in the southwest, "He just ripped a 20-mile scar through spectacular New Mexico landscape while Washington politicians fight over the difference between a 'fence' and a 'wall.' It's a ridiculous argument that's completely lost on wildlife harmed by these barriers. Congress shouldn't give Trump another cent for these devastating projects."
People don't cross from Mexico in this area of New Mexico. But it is home to migrating groups of ringtail cats, bighorn sheep, kit foxes, Mexican gray wolves and Aplomado falcon, and the style of wall Trump put in "blocks the natural migration of wildlife" according to the CBD. The scar through the desert will also increase floods and erosion.
Trump's Wall, like most Trump fantasies, is more symbolic than real, which is why he can never remember what its shape would be or what to call it. The fact is that it is just a projection of his racist anxieties, something standing between him and the rapists, murderers, and drug dealers he believes seep into his life from the south, just his worst subconscious impulses seep up to make him rape and launder money and commit other enormities. Trump's Wall is a mirror for his unfaced dark side, which he projects on the Mexican Other.
Because it exists in his fevered imagination he cannot imagine that it has an impact on real, living beings. But the impact is profound, and deeply damaging.
An important article in the journal Bioscience pointed out last summer that "The Border Wall bypasses and violates environmental laws."
The Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act can be waived by the Department of Homeland Security on the authority of the 2005 Real ID Act.
This waiver allows wall construction to evade any analysis of environmental impact or any study of "less damaging alternative strategies." There are no opportunities for public comment or legal remedies. 8 such waivers have been issued so far, for all of the four southern border states, 3 of them under Trump himself.
We have environmental laws and we protect endangered species for a reason. These laws enrich our lives and preserve biodiversity that may be key to our own survival. Setting these laws aside for a stupid wall is extremely damaging to us.
We aren't the only beings who live along this imaginary border we have drawn in our minds. There are wildlife populations there. Walls and barriers get rid of their habitats, or at the least degrade and fragment them. As this map downloaded from Bioscience shows, the area through which the US-Mexican border runs consists of six ecological regions, including "desert scrub, temperate forests and woodlands, semidesert and plains grasslands, subtropical scrublands, freshwater wetlands, and salt marshes." 1077 species of land and freshwater animals live in these regions, along with 429 plant species. Some 62 of these species are vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered. There are five conservation "hotspots" along the border with "high biological diversity," and which are menaced by the construction of further border walls (figure 1; Peters and Clark 2018).
Over 2500 scientists from 43 countries signed this article. They are very concerned that Trump could drive whole species extinct with this nonsense.
The Center for Biological Diversity's Laiken Jordahl observed of Trump's new wall construction in the southwest, "He just ripped a 20-mile scar through spectacular New Mexico landscape while Washington politicians fight over the difference between a 'fence' and a 'wall.' It's a ridiculous argument that's completely lost on wildlife harmed by these barriers. Congress shouldn't give Trump another cent for these devastating projects."
People don't cross from Mexico in this area of New Mexico. But it is home to migrating groups of ringtail cats, bighorn sheep, kit foxes, Mexican gray wolves and Aplomado falcon, and the style of wall Trump put in "blocks the natural migration of wildlife" according to the CBD. The scar through the desert will also increase floods and erosion.