As secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum has got everything he ever wanted.
First, and perhaps most importantly, he has a supply of freshly baked cookies that his staff bake for him in the department.
Secondly, he is responsible for the management of federal lands and natural resources. In principle then, he is looking after reservations for Native Americans, conserve fisheries, perform geological surveys and maintain monuments.
That’s the theory at any rate. He has turned 600k hectares of Alaskan wildlife refuge over to oil drilling. This is in addition to demands for more drilling on federal lands, as well as coal mining. An off-shore wind farm in New York has however been cancelled
The rest of his remit is simple: he’s got rid of it. He has handed over the National Parks to one of Musk’s minions, also an oil company executive. A safe pair of hands.
Digging into his weird ideas led me to something I had never encountered before: de-extinction. The idea seems to be that it is not necessary to do any sort of nature conservation. Exploit the land as much as you want and kill all the life there. Later, you can use some magic tech to recreate all of those extinct animals.
Do the tech bros actually believe this, or do they think other people believe their fantasies? They are so far removed from reality, I’m tempted to think, yes to both. And these idiots are in charge.