Today is Earth Day.

A day that for decades has been about honoring the Earth. About planting trees, cleaning up rivers, hosting school fairs, and pretending for just a moment that we’re all aligned around something so obvious it shouldn’t even need saying: this is our only home. Let’s protect it.

But today, on Earth Day 2025, I find myself not just planting seeds of hope—but fighting to keep the very soil from being sold out beneath our feet.

Because this year, Earth Day arrives just days after a devastating Executive Order was signed by President Trump—an act so sweeping in scope and so cold in its consequences that it may mark a point of no return for life as we know it.

Let’s be clear about what this order does: It declares that unless environmental protections from the past century are explicitly re-approved—one by one—they will simply expire. Gone. Not voted out. Not repealed. Just vanished by default.

Let that sink in: The Endangered Species Act? Sunset. The Marine Mammal Protection Act? Gone. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act? Nullified. The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act? History. The very laws that brought the bald eagle, gray wolf, California condor, and hundreds of others back from the brink will disappear into a legal void unless reauthorized by the very agencies now pressured to do the opposite.

This is not deregulation. This is ecological euthanasia.

And while the language of the order speaks of "innovation," "prosperity," and "modernizing energy policy," the result is painfully clear:

Unleash American Energy = Unleash American Extraction.

The Earth is not a warehouse to be looted. It is a living, breathing web of life—and that web is being torn apart at the exact moment we need it most.

I’ll be honest. It’s hard to write and read this today. I’m angry. I’m exhausted. And I’m grieving.

I’m grieving not just for the creatures whose fates hang in the balance, but for my two young grandchildren, Logan and Piper. They are 4 and 2 years old—still small enough to see magic in a butterfly, a bird’s nest, or a whale’s tail. And unless something changes, they may grow up in a world where those wonders are memories of a broken age their grandfather tried—and failed—to protect.

This isn’t policy. This is suicide with a legal signature.

We are living through a metacrisis—a convergence of ecological collapse, economic instability, cultural fragmentation, and spiritual disconnection. But this Executive Order? It accelerates every part of it. It doesn’t just ignore the climate crisis. It pours gasoline on it and strikes a match.

And here’s what’s almost as chilling as the order itself:

Where is the outrage? Why is this not front-page news? Why isn’t every network broadcasting emergency coverage? Why are we not seeing hundreds of thousands of people filling the streets in protest on Earth Day of all days?

Have we already given up? Or have we been hit with so many of these Four Great Untruths-style gut-punches that we no longer recognize when we’re being dealt a fatal blow?

Is this silence fatigue? Or resignation? Or just the dull ache of a collective nervous system that's been overloaded one too many times?

Whatever the cause, the silence is deafening—and dangerous.

So what do we do on Earth Day, when it feels like the Earth itself has been put on death row?

We don’t give up. We sound the alarm. We speak the truth. We refuse to normalize insanity.

Because the moment we go quiet is the moment the looters win.

And even now—especially now—there is power in our refusal.

Let this Earth Day be a turning point. Let it be the day we declare: We will not let our children grow up in a world where puffins and porpoises, wolves and whales, and the very laws that protect them are all extinct.

Call your representatives. Take to the streets. Join or start an Earth Listening Circle. Say what must be said, even if your voice shakes.

Because if there’s still breath in our lungs and love in our hearts, then it’s not too late.

Not yet.

And that, my friends, is the fragile spark of hope I carry today.

Let’s fan it into flame.

—Brad

P.S. If you want to read the Executive Order for yourself, it’s publicly available on the White House website here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/zero-based-regulatory-budgeting-to-unleash-american-energy/

P.S.S. On a happier note, today’s pictures are the Loving Homestead first official act as my son-in-law and I plant three semi-dwarf apple trees. One more step forward in creating a regenerative future for generations now and those yet to be born.

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