This year’s Earth Day, the 55th anniversary of the first ever such day, founded in 1970 at the nascence of America’s environmental awakening, found your republicEn.org team spending the day in different ways.
Angela Larck had perhaps the most authentically earthy Earth Day. In her words: My family found adventure fishing in Kentucky’s breathtaking Red River Gorge, a reminder of nature’s beauty and the importance of preserving it.
Bob Inglis traveled to Statesboro, Georgia where he “presented the case for free enterprise action on climate change at Georgia Southern University. The title of the presentation: Conservative Climate Courage. No, we’re not kidding. Because we aren’t kidding.”
And I spent Earth Day at EarthX 2025 in Dallas, Texas. A week-long event, yesterday was designated the “women’s summit” and it was inspiring to spend the day with a wide array of women crushing it in climate and climate adjacent fields. We heard from developers, investors, activists, student leaders, food security experts, carbon removal experts, authors and more. Seeing this cross-sector interest in and action on climate change renewed my hope levels.
Angela wins Earth Day for getting outdoors. Above is a photo of her kids fishing!
Quote of the week
“It’s those healers and doctors and nurses who are on the front lines. It’s them responding to the health impacts of the natural disasters that we know are occurring more frequently and with greater intensity, the spreading of diseases from deforestation and the changing climates that we know all are occurring, and the repercussions of polluted water and soil on health.”
Former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, at the TIME Earth Awards, calling on healthcare workers to be climate messengers.
Related teaser: Senator Frist will be a guest at the end of season ten of the EcoRight Speaks!
EcoRight Speaks, Season 10, Episode 10, featuring Evan Patrohay
Our executive director Bob Inglis was in Charleston for the YR conference, where he met today’s guest. Evan Patroay is a one-time Fulbright Scholar, a volunteer with American Conservation Coalition, a blogger, so check out his blog, Thoughts of a Conservative Environmentalist, and for his day job, works as a Conservation and Restoration Program Coordinator for the state of South Carolina.
I think after you hear this episode, you will understand why he and Bob really connected!
Coming up next week, I am going to bring you snippets of what I heard while at Earth X. Be sure to tune in!
This week’s must read: Angus King is right on climate chanage threat
It always feels a little weird to suggest that something I wrote is the thing you should read this week, but I wrote this op-ed for the Portland Press Herald in response to Senator Angus King’s questioning of the decision by the Director of National Intelligence to retreat from more than a decade of practice to take climate change off the list of threats to national security.
“Back in 1991, Republican President George H.W. Bush warned that naval operations could be “drastically impacted” by climate change. Today, we are seeing evidence of this at some of the most iconic U.S. military institutions,” writes your favorite weekly newsletter author. “In Maine, Russ Gagner, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard’s (PNSY) director of the infrastructure optimization program, notes that ‘Climate readiness equals mission readiness …They’re not two separate items.'”
Fun fact: I once saw Senator King at a lobster shack where he was dressed in dad jeans and sneakers like a regular guy and not drawing attention to who he is or his position. More of that, please.
RIP Pope Francis
This week, Pope Francis, undoubtedly one of the most vocal faith leaders on the need to address climate change, died at the age of 88. His 2015 encyclical “Laudato Si” represented a call to action in which he recognized climate change as a crisis, the consequences of which are being disportionately shouldered by the poor.
“The world’s poor suffer more, even though they contribute less,” he noted last year. In a video message released on Earth Day 2021, he said: “For some time now, we have been becoming more aware that nature deserves to be protected, even if only because human interaction with God’s biodiversity must take care with utmost care and respect.”
Be kind and have a nice weekend.