
The Trump Administration’s Environmental Impacts So Far, and How We’re Fighting Back
Feb 7, 2025
My name is Taylor Robertson, and I’m a senior at Hartford Public High School in Hartford, Connecticut. I got involved with Chispa in the Summer of 2016 through the Center for Latino Progress. When I first started working with Chispa, I had no idea what environmental justice was, but after that one summer I was hooked on trying to fight for the rights of clean air, water and energy. I felt an obligation to make sure that every person gets to live a healthy and clean life. I returned to Chispa earlier this year as Lead Promotora to the program, helping our staff train new Promotores and build relationships that will bring people together to protect our climate!
Since returning, I have done some awesome things. I was a featured speaker in the 2018 Connecticut Women’s March, and later on spoke on a climate justice and policy panel at the University of Connecticut. I am forever grateful to the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters and Chispa for not only helping me build my confidence, but also for the fact that I am able to be a part of a greater movement striving to protect the environment and health of my community.
Below is a poem I wrote:
Crying Planet
Broken bottles and charred pieces of glass
Wadded up newspapers tossed on the grass
Pouring of concrete and tearing out trees
This is the environment that surrounds me?
Poisons and insecticides sprayed on our food
Oceans filling with thick oil crude
All sea life destined to a slow awful doom
These are the things we are to consume?
Mills pumping out iron expelling yellow fumes
Airlines emitting caustic gases from fuels
Weapons of destruction tested at desolate sites
And this is the air that’s to sustain life?
There has to be something that someone can do
Like raise the awareness to those around you
That if we don’t heed the problem at hand
It’s your life that’s at stake, the destruction of man.