https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/21/climate-protests-trump
Organizers team up with pro-democracy groups for flurry of actions to demand right to free, healthy lives
By Nina Lakhani climate justice reporter
Excerpt:
Hundreds of marches, pickets and cleanup events are taking place across the US in the run-up to Earth Day on Tuesday, as environmental and climate groups step up resistance to the Trump administration’s authoritarianism and its “war on the planet”.
A fortnight after the “Hands Off” mobilization brought millions to the streets, national and grassroots organizers are teaming up with pro-democracy groups for “All Out on Earth Day” – a wave of actions to demand the right to live free, healthy lives.
Meanwhile in Milwaukee, a Stop the Cuts march organized by Indivisible and 50501 called out Republican lawmakers backing the unprecedented cuts to healthcare, education, environmental protections and climate funding.
“Trump is attacking migrants and the planet by aligning himself with big oil and eroding hard won protections. Climate change is the leading cause of global displacement, these are connected issues,” said Renata Pumarol, the deputy director of the Climate Organizing Hub, which coordinated the New York march. “As we fight the authoritarianism of Trump, climate groups need to be part of the resistance because we are all under threat.”
Trump and his billionaire mega-donor Elon Musk have directed the dismantling of federal offices that oversee clean air, drinking water, national parks and forests, conservation, climate smart farming, and environmental justice at dizzying speed, as well as pushing through mass layoffs at core climate and environmental agencies including the National Weather Service, Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Forest Service.
Meanwhile, regulatory standards for fossil fuels, petrochemical plants, mining and other polluting industries have been slashed – along with an unprecedented crackdown on free speech, migrants and universities.
Trump is also rumoured to be mulling an executive order that removes tax-exempt status for some climate groups, which could prove devastating for smaller grassroots organizations. Meanwhile the White House is also pushing the Republican-controlled Congress to pass a budget reconciliation bill that cancels billions of dollars of Biden-era grants for clean energy and environmental protection investments.
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According to some advocates, the resistance on the streets had been somewhat underwhelming – in part down to shock at the scale and pace of Trump’s attacks, as well as efforts by some green groups to stay apolitical to appease funders and the administration. Protest fatigue, they say, may also have played a role, given that the social uprisings in response to the murder of George Floyd and Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, has led to little sustained political change.
