When you sell your soul to the highest bidders, your new masters will exact payment in diverse currencies. One such payment was made on July 29, 2025. Intent on turning back the tides of change, the said Master of Industry seeks to rescind the 2009 Endangerment Finding regarding greenhouse gases under section 202(a) of the EPA Clean Air Act. 

On that day in July at an auto dealership in Indiana, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin made the grand announcement. Also present were US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, as well as several Indiana officials: the Governor, Attorney General, and Secretary of Energy and Natural Resources. If finalized, the proposal would repeal all greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines, and other sources.

“With this proposal, the Trump EPA is proposing to end sixteen years of uncertainty for automakers and American consumers,” said EPA Administrator Zeldin.“In our work so far, many stakeholders have told me that the Obama and Biden EPAs twisted the law, ignored precedent, and warped science to achieve their preferred ends and stick American families with hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden taxes every single year. We heard loud and clear the concern that EPA’s GHG [Greenhouse Gases] emissions standards themselves, not carbon dioxide which the Finding never assessed independently, was the real threat to Americans’ livelihoods. If finalized, rescinding the Endangerment Finding and resulting regulations would end $1 trillion or more in hidden taxes on American businesses and families.” [Emphasis is mine.]

[Note to readers: Carbon dioxide comprises over 79% of all greenhouse gas emissions.]

For their part, the auto industry promises to give us “more safe and affordable cars.” The American Trucking Association promises a decrease in “the cost of living on all products that trucks deliver.”  

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are feeling the heat. Intense heatwaves are becoming more frequent not only in the West but also across the country. Happy are those who can stay cool with air-conditioning. The electric fan is no longer enough. Just ask the more than 100 million people across much of the central and eastern US states who suffered record-setting temperatures during a widespread heatwave from June 22nd to 25th.

The trend persisted in July and, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), will continue during the remainder of summer. They forecast that conditions favor above-normal temperatures throughout the lower 48 contiguous states, especially impacting the Great Basin, New England, much of the Great Plains, and the Mississippi Valley. Eastern and southern Alaska will also experience above-normal temperatures. (See the captioned NCEI/NOAA Map of US Seasonal Temperature Outlook Jul-Aug-Sep 2025.)

Americans were not the only ones feeling the heat. In June 2025, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, most of western and central Europe experienced warmer-than-average air temperatures. Many countries including Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom experienced extreme heatwave conditions. Some places in Portugal and Spain saw temperatures soar above 40°C (104°F). Over the past 64 years, France had its second-warmest June and Spain its warmest June. England broke its record as the warmest June since 1884. 

During the last two months, those of us living along the coastlands in Southern California have enjoyed below-normal summer temperatures. Such good fortune will change in the week beginning August 17th when temperatures will rise to the upper 80 to 90 degrees Fahrenheit (26°C to 32°C). With temperatures in the mid-to upper 70 degrees (24°C and over) this past week, my son’s Tiger Eye plant already needs watering daily to stay happy. As for me, I’m privileged to have air-conditioning to keep my apartment cool.

On August 5, 2025, the Department of Public Health of Los Angeles County approved an amendment to our Public Health and Safety Code to establish a maximum indoor temperature threshold of 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28°C), to prevent heat-related health impacts, for rental housing units in our county. Rental property owners have until January 1, 2027, to comply with this ordinance. In my elder years, exposure to such a high threshold would lead to heat stress. I set my AC at 74 degrees Fahrenheit (23°C). 

In their report “Climate Change and the Escalation of Global Extreme Heat: Assessing and Addressing the Risks,” released on May 28, 2024, collaborators Climate Central, World Weather Attribution, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre found that human-caused climate change is boosting dangerous extreme heat for billions of people worldwide and making heat events longer and more likely.

Their analysis of the 12-month period – May 15/2023 to May 15/2024 – across the planet, using the Climate Shift Index, revealed the following key findings:

• About 78 percent of the global population (6.3 billion people) experienced at least 31 days of extreme heat (hotter than 90% of temperatures observed in their local area over the 1991-2020 period), at least twice more likely due to human-caused climate change.
• Human-caused climate change added an average of 26 days of extreme heat worldwide than would have occurred without a warmed planet.
• The five countries where the average person experienced the most days with extreme heat above their local heat level were Suriname (182 days), Ecuador (180 days), Guyana (174 days), El Salvador (163 days), and Panama (149 days).
• Using World Weather Attribution criteria, the study identified 76 extreme heatwaves that spanned 90 different countries. These events put billions of people at risk, including in densely populated areas of South and East Asia, the Sahel (Africa), and South America.

As illustrated in the interconnected pathways in Figure 3 below, extreme heat brings multifaceted impacts that compound and cascade across various sectors. These impacts are most evident for (but not limited to) health, water, agriculture, economy, livability, critical infrastructure, and the environment.

In their study, “Accelerating increase in the duration of heatwaves under global warming,” published on July 7, 2025, in the Nature Geoscience journal, researchers led by the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, also found that climate change makes heatwaves hotter and longer. What’s more, the lengthening of heatwaves will accelerate with each additional fraction of a degree of warming.

Our climate scientists still don’t fully understand why our planet is heating up must faster than their climate change models had predicted. Then, there’s the question of how these longer, extreme heatwaves will affect soil moisture and wildfire risk: Of special concern for us here in California.

Forget federal funds for continued research. Our Dear Leader, who has claimed that climate change is a Chinese hoax, and his former chainsaw-wielding enforcer have already debilitated the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

“Addressing [the impacts of longer heatwaves] will depend on having high-accuracy weather and climate models, but the current federal budget is putting a pause on the United States’ capabilities and eliminating excellent young scientists from the field,” said senior author and UCLA climate scientist David Neelin. “Deprioritizing and defunding climate and science research will limit our capacity to make region-specific projections for risk management. Without that, we’ll have much less ability to adapt to climate change at the very time when we need to accelerate adaptation planning.” [The emphasis is mine.]

Now, the Masters of the Fossil Fuel Industry have their sights on shutting down NASA’s two Orbiting Carbon Observatories: a free-flying satellite launched in 2014, and an instrument attached to the International Space Station in 2019 equipped with technology used in the Hubble Space Telescope. These observatories can precisely show where carbon dioxide is being emitted and absorbed, and how well crops are growing. Kill the data; end the threat.

Before you read the two-page fact sheet from The White House FY 2026 Budget that eliminates funding for the Green New Scam, I would suggest that you take a deep breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

When the Masters of Industry are done with ending all the progress our country has made over the years in transitioning to more sustainable forms of energy, we the people will be on our own. If you’re a working-class homeowner and have plans to install solar power, think again. On August 5th, the Masters of the Fossil Fuel Industry moved, once again, to kill their competition. They’re now out to cancel US$7 billion in funding for the Solar for All program. During the previous administration, Independent Senator Bernie Sanders for Vermont introduced the program to provide loans or grants to working class families to help cover the cost of installing solar rooftops or participating in community-based solar projects.

“At a time when working families are getting crushed by skyrocketing energy costs and the planet is literally burning, sabotaging this program isn’t just wrong — it’s absolutely insane,” said Senator Bernie Sanders. “We will fight back to preserve this enormously important program.”

This is not America First. This is the billionaire Masters of Industry First. Do we roll over and let them have their way? As consumers, we don’t have to follow the billionaire playbook.