Extinction On My Mind /10:
America First

There are people in power dedicated to accelerating the destruction of our home planet

By Randi Hacker

March 6, 2025

Recently, my sister asked me if I thought the USA’s “defection to the Axis of Evil” would affect our leadership in the march toward extinction because “we will be among the other evil ones to cheer each other on.”

It’s a good question. So I thought about it, and my answer is no.

Texas is positioning itself to become the “nuclear power of the world” through a frenzy of uranium mining, groundwater be damned, and Florida is planning to build a new road using radioactive waste.

Just take a moment, here, and let that sink in.

Clearly, it’s going to be hard for any other nation to nose us out of first place.

Texas is positioning itself to become the “nuclear power of the world” through a frenzy of uranium mining, groundwater be damned, and Florida is planning to build a new road using radioactive waste.

I’m sad. And sometimes I’m scared. Heart-in-throat scared. Not of extinction, per se, but rather of the juggernaut of hardships and pain that are on their way, sooner now than ever.

There is already stockpiling against the inevitable shortages that are being hastened by tariffs. Every time I add an item to my shopping list, I wonder what will I do when I can’t get this anymore?

And what about water? Should I stockpile ZeroWater or Pur filters? And will they even work against the red tide of toxins that is on its way to our taps?

And when it comes to that, how long will taps even work? What will our children drink? How can we grow nourishing food using polluted water? I can’t walk by the river without being gutted by the thought of the anthropogenic toxins that the gulls, the herons, the eagles, and the geese by the dam ingest with every meal.

Compartmentalization helps. I like to put these thoughts behind an imagined steel door like the kind you find in underground spy headquarters, smooth and serious. But even with an airtight technoseal, the fears trace the edges in a glowing outline. To be reminded day after day that there are people on this earth, people in power, who are dedicated to accelerating the destruction of our home planet and all its varied lifeforms, well, it defies understanding, and greatly undermines the story that we have been selling ourselves for millennia, viz., that humans are the smartest species on earth.

‘I’m sad. And sometimes I’m scared. Heart-in-throat scared. Not of extinction, per se, but rather of the juggernaut of hardships and pain that are on their way, sooner now than ever.’

It’s indefensible. In fact, this is the very word that Ellie, the main character in my novella, uses when she is caught weeping late at night by her daughter, Mitzi.

Later, after Dee and Henry have gone home, after Mitzi and Rae have turned in, after the kitchen is clean, and the light has been turned off, sometime close to midnight, Ellie sits on the sofa, crying quietly into her handkerchief. A night breeze blows in through the screen. The Milky Way spills across the universe. The Cavalleria Rusticana plays softly on the radio.

“Mom?” It’s Mitzi. She comes over and sits beside her mother.

“What’s wrong?” she says, putting an arm across her mother’s shoulders.

Ellie shakes her head and continues to cry.

Mitzi rubs her mother’s back. “It’s the extinction, isn’t it?” she says.

Ellie nods. She lifts her head, sniffs, and says, “Yes, but not the way you think.”

And Mitzi, well, Mitzi stops rubbing her mother’s back, sits up, and says, “And what do I think, Mother?”

Ellie sits up. She sniffs again. She wipes her eyes. She blows her nose. She takes a deep, cleansing breath. She says, “You think I’m crying over the humanity! Oh! The humanity! But I’m not.”

“No?” asks Mitzi.

“No,” says Ellie. “I believe I’ve got a touch of Stendhal Syndrome. I’m overcome by the heartbreaking beauty of this moment on this Earth, of having you and Rae here –” And here she takes Mitzi’s hand in hers and strokes the knuckles and remembers when those knuckles were dimples “– and this music – a species that can create such sublime sounds. Oh Mitzi! What we’ve done! It’s indefensible.”

She buries her face in her handkerchief and weeps. Mitzi puts her arms around her mother and holds her.

“Are we having a slumber party?” Rae is here.

Ellie lifts her head and wipes her face.

“We are now,” she says.

“I’ll get the popcorn,” says Rae, heading for the kitchen. “You choose a movie.”

Mitzi looks at her mother. “You okay, Mom?” she says.

“My beautiful child,” says Ellie, taking Mitzi’s chin in her hand. “I am.”

‘I reserve one compartment in my mind to remind me that every day is a beautiful day on earth.’

Which brings us back to compartmentalization. I reserve one compartment in my mind to remind me that every day is a beautiful day on earth: beautiful because there can be an osprey sitting on a tree limb not eight feet from where I stand on the levee, beautiful because lichen can still grow on the trunks of the trees in the park, beautiful because my ZeroWater filter still works, and beautiful because I’m still here.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WestmountMag.ca or its publishers.

Feature image: Pixabay

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Randi Hacker has been a writer and editor since the 20th century, and she’s been writing about the environment for more than thirty years, mostly to empower young people to take agency in their future. Satirical essays written with a partner appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Punch and Spy, among other publications. Her YA novel, Life As I Knew It, (Simon & Schuster) was named one of the Books for the Teen Age by the NY Public Library, and her TV show, Windy Acres, written with Jay Craven, was nominated for a New England Emmy for Writing. She just retired from her position as the resolutions copy editor for the State of Vermont, a job that has forever damaged her relationship with the comma. randihacker.com