Pulse April 2025

A COLLABORATION OF ADVENTIST ACTIVISTS

APRIL 2025 ISSUE 13

CARE FOR THE PLANET DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IS EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE U.S. STATES FORGE AHEAD WITH CLIMATE RULES HOW CORPORATE AMERICA IS RETREATING FROM DEI

Action Creates Hope

CONTENTS 3

CARING FOR THE PLANET

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meet the companies swimming against the current

earth day is only 55 years old. but earth’s stewardship goes back all the way to creation

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REVIEW nature’s gift economy

INTERACT

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EPA ANNOUNCES DOZENS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IT PLANS TO TARGET the agency designed to protect the environment sets the stage for its degradation

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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IS EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE

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INSPIRE

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HOW CORPORATE AMERICA IS RETREATING FROM DEI

more than a fad

we deny it at our peril

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U.S. STATES FORGE AHEAD WITH CLIMATE RULES stepping up to take responsibility for federal abdication

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“FULL ON FIGHT CLUB”

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REVIEW

what happens when “climate deniers” take power?

american green

the campaign for human dignity is under attack

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A FISHERMAN’S PRAYER an invitation to be aware

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CARING FOR THE PLANET Climate change is real. Ignoring it is not an option.

For many, Earth Day carries more baggage than a supertanker full of Middle East crude. But for people who every week celebrate the Creator and His “very good” creation, it’s entirely appropriate to cite the progress made over the last 55 years to restore clean air, clean water, sustainable energy, and economic equality.

For the time being “this world is our home.”

Growing up in Southern California in the 1960s and 70s, I well remember the air pollution that blanketed the Los Angeles basin and San Bernardino’s inland empire. After riding my bike home from school, I would often collapse into bed, lungs burning from the smog.

Fifty-five years ago, indiscriminate use of pesticides put whole species of birds and animals at risk. Chemicals improperly disposed of permanently contaminated soil and caused rivers to “catch fire.” Recycling was a crackpot idea totally unnecessary in a country with “unlimited” natural resources.

That image of the earth from space as a small blue and gray sphere may have been part of the impetus to remind us that the planet required our care. It certainly came as no surprise to those of us who remembered our reading of Genesis: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

The Bible also says about our first parents:

“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. . . . The Lord God . . . put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (Gen. 2:8, 15).

That’s not to say that we all have to be gardeners, or even have green thumbs. It simply means that for the time being “this world is our home,” and our responsibility as God’s people is to preserve this planet as good stewards.

The last 55 years have seen great progress in caring for your planet.

The last 55 years have seen great progress in caring for our planet. Air pollution is down in most cities in North America, Europe, and the South Pacific. Recycling is up, reducing the need for nonrenewable natural resources. Renewable energy (wind, solar, hydro) are becoming more accessible, more effective, and less expensive.

Multinational corporations are working to reduce their environmental footprint. These are all things we creationists can celebrate.

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We can do more.

Vast populations in developing countries have little access to potable water and unpolluted air. And there’s no excuse for the refuse and litter that foul our shores, rivers, streams, and highways. Small, seemingly insignificant actions add up. Walking, biking, public transportation instead of driving; cloth shopping bags and reusable water bottles instead of plastic; donating time each week to pick up along a street or highway.

We don’t have to believe in climate change to notice the devastation caused by wildfires that consume nearly everything in their path; typhoons and hurricanes that leave broad swaths of destruction. Perhaps they are just part of living on a planet cursed by sin.

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But just as Christ redeemed us to restore in us the image of God, our care for the planet demonstrates our commitment to live His will in His “very good” creation.

We didn’t need Earth Day to tell us that. But for 55 years it’s been a useful reminder.

—Stephen Chavez

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ReView

NATURE’S GIFT ECONOMY The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Scribner, 2024, 128 pages, US$14.00 ($10.99, Kindle). Reviewed by Avery Davis Lamb, executive director of Creation Justice Ministries.

A braid of sweet grass sits next to my laptop. When I get overwhelmed by an endless to-do list or the weight of living in the Anthropocene, I run the strands through my fingers like prayer beads and bring the braid close to my nose. Big breath in. Big breath out.

Even after years of doing this, the scent carries a grind grounding sweetness, reminding me of something deep and good.

In her iconic book Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi nation and professor of environmental biology writes, that when you take in the scent of the sweetgrass, or wiingaashk in Ojibwe, you “start to remember things you didn’t know you’d forgotten.”

In her latest slim volume of essays, The Serviceberry, Kimmerer helps us remember what we have clearly forgotten: The world is a gift: and there is plenty of the world for everyone and everything.

Known for its beautiful white blossoms and abundant, nutty-tasting fruits, the serviceberry, also called juneberry, is named bozakmin in Potawatomi, meaning “the best of the berries.”

To Kimmerer the serviceberry is the embodiment of the gift economy. “In a serviceberry economy I accept the gift from the tree and then spread that gift around, with a dish of berries to my neighbor, who makes a pie to share with his friend, who feels so wealthy and food and friendship that he volunteers at the food pantry,” Kemmerer writes. “To name the world as gift is to feel your membership in the web of reciprocity.”

Wealth and security come from the quality of our relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.

In sharing her people’s stories Kimmerer helps those who follow Christ into this web of reciprocity—the very web that God used to craft humanity. Just as the sun freely gives its energy to sustain all ecological relationships,

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God’s love, manifested in Christ, freely gives the energy that redeems and reconciles all creation.

The gift economy, which “has no tolerance for creating artificial scarcity through hoarding,” is a radical act of resistance and resilience to the Trump administration’s economic aspirations—ideals premised on scarcity and exclusion.

Today, as I look out on a cedar waxwing with a berry in its beak, I am reminded that another way is not just possible, but already present, growing wild in the margins of our manufactured scarcity. These plants, and the Indigenous wisdom that honors them, offer us a different story of what it means to live well together. They whisper of an economy older than money, deeper than transaction—one woven into the very fabric of creation. “The serviceberries show us another model, one based on reciprocity rather than accumulation, where wealth and security come from the quality of our relationships, not from the illusion of selfsufficiency,” Kimmerer writes.

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Perhaps this is what we most need to remember in these uncertain times: The world was made as a gift, and we were made for gifting.

The sweetgrass and serviceberry stand as a living parables of God’s economy of grace— where abundance flows not from hoarding but from sharing, where wealth is measured not in what we keep but in what we give away.

As I trace the braid of sweetgrass between my fingers, I am braiding myself back into this ancient wisdom, a radical remembering of something I never should have forgotten.

—Avery Davis Lamb, executive director of Creation Justice Ministries.

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DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION IS EMBEDDED IN THE BIBLE DEI is just one way we can repent of and repair the effects of the systemic sin of racism.

Since the record-breaking Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, we have witnessed a rightwing backlash against efforts to advance racial justice, exemplified by state and local laws to ban books and censor how we teach history.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, especially those in the corporate world and higher education, are also increasingly vilified.

Of course, these attacks on DEI are just a repackaging of old grievances. I’ve written extensively about how the political right in the United States has long sought to win and maintain political power by inflaming white racial prejudice through a never-ending culture war. To counteract this, we need to make a more persuasive and forceful case for why DEI programs align with and advance our core faith and civic values.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs address inequities experienced by people from historically marginalized identities, whether based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other element of humanity used to exclude and disadvantage. A DEI framework expands an organization or institution’s focus beyond simply recruiting a

more diverse staff or student body to include diligent attention to equitable policies, compensation, and opportunities. When equity and inclusion are added to the picture, organizations can better build a shared sense of belonging, possibility, and ownership. That should be reflected not just in an organization’s culture, but in its material realities, including wages and promotions.

A compelling moral and theological case for DEI isn’t difficult to make. God created every human being in God’s own divine image (Gen. 1:27), which precludes any categorical differences in people’s inherent worth or value.

What’s more, as Christians we believe in a risen Lord who came to erase the entire concept that some groups of people are superior to others.

“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). It’s not that the many things that make each person unique disappear—far from it. But life in Christ should lead us to reject attaching a hierarchy of value to those distinctions.

U.S. institutions, including churches, were

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founded on profound structural inequities and still carry that taint. The nation itself is rooted in a Declaration of Independence that declares that all men (meaning, at the time, land-owning White males) are created equal and a Constitution that counted enslaved people as numerically worth three-fifths of a human being.

Our country has never fully resolved that contradiction, and inequities persist. For Christians and other people of faith, DEI is one means through which to repent of and repair the effects of this systemic sin.

The Candler School of Theology at Emory University has a faith-rooted commitment to DEI that speaks to me: “Our faith calls us to understand diversity as a gift from God, equity as a moral imperative, and inclusion and

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belonging as the fruits of the Spirit.” Our nation’s growing diversity is indeed a gift to be embraced rather than feared or denied. May we, with the Holy Spirit’s help, create more equitable organizations and foster cultures of true belonging and thriving.

—Adam Russell Taylor is president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community. Follow him on X @revadamtaylor. This article originally appeared at https://bit.ly/PulseDEI

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U.S. STATES FORGE AHEAD WITH CLIMATE RULES As the U.S. federal government rolls back its green policies under Donald Trump’s anticlimate agenda, some states are taking the fight against climate change into their own hands.

Two bills reintroduced in New York’s senate would require climate disclosure rules similar to those adopted by California in 2023, while a bill requiring greenhouse gas emissions disclosures was introduced in Colorado in January.

State legislators in Democratic states have been considering climate reporting rules for several years, driven largely by uncertainty around the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) climate reporting rules. The SEC’s rules took two years to pass and were watered down to exclude scope 3 emissions, and have been frozen since the change in administration.

Introducing these bills at state level was part of a “broader political strategy” said Vanessa Fajans-Turner, executive director of Environmental Advocates New York. “These bills were sort of seen as both emboldening and providing cover for the SEC by . . . saying, if states are requiring it then companies are going to have to do it.”

New York’s proposed legislation mirrors California’s climate reporting rules, which require large companies to disclose emissions in their operations as well as those in their supply chains, known as scope 3 emissions.

Because both bills target large companies operating in their respective states, there is likely to be some overlap. But some companies in New York that don’t operate in California, such as real estate and regional hedge funds, would be required to disclose, said FajansTurner. Having two major states with similar climate reporting rules would also send “strong market signals to companies about what the expected way of doing business is.”

These disclosure rules are part of a global trend to push for more information on climate risk, with many large companies already disclosing their climate risks and emissions, said Frances Sawyer, founder at consulting firm Pleiades Strategy. “What this is doing is standardizing [disclosures] and making it more decision-useful, and it’s pulling up the floor for laggards who have not [disclosed] to meet the rest of their peers,” she said.

State versus Federal Regulation This is just the beginning, said Sawyer, as many states and Americans recognize the material impact that climate change has on the economy. State action is likely to increase, as it is up to states to “pick up the slack” from the federal government. The Trump administration has dismantled much of the climate progress made by the previous administration, such as rolling back an executive order that required

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federal agencies to assess climate-related financial risks to the economy.

Not everyone in the U.S. agrees with the actions of the current administration. Trump’s anti-green stance “is not a statement of where the US as a whole is,” Sawyer added. “States do have a lot of power in this moment, and they’re seeking to exercise that power.”

States can take many approaches to combat climate change without needing to wait for the federal government, such as through utility regulation, investing in transportation systems, cultivating clean energy and manufacturing, as well as climate resilience and adaptation measures, Sawyer said.

Some states are already taking measures.

New Mexico, for example, has proposed a bill to put the state on a path to net zero by 2050.

Maryland’s renewable energy program requires electricity suppliers Maryland’s renewable energy program requires program electricity suppliers to meet a minimum portion of retail sales through renewable efforts. Vermont and New York’s climate superfund laws require polluters to pay for climate damages.

Even states that are traditionally more Republican have made efforts on clean energy, with a production boom in wind, solar, and electric vehicles that could be derailed by Trump’s rollbacks.

Ben Cushing, a campaign director at Sierra Club, said there were a lot of things that states can do, not just related to financial disclosures but also areas in the realms of public pensions and insurance regulation. A recent report from Sierra Club found that most U.S. public pensions are not taking into account protecting investors from climate-related financial risks.

Cushing said public pensions play an important role in supporting climate action through proxy voting, although there have been recent efforts to restrict consideration of ESG risks in state pension policies.

“There is a ton of opportunity and need for states to step up and fill the void being stopped by the Trump administration, and to demonstrate that the U.S. can still make climate progress,” he said. . . .

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Legal Challenges and Delays But these state-led climate measures are not without their challenges. California’s climate reporting rules have already faced lawsuits and any similar bills passed by other states could also be challenged in court. While some of the lawsuits were dismissed, there is still an ongoing legal battle over whether the state’s climate rules violate the first amendment.

While some U.S. politicians have criticized state disclosures that go beyond any federal regulations, states have the authority to regulate commerce within their borders and have imposed disclosure requirements on environmental areas for years, such as hazardous wastes, said Michael Gerrard, a professor at Columbia Law School.

California’s cap and trade program, for example, requires disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions. And while inclusion of scope 3 emissions is new, the recent dismissal of most of the legal challenges to California’s laws are encouraging for other states seeking to pass similar bills.

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“It’s not a matter of bypassing federal regulation—instead it’s a state law on top of federal rules. As a general matter, federal standards are a floor not a ceiling, and states may go beyond them. We’ll see if these disclosures become one of the few exceptions to that general rule,” Gerrard said.

Part of a global trend There is also a global movement to release more climate disclosure data, although even that is being challenged in jurisdictions like the EU. The EU Commission’s omnibus proposal looking at the bloc’s sustainability reporting requirements vastly waters down disclosure rules that took years to negotiate, with experts arguing it could unravel the EU’s net-zero emissions efforts.

“This is a worldwide trend . . . . Climate disclosure is key for investors and all stakeholders to have good information,” said Steven Rothstein, managing founder at Ceres.

These reporting requirements are about investor transparency and making disclosure mainstream. They do not require companies to necessarily divest from fossil fuels or make decisions about what to invest in, Rothstein

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said. According to the World Resources Institute, nearly 40 percent of the world’s economy at the time of the assessment would be required to disclose information related to climate risks in the near future, if pending legislation passes.

Despite what states can do to push for climate disclosures and action, it may not be enough to replace the rollbacks happening at a federal level. There are things the federal government can do that states are not able to, which “leaves a big gap to be filled, and really also just isolates the US on the global stage in terms of leading on climate change,” said Cushing.

This is abridged from an article that originally appeared on the website Green Central Banking bit.ly/PulseDisclosureRules and was updated March 7, 2025, —Moriah Costa is an award-winning American journalist based in Paris and has written for major international publications, including Reuters, The Guardian, and S&P Global.

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“FULL ON FIGHT CLUB” How Trump Is Crushing U.S. Climate Policy

In a few short weeks, President Trump has severely damaged the government’s ability to fight climate change, upending American environmental policy with moves that could have lasting implications for the country, and the planet.

With a flurry of actions that have stretched the limits of presidential power, Mr. Trump has gutted federal climate efforts, rolled back regulations aimed at limiting pollution and given a major boost to the fossil fuel industry.

He is abandoning efforts to reduce global warming, even as the world has reached record levels of heat that scientists say is driven largely by the burning of fossil fuels. Every corner of the world is now experiencing the effects of these rising temperatures in the form of deadlier hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and droughts, as well as species extinction.

To achieve such a wholesale overhaul of the country’s climate policies in such a short time, the Trump administration has reneged on federal grants, fired workers en masse, and attacked longstanding environmental regulations.

All new presidents have their own agendas, but the speed and scale of Trump’s efforts to uproot climate policy is unprecedented. “This is not the kind of stately tennis match of the usual switch-over in administrations,” said Abigail Dillen, president of Earthjustice, an

environmental law firm. “This is full on Fight Club.”

Multiple Attacks The Trump administration’s moves have unfolded simultaneously across the sprawling government, affecting federal, state, and local agencies and hitting government-funded projects in Africa, Antarctica, and around the world. On Inauguration Day, Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, making it the only nation to walk away.

The president has repeatedly mocked climate change, criticized regulations, and said that more [gas and oil] drilling would bring down energy bills.

Trump has frozen funds appropriated by Congress for clean energy projects, taking particular aim at wind energy, the country’s largest source of renewable power. He has stopped approvals for wind farms on public land and in federal waters and has threatened to block projects on private land.

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He has fired thousands of federal workers, dismantled programs aimed at helping polluted communities and scrubbed references to climate change from numerous federal websites.

He has waged a multipronged assault at regulations designed to curb pollution, immediately sweeping some rules to the side and circumventing the normally lengthy rulemaking processes. At the same time, Trump has declared an energy emergency, giving himself the authority to fast-track the construction of oil and gas projects as he works to stoke supply as well as demand for fossil fuels. . . .

The United States is producing more oil than any other nation in history, and is also the world’s biggest exporter of natural gas. The fossil fuel industry donated more than $75 million to Trump’s presidential campaign and Trump, in turn, promised to weaken environmental regulations in ways that would lower its costs and increase its margins.

The president has repeatedly mocked climate change, criticized regulations, and said that more drilling would bring down energy bills.

Flouting the Law In several cases, the administration’s actions have flouted the law, with agencies defying court orders, freezing funds in legally binding contracts, and reinterpreting regulations to suit their aims. In doing so, Trump has busted through many of the barriers that were erected by the officials during the Biden administration who believed that process and the legal system would slow or deter him.

The administration and Republicans in Congress plan to use a legislative maneuver to quickly erase California’s authority to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars in the state by 2035. That authority has never before been challenged in this way, and critics say the maneuver is illegal. But it would be much faster than trying to overturn the California ban through the standard process that requires months of public notice and comment.

Until last month, the United States was expected to record significant reductions in its

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greenhouse-gas emissions over the next decade. But the Trump administration’s changes pave the way for more planet-warming pollution and will likely slow the advance of cleaner technologies like wind and solar energy. . . .

Many of Trump’s moves may have a lasting effect on the country’s ability to confront climate change.

Thousands of federal jobs that are eliminated now may be hard to restore. Clean energy projects that were relying on federal funding may not proceed without the expected investments. A sudden stop to scientific work could create gaps in data collection that are impossible to fill. Environmental regulations that are stripped away could be difficult to revive.

Judicial Pushback Several of the administration’s actions are already facing legal challenges. After Trump ordered federal agencies to pause billions of dollars in climate and energy grants that were authorized by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, two federal judges ordered the Trump administration to let the money flow again.

In early February, one of those judges, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court, said the White House was defying his order by withholding funds. Some funds have begun moving, but many remain stalled.

John Podesta, a senior climate adviser in the Biden administration, called many of the Trump administration actions illegal. “We followed the law, and they’re breaking the law,” Mr. Podesta said. “It remains to be seen whether they’ll be allowed to get away with it.”

In the past few weeks Trump has fired thousands of employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the government’s premiere climate science agency.

A federal judge said directives that led to mass firings were illegal.

In a move that could have far-reaching implications for government efforts to regulate industry, Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the

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E.P.A., has recommended that the agency reverse its 2009 finding that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare, according to three people familiar with the decision. That would eliminate the legal basis for the government’s climate laws, such as limits on pollution from automobiles and power plants.

“We’re talking about undoing 50 years of environmental regulation and accelerating the extinction crisis and risking the health of the American people,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the Sierra Club.

Trump has fired thousands of employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Undoing Regulations Electric vehicles, long a target for Trump, have lost much of the federal support they gained during the Biden administration. Trump has directed Congress to eliminate federal subsidies for E.V.s., including tax credits for consumers.

Transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, signed an order to loosen fuel economy standards enacted by the Biden administration that were designed to encourage automakers to sell electric vehicles. And the administration moved to freeze $5 billion that Congress approved for the construction of a national network of electric-vehicle charging stations. . . .

Attempts to blunt the Inflation Reduction Act are already delaying projects. Jay Turner, a professor at Wellesley College who is tracking investments related to the law, found that at least nine major projects worth $7.6 billion have been slowed in the past month as funding from the law has been put on hold and renewable energy companies adjust to the new reality.

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You’ve seen some real pullback,” he said.

“Established players in the industry are reassessing the market and how much capacity is needed right now, and you also see newcomers that suddenly don’t see a path to bringing their projects to fruition.”

Much of the damage to the country’s environmental regulatory apparatus may be long-lasting.

The E.P.A. said it would try to claw back about $20 billion that was awarded to eight organizations under the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in low-income communities. A top federal prosecutor resigned after she declined a request by the Trump administration to freeze the money, saying she did not have sufficient evidence to do so.

While the Energy Department has started releasing some grants for battery factories and electric grid upgrades, other projects remain on hold, according to several awardees. A $500 million program to upgrade hydroelectric dams around the country, for instance, remains frozen, and companies are halting construction or wondering if they will get reimbursed for work that has already been done.

The effective dissolution of the United States Agency for International Development has led to the immediate termination of longrunning projects in the developing world aimed at helping vulnerable countries adapt to a hotter planet. More sweeping actions may still be in store.

—This article is adapted from one that originally appeared in the New York Times, March 3, 2025. https://nyti.ms/4hRwCH2 David Gelles reports on climate change and leads The Times’s Climate Forward newsletter and events series.

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities.

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ReView

AMERICAN GREEN BRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRR The lights of the golf course mower panned across my bedroom walls before dawn every morning of my childhood from age 6 to 17.

Growing up in central Florida, hole two of the River Greens Golf Course was my backyard. The driver of the industrial mower wore a gas mask on some days when their machine applied chemicals to the manicured Bermuda grass, and our house’s water came from a well almost directly below.

Most of our neighbors who kept pristine lawns were all too willing to recite to us the species of their grass and their specific upkeep process. Our family, having different priorities (like buying clean drinking water), joked that we “mowed the weeds.”

A residential green lawn requires around two inches of water per week. In his book American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn, Ted Steinberg calculates that in one summer, 1,000 square feet of beautiful, bragworthy lush lawn requires around 10,000 gallons of water. These grasses that we love are imported from around the globe and require constant upkeep to thrive in the foreign climates in which we plant them, creating an economy of dependence on synthetic nutrients and treatments.

Steinberg walks us through the origins of the social norm of the lawn, and the big business

that profits from collective crabgrass insecurities.

Peer pressure for the perfect carpet of dense green turf is also dependent upon the fossil fuels required to manufacture and operate our lawn care equipment. If you are looking for a real climate killer, Steinberg points out that a gaspowered leaf blower creates as much hydrocarbon emissions in half an hour as driving a car at 30 mph for 7,700 miles.

A gas-powered leaf blower creates as much hydrocarbon emissions in half an hour as driving a car for 7,700 miles.

Readers are reminded that grass is not all bad. Grass builds soil and keeps it in place, helps prevent landslides, creates oxygen, and helps keep global warming in check. Grass is a fire retardant, a noise filter, and water purifier for groundwater (when it’s not baptized in chemicals, of course). Lawn care as a hobby gives enthusiasts a sense of control over at least one thing, a sense of control that they may be lacking at work, over their favorite sports teams, in politics, with jerks at church who enhance their prayer lives, etc.

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Yes, we can have lawns but we can do so much better than foreign-species-on-lifesupport lawns. This year, I feel inspired to expand my flowerbed areas and to include more native species that come back every year on their own. We can be okay with brown lawns during droughts or when seasonably appropriate. Let’s let nature do its thing. Let the clover and groundhogs live. Give our pollinators some love.

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Golf doesn’t necessarily have to be the enemy, either. Kudos to Tiger Woods on his new endeavor for moving professional golf indoors.

I’m not sure if it will fully take off, but if it does, maybe one of the benefits will be fewer gas mask treatments affecting some kid’s well water.

—Marcia Nordmeyer

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Interact

SAYING “YES” TO DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION As the Trump Administration set out to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs across the federal government, a number of major companies have declared their intention to continue the effort. Many, while claiming to embrace the principles of DEI, call their efforts something else in the belief that even the term—DEI—has become as toxic as CRT (Critical Race Theory). Can you identify the companies committed to promoting diversity , equity, and inclusion?

Amazon Apple Ben & Jerry’s Boeing Citigroup Costco Delta Airlines Disney Francesca’s Google Harley-Davidson

JPMorgan Chase Lowe’s Lush McDonald’s Meta Microsoft Patagonia PBS Pepsi Target Walmart

Most conversations in corporate boardrooms revolve around one thing: profit.

Some companies have seen their profits harmed by their support of past DEI initiatives. Some live in fear lest the Trump

Administration penalize them by not awarding contracts to those it regards as “too woke.”

All corporations worship at the altar of the almighty dollar. We support the companies that embrace DEI when we buy and use their products. Those who emphasize profits over principle should know that their bottom line will suffer as they ignore diversity, equity, and inclusion. One important caveat: Many companies sponsor products other than their own. For example, PepsiCo’s portfolio includes major global brands such as Lay’s, Quaker, Doritos, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Gatorade, Lipton, Rice-A-Roni, etc., which makes boycotting these products an interesting intellectual exercise.

Companies who have not retreated from their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion include: Apple, Ben & Jerry’s, Costco, Delta Airlines, Francesca’s, JPMorgan Chase, Lush, Microsoft, Patagonia. bit.ly/PulseYesDEI

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When one is excluded, the Body of Christ is incomplete.

– Inspired by Matthew 25:40

sdakinship.org

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EPA ANNOUNCES DOZENS OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS IT PLANS TO TARGET The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced plans to target more than two dozen rules and policies in what the agency called the “most consequential day of deregulation in U.S. history.”

The EPA didn’t provide details about what it wants to do with the regulations—whether it will try to weaken them or eliminate them entirely. In most cases, the agency said it is reconsidering rules that apply to things such as climate pollution from vehicles and power plants, wastewater from coal plants, and air pollution from energy and manufacturing sectors.

The list the agency put out is a “roadmap” of the regulations it will try to roll back in the coming year, says Jason Rylander, legal director of the Climate Law Institute at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group.

“This EPA is planning to take a wrecking ball to environmental law as we know it,” he says. “The intent appears to be to neuter EPA’s ability to address climate change and to limit air pollution that affects public health.” .

“We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families,

unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a news release.

“Rather than helping our economy, it will create chaos.”—Amanda Leland, Environmental Defense Fund

Rylander says the agency didn’t have to release a list of rules it plans to challenge. “But they’ve made clear that they intend to start that process,” he says.

Overhauling federal environmental regulations requires a so-called rulemaking process that usually takes a couple years, Rylander says. “But we've seen that this administration wants to move with a speed that we have not often seen,” he adds. “I suspect that you’ll start seeing proposed rules coming out on each of these in the coming weeks." Any effort by the EPA to roll back environmental rules will almost certainly face legal challenges.

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“EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin today announced plans for the greatest increase in pollution in decades,” Amanda Leland, executive director of the Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement. “The result will be more toxic chemicals, more cancers, more asthma attacks, and more dangers for pregnant women and their children. Rather than helping our economy, it will create chaos.”

Leland said her group “will vigorously oppose Administrator Zeldin’s unlawful attack on the public health of the American people that seeks to tear down life-saving clean air standards – putting millions of people in harm’s way.”

Reconsidering Rules For Power Plant Emissions The EPA says it will reconsider rules finalized under the Biden administration that limit climate pollution from power plants. Power plants are the second biggest source of planet-heating greenhouse gasses behind transportation, according to the EPA. Under the regulations, existing coal and new natural gas-fired power plants that run more than 40 percent of the time would have to eliminate 90 percent of their carbon dioxide emissions, the main driver of global warming.

The rules followed a 2022 Supreme Court ruling that limited the EPA’s options for regulating power plant emissions. Justices said that without a specific law, the agency cannot force the entire power generation industry to move away from fossil fuels toward lesspolluting energy sources. So, instead, the EPA under the Biden administration created regulations governing individual power plants.

When the new rules were finalized last year, Manish Bapna, chief executive of the Natural Resources Defense Council, predicted they would “drive up investment, innovation, and good jobs in the clean energy economy of the future” and give industry the certainty it “needs to meet growing demand in the cleanest, cheapest, most reliable way possible.”

However, some in the utility industry warned the restrictions would threaten electric reliability.

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“The path outlined by the EPA today is unlawful, unrealistic, and unachievable,” Jim Matheson, chief executive of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association in a statement at the time.

Zeldin said in a news release that the EPA is “seeking to ensure that the agency follows the rule of law while providing all Americans with access to reliable and affordable energy.”

Pollution from Cars and Trucks President Trump has made it a priority to roll back the Biden administration's multi-pronged push supporting the transition to electric vehicles. Changing EPA standards limiting air pollution from vehicle tailpipes is a crucial part of that agenda.

Former president Barack Obama toughened fuel economy and EPA vehicle emission standards. During Trump's first term, automakers had lobbied for looser rules, but were caught off guard by how dramatically Trump rolled them back. The next few years were chaotic; some automakers struck a voluntary deal with California to keep meeting their stricter rules, even if it wasn't legally necessary.

Under the Biden administration, the standards grew stricter over time with rules designed to accelerate a transition to EVs. Current EPA standards do not mandate a certain number of EVs, but they set emissions rules so strict that automakers would essentially have to manufacture a large portion of vehicles without emissions—as much as two thirds of vehicles sold by 2032—in order to meet the rules.

With EV sales growth slowing, some automakers have wondered if that is still feasible and called for the rules to be adjusted.

But the industry is also frustrated with the whipsawing of regulations back and forth, which makes it difficult to plan future products. In a statement, the trade group representing automakers called for a “balanced approach.”

Environmental and public health groups support more aggressive standards, which reduce pollution that causes asthma and

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heart disease, as well as fighting climate change.

So do consumer advocacy groups: the EPA had also estimated the new rules could save drivers up to a trillion dollars in gasoline over the life of the rules. But many critics, including the oil industry, have said the rules undermine consumer choice by favoring EVs.

Rethinking Whether Climate Pollution Endangers Public Health Underlying a lot of the EPA’s actions on climate change is a 2009 determination that greenhouse gasses like carbon dioxide and methane threaten public health. The EPA now says it will reconsider that so-called endangerment finding, as well as actions the agency took that were based on the determination.

Daren Bakst, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said in an email to NPR that the EPA has used the endangerment finding to try to control large portions of the economy. If the EPA determines that the endangerment finding is no longer applicable, Bakst says it “would preclude future greenhouse gas regulations.” It could also pave the way to repeal some existing rules, he says.

However, environmental groups say it won’t be easy for the EPA to scrap its determination that greenhouse gas emissions contribute to climate change. The science showing the warming impact of those emissions has only gotten stronger since the Supreme Court authorized the agency in 2007 to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if it finds that they contribute to climate change.

“The state of climate science has evolved significantly since the endangerment finding first came out,” says Rylander, legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I can’t imagine anyone being able to conclude, on the basis of current science, that greenhouse gas pollution does not affect climate and public health. So I’m somewhat baffled that they think they’re going to be able to eliminate it and havea that stand up in court."

Rachel Cleetus, policy director with the

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Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, agrees. “We’re seeing climate related disasters mount catastrophically,” Cleetus says. “We've seen loss of life from wildfires and extremely intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts. We’re seeing so much economic damage from these kinds of extreme climate related disasters.”

Environmental and public health groups support more aggressive standards

The utility industry has also raised concerns about getting rid of the endangerment finding. In a filing to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), a group that represents electric utilities, said allowing the EPA to regulate climate pollution creates an orderly system for cutting emissions while minimizing economic impacts on consumers and businesses. Rolling back the agency's authority could expose companies to a flurry of environmental lawsuits, the group said. “This would be chaos.”

The EPA has repeatedly reaffirmed the endangerment finding, and in 2022, Congress included language in the Inflation Reduction Act that labels greenhouse gases as pollutants under the Clean Air Act. Conrad Schneider, senior director for the U.S. at the Clean Air Task Force, said in a statement: “This signal to deregulate air pollution is diametrically opposed to the obligation the EPA has to protect public health.”

—Michael Copley and Jeff Brady are correspondents for NPR’s Climate Desk. Camila Domonoske covers cars, energy, and the future of mobility for NPR’s Business Desk. This article was posted March 12, 2025. https://n.pr/3FHxhh9

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InSpire No water, no life. No blue, no green. —Sylvia Earle

If environmentalism is a fad, it will be the last one.

You can’t conserve what you haven’t got.

—Marjorie Stoneman Douglas

—Thomas Fuller

—Barry Commoner

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.

—William Shakespeare

He that plants trees loves others besides himself.

Man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.

—Rachel Carson

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

—John Muir

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WHO WE ARE Pulse is the monthly digital magazine of JustLove Collective.

This month’s issue is edited by Stephen Chavez and sponsored by Alta Jean and Richard Paul. (Thank you.)

Designed by Jeffers Media.

Unless indicated otherwise all Bible references are from the New Revised Standard Version.

CHRIS BLAKE Is professor emeritus at Union Adventist University where he taught English and communication courses, including Conflict and Peacemaking along with Critiquing Film. He has also served as editor of Insight magazine, author of many books and articles, and pastor of two small churches.

STEPHEN CHAVEZ Is a writer and editor, retired after a career in pastoral ministry and as an assistant editor of Adventist Review.

MARCIA NORDMEYER Is a circulation/reference associate at Union Adventist University's library in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is happily married to Jeremy. Their two children are encouraged to read banned books.

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Pulse / JustLove Collective / April 2025 / Issue 13

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HOW CORPORATE AMERICA IS RETREATING FROM DEI Household-name companies, like Walmart and Meta, have scaled back diversity, equity, and inclusion goals in recent months. These brands are part of a widespread retreat happening across corporate America, according to a New York Times analysis of annual financial filings. It has been as noticeable among tech giants as among drug makers, concert promoters, and nearly every sector of the U.S. economy.

So far this year the number of companies in the S&P 500 that used the language “diversity, equity and inclusion” in these filings has fallen by nearly 60 percent from 2024.

Seventy-eight percent of companies—297 out of the 381 that have filed their reports so far this year—continue to discuss various diversity and related initiatives, according to the Times analysis, which examined a decade of financial filings known as 10-Ks that public companies submit each year to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

But many of them have softened or shifted previous language, by removing the word “equity,” for example, or emphasizing “belonging” rather than DEI.

The Trend Accelerates Major corporations began to shy away from taking strong stances on DEI before President

Trump re-entered office, but the trend accelerated rapidly after.

These filings aren’t the only reflection of what companies are doing, or declining to do, to promote diversity, equity and inclusion—but they offer one view of changing stances in the words of the companies themselves. Plenty of language in these filings changes from year to year, though the Times analysis focused specifically on language about DEI.

The shift reflects a pattern of companies chasing what seems most socially and politically expedient.

In some ways, the shift reflects a pattern of companies chasing what seems most socially and politically expedient. After the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests that followed, many companies denounced racial injustice.

By 2022, more than 90 percent of the S&P 500 had language about DEI in their annual filings. Uber, for example, “committed to becoming an anti-racist company.” Best Buy

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wrote in a quarterly regulatory filing that “in the wake of George Floyd’s death” the company would strive to “address racial inequities.”

By 2024, the social pressure had started to reverse—“critical race theory” was labeled by some senators as “activist indoctrination,” and many states took steps to restrict DEI programs at universities. This backlash was accelerated by a Supreme Court decision in 2023 that struck down affirmative action in college admissions. While that decision was not directed at corporations, some law firms began to face lawsuits over fellowships that were open only to marginalized groups, and other employers started to pay more attention.

Trump then took direct aim at corporations.

Soon after his inauguration in January, he issued an executive order that instructed federal agencies to investigate “illegal DEI” in the private sector. He changed the staffing and leadership of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces the country’s antidiscrimination laws, putting in place an acting chair who said her priorities included “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination.”

Lawyers who have been helping companies navigate the new legal landscape said that some executives were worried about public disclosures on diversity efforts. Company leaders might want to keep their diversity initiatives in place, but realize that describing DEI goals in public documents, like 10-Ks, could prompt scrutiny or government investigation. So some have found ways to hedge or otherwise tweak the language they use to make it more vague.

“You don’t want to provide a road map for critics to look into what you’re up to,” said Jon Solorzano, a partner at the law firm Vinson & Elkins who counsels companies on governance issues, including DEI “Talking about it externally is now viewed as a riskier proposition, while continuing to talk about it internally is maybe less risky.”

Because executives were preparing their 10K reports right as Trump took office, Solorzano noted, they were able to move quickly to drop

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public disclosures on DEI, though actually unwinding the programs will take more time.

“There’s an annual review of 10-Ks, and the annual review happened to coincide with new fears,” he added.

Other DEI experts noted that some companies are shying away from the term “equity” because it tends to attract more scrutiny than “diversity” or “inclusion.”

“The E in DEI is the real problematic one,” said Musa Al-Gharbi, a sociologist and an assistant professor at Stony Brook University who has written extensively on diversity programs. “To actually achieve equity often requires policies that are alienating to a lot of stakeholders.”. . .

In a statement, a Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman said the company “has always been and will continue to be compliant with all applicable legal requirements and remains dedicated to the values in our credo.”

The pendulum is swinging away from DEI, . . . and the momentum can be hard to resist.

Standing Up to Pressure Given the mounting pressures from the Trump administration, it is perhaps surprising that hundreds of companies have maintained DEI language in their 10-Ks this year. Delta Air Lines wrote: “Our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion is critical to effective human capital management.” Arthur J. Gallagher & Company, the insurance brokerage, reported the share of its employees and managers who are “racially/ethnically diverse.”. . .

Still, the pendulum is swinging away from DEI, many corporate lawyers say, and the momentum can be hard to resist. Companies often tend to follow the crowd, whether that means adopting a certain approach to management (think “agile”), a popular strategy

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on innovation (like “design thinking”) or a job title that many of their peers are suddenly adding (“chief of staff”).

But fads often have shallow roots, and companies might drop that practice as soon as it opens them to social critique or legal scrutiny.

“Companies will adopt these fads and fashions, and they’ll do it for legitimacy and reputation management purposes and never fully adopt it,” said Ranjay Gulati, a Harvard Business School professor. “Then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, because it doesn’t achieve their business goals so it goes out of fashion and they dump it.”

A spokesperson for Live Nation wrote in a statement: “While the legal landscape may be evolving, our commitment to inclusivity and Taking Care of Our Own will always remain at our core.”

Some of Live Nation’s previously announced diversity goals stated 2025 as the target year to reach them, and previous 10-K documents had said the company was making progress toward achieving them.

An additional factor in the pullback, lawyers say, is some executives’ realizing that they might have set goals in 2020 or 2021 that they cannot achieve without aggressive DEI efforts that might be targeted with lawsuits or investigations in the coming months.

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Since President Trump took office, the E.E.O.C. has made clear that it intends to investigate what it sees as DEI overreach, which could include specific targets for hiring employees of underrepresented groups, or executive bonuses tied to meeting those goals.

Some goals based on race and gender that were set during the Biden administration were not reflective of availability in the work force, potentially operating more like a quota than a good faith placement goal,” said Craig E. Leen, a partner in the employment practice at the law firm K&L Gates. “Some employers are realizing that the goals are not attainable in a legal manner and are therefore resetting expectations.”

To some DEI proponents, the speed of the reversal has underscored the shallowness of some of the initial commitments. “As you’re seeing companies pull back from these commitments, a lot of people are questioning how credible those commitments were in the first place,” Mr. Solorzano of Vinson & Elkins said.

—Emma Goldberg is a business features writer for The New York Times. Aaron Krolik and Lily Boyce report for The New York Times. bit.ly/PulseCorporateAmericaDEI This article appeared March 13, 2025.

SPEAK UP FOR DEI The first (obvious) step in engaging corporations that backtrack from their commitment to DEI is to not buy their products or patronize their businesses.

The next step is to be vocal. Every business monitors social media posts that mention their products. For example, a social media post that says “I will no longer patronize #ABCBurgers until they renew their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” will be noticed. Even multinational corporations listen to customer comments— especially as the number of comments increase exponentially.

Another avenue is to contact the corporation

directly. Corporate websites usually have a “Contact Us” button (it may require a bit of digging to find it). A brief, thoughtful note about the importance of DEI to our personal and community lives will make a small but significant statement. It will also give companies an opportunity to clarify their level of commitment to DEI. As of this writing, companies that have backed away from DEI language on their websites include Boeing, CitiGroup, Disney, Google, Harley-Davidson, Lowes, McDonald’s, Meta, PBS, PepsiCo, Target, and Walmart.

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A FISHERMAN’S PRAYER Dear Lord, Thank you for fishing For the memories For the moments of my life That are so necessary For my spiritual And emotional survival In a world of chaos That seems At every turn to be A jungle out there.

My prayer is That every reader Will make the time To go fishing.

The fishing I’m talking about Doesn’t require a pole Or hand line.

Books or cooking work fine Or skiing or golf, Yoga or bird watching, Gardening or teaching, Swimming or story telling Riding or meditating Praying or skipping rope Or anything that resets the mind That nourishes the soul That makes it possible for us Members of the Christian community To be as Christ commanded Spiritually whole Effective Fishers of humankind In a worried world Of disorder and confusion.

Amen

—Andy Hanson is a retired college professor, living in Chico, California.PR’s Business Desk.

This article was posted March 12, 2025.

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MAJESTIC LEGACY –Theodore Roosevelt

Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt established the U.S. Forest Service, created five national parks, and protected countless wilderness preserves during his time in office.

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INSPIRATION COLLECTIVE Podcasts we just love

A House on Fire: This Adventist Peace Fellowship podcast series is based on the excellent book on race and racism

Red Letter Christian Podcast: Christian commentary on the way of Jesus in the world today

Adventist Voices: Weekly podcast and companion to Spectrum designed to foster community through conversation

Adventist Pilgrimage: A lively monthly podcast focusing on the academic side of Adventist history

The Social Jesus Podcast talks about the intersection of Jesus, faith, and social justice today

Just Liberty: A fresh, balanced take on religious liberty—where justice and liberty meet

Pulse / JustLove Collective / April 2025 / Issue 13

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Gratitude As we launch, we are particularly grateful for every contribution to JustLove Collective. Donations are tax-deductible. Though we are a global movement of volunteers, we do need to pay for expenses related to this magazine and to the Summit. For more information, please see our website at justlovecollective.org

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