As Jews mark Tu Bishvat, the EPA turns its back on the Earth and public health

(RNS) — Every year on Tu Bishvat, Jewish communities celebrate a new year for the trees and rededicate themselves to the work of being caretakers for the planet that sustains us. The holiday, which we will mark this year from Feb. 1-2, is typically celebrated by hosting a Tu Bishvat seder, or festive meal, in which we enjoy various tree fruits and nuts.

The holiday is also an opportunity to honor our relationship to the natural world — our place alongside the air, water, food and ecosystems that sustain all life, physically and spiritually. 

This year, the Trump administration is threatening that relationship like never before. The Environmental Protection Agency, led by its first-ever Jewish administrator, Lee Zeldin, is planning to repeal a landmark determination that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health and welfare. The Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, issued in 2009, has been upheld by every administration since and forms the legal basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gases. 

The decision to repeal it has no scientific rationale. It is a reckless, brazen maneuver of extreme short-sightedness that poses a fundamental risk to the health and well-being of not only trees, but of all life. The Endangerment Finding is simple, but crucial. Based on reams of scientific data, it finds that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health because emissions trap the sun’s heat inside the atmosphere, raise the temperature of land, air and water, and can cause deadly disruptions to our climate.

The Endangerment Finding has been nearly universally confirmed by climate scientists and scientific studies. And the dangers of the impacts of greenhouse gases are many: more frequent and severe climate disasters, like fires, floods and hurricanes; sustained droughts and heat waves that pose severe and long-lasting damage to our economy, our food supply, our housing stock and our future; and increased illnesses and medical emergencies.

Zeldin’s EPA has already distinguished itself by dismantling as much of the regulatory frameworks behind protecting clean air and water in this country as fast as it seemingly can. For instance, earlier this month, the EPA decided it will no longer consider how many lives clean-air regulations would save when developing those regulations. And the agency stopped estimating the value of lives saved when setting limits on two deadly air pollutants. Instead, it is calculating the cost to companies of following regulations.

Such actions are destructive enough. But revoking the Endangerment Finding is a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s war on climate action. In undoing the finding, the EPA is not only lying to the public about the fossil fuel industry’s responsibility for the climate crisis. The agency is also denying our fundamental, if damaged, relationship with the Earth, on which our lives and livelihoods depend. In Hebrew, the term for a human being, adam, shares a root with adamah — the Hebrew word for the Earth.

The mystical Tu Bishvat seder was designed by the kabbalists, or Jewish mystics, around the late 17th century. More recently, this tradition has been repopularized, especially among ecologically or environmentally focused Jewish communities. During the seder, participants not only enjoy the (literal) fruits of the Earth; they also explore environmental responsibility today. The seder focuses on the theme of “four worlds”: Asiya, the world of action; Yetzira, the world of change, emotion and transformation; Briyah, the world of contemplation and intellect; and Atzilut, the world of essence.

Zeldin and the EPA would do well to think of these four worlds today, for to repeal the Endangerment Finding is to violate each of them. It is a failure of action, a deliberate refusal to change and a violation of core Jewish values of protecting the natural world and the sanctity of life. And all of us will be impacted. 

In addition to the EPA’s decision flying in the face of basic Jewish and universal values, it also directly abrogates the EPA’s own legal mission. That mission, in the words of the EPA itself, is to “protect human health and the environment.” It could not be clearer that a repeal of the Endangerment Finding contravenes this basic statement. 

As Jews celebrate Tu Bishvat this year, it is imperative that we join with all people of faith to oppose this dangerous decision. In a time of cascading political and environmental threats in the U.S., it can feel difficult to imagine anything beyond the narrow bounds of the daily news cycle. But this holiday is a reminder for us all to honor and recommit to protecting our foundational relationship with our planet — and to fight for a future that is shared, safe and livable for all life.

(Rabbi Laura Bellows is director of spiritual activism and education at Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)