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ACCORDING TO LIZ - The Middle East tit-for-tat war with the United States striking over 170 sites across Iran in the wake of Tehran reportedly struck three boats passing through the Strait of Hormuz continues to escalate.
Anger at America spurred the attacks by as-yet undetermined sources during the mourning for Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, murdered in the initial moments of the joint Israeli- and American-led illegal war.
The Islamic Republic targeted U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are intercepting missiles. So far, the rest of the world has refused to participate but may be forced to if Netanyahu, Trump and Hegseth further extend their proto-world war.
Geopolitical and geoeconomic alliances are fraying and driving untenable risks in this age of corporate greed and global warming, and deregulation of environmental rules while generating profits for a few is grossly exacerbating pollution.
But what good is wealth without health?
On July 5, a “purple” air quality alert denoting very unhealthy conditions was declared for the nation's capital and parts of northern Virginia. Warnings were broadcast cautioning people in sensitive groups refrain from all outdoor exertion and recommended no-one participate in any extended physical activity outside.
Despite pollution warnings by the Park Service, in the wake of the July 4 Freedom 250 fireworks extravaganza with 850,000 pyrotechnics, D.C. ranked as the world's sixth most polluted city on Sunday, with Pakistan's Lahore and Congo's Kinshasa in first and second place, followed by Jakarta, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.
Air pollution kills an average of eight million people every year, six or seven times the numbers who die from traffic accidents and hundreds of times the aggregate deaths from wars, terrorism, and natural disasters combined.
Air pollution is virtually synonymous with global warming.
Increased oil and gas exploration and development fueled by accelerating energy demands for proliferating bitcoin mining and A.I. data centers here and abroad, has only been aggravated by the current administration’s relaxation of constraints.
This is morbidly short-term thinking.
Even as in the short-term people seek to curtail the worst of these, desperately needed de-polluting developments compounded by a rapidly expanding third-world requirements and pan-national population protection from the increasingly dire consequences of global warming, also require more energy.
Energy for air conditioning as well as desalinization, carbon dioxide vacuuming, growth and innovation.
All while keeping consumer costs reasonable.
At the same time as business conglomerates are jonesing for more profits and less regulation.
PJM, the largest power grid operator in the United States serving 67 million from Chicago to New Jersey, expects to lard $6.3 billion in additional charges onto existing consumer and business billings due to data center electrical demand.
In March, Senator Bernie Sanders joined Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on a bill to propose a national moratorium on data centers.
Some states and city councils are already attempting to bring their construction to a screeching halt to stop power and water use that threatened to affect their citizens not only with power hikes but also water rates and availability, and health impacts with the polluting effects of expanded power generation and the draining of aquifers on which farming and other businesses relied.
But these actions are often opposed by local enterprises who stand to benefit, pitting neighbor against neighbor.
A federal bill would create a moratorium on all such construction “until legislation is enacted that safeguards the public from the dangers of artificial intelligence.”
Including soaring rates and environmental repercussions.
Australia now requires data centers to generate as much power as they use but that doesn’t account for the ecological impact and pollution caused by its production and related infrastructure.
But it’s not just data centers or crypto mining ventures. All fabrication – the production of merchandise catering to Americans’ demands for more and more, both of goods and services, increases demand on finite resources, whether energy and water, minerals and building, creating more pollution directly and indirectly affecting the planet’s and people's health.
We have to aggressively move away from factory farming – half the world’s habitable land is now devoted to agriculture, three-quarters of that to meat production, further driving water scarcity and pollution, global warming, deforestation, mass extinction, drought… and the cause that gets the attention of many, especially in California: animal cruelty.
This applies especially to the corporate methodology of Big Ag which is forcing third world countries to follow in their path of mono-cropping, use of GMO seeds designed to work with toxic pesticides and producing sterile seeds, oil-based fertilizers, and insecticides that disrupt entire ecosystems. Monarch butterflies, honeybees, oh my!
Then there is this administration’s dramatic scaling back of pollution regulations and environmental protections… and the demand that the rest of the world follow suit.
From the toxic greening of the Reflecting Pool to temperatures across northern Europe hitting temperatures as high as 115°.
As the American Environmental Arsonists' Architect-in-Chief booted out solar and wind in favor of oil and coal, China doubled down on green energy with the manufacture, installation and export of batteries, electric cars, solar, wind and related technologies accounted for more than a third of China’s economic growth” in 2025. “[C]lean energy industries drove more than 90% of the country’s investment growth last year, making the sectors bigger than all but seven of the world’s economies.”
With two and a half years of Trump’s reign still to come, this fossil-fuel maniac who has repeatedly and falsely called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” people can count on this planet growing hotter and hotter.
And today’s weather and temperature headlines will only become geometrically more dire in the years to come with Trump leading the charge of lighting that fire.
And his wars and “actions” along with those of his fellow autocrats in Russia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Israel will continue to drench our air, land and water with fossil fuels and toxins emitted from explosions, fires and mass destruction. The effects of the Eaton Fire on steroids.
In truth, the first four years of Netanyahu’s genocidal attacks on Gaza the conflict discharged over 300 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, not only over the region but wherever the winds take them.
No matter who (if anyone) wins any war, everyone loses.
People from northern France to southern India are dying and, as this summer waxes and wanes, the number of Americans fatally affected by climate change will also increase.
Spiking temperatures and longer droughts are already impacting the world’s flora and fauna; more of the same could mean a massive loss of plants and animals scientists use to develop critically-needed treatments along with irreplaceable sources for native medicines and indigenous rituals.
Eighty to ninety percent of people worldwide want their governments to do more to address climate change.
In contrast to the United States where media is increasingly shying away from the controversy over global warming, Japan has started airing public service commercials on television giving ordinary people the opportunity to double down on demanding their elected officials take action in support of the 89% of Japanese who want them to take stands reflecting their constituents’ views and expedite robust government policies to promote reduction of global warming across the country.
An essential first step towards encouraging other countries, including the United States, to repair the damage maintaining a world we can proudly bequeath to future generations.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
