Chicken Little was right. The sky is falling, and it is going to get worse. She was hit on the head, but she knew by not what. It was an acorn, but how could she know?
This is not a new story. “Chicken Little” (also known as “Henny Penny” or “The Sky is Falling”) is a folk tale that has been around for centuries. One of the earliest known printed versions in English was “The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little,” by John Greene Chandler, published in 1840 in the United States. In this version, a leaf from a rose bush fell on her tail and set her off.
Hysterical, Chicken Little began warning others, including Henny Penny, Cocky Locky, Ducky Lucky, Goosey Loosey, Turkey Lurkey, and, in some versions, the villain, Foxy Loxy. They all went with her to tell the King. But when they finally reached the White Palace, King Trump called the story a Chinese hoax. He lived in a bubble, so anything falling from the sky could not hurt him. In fact, King Trump believed that it cost too much to keep the sky clean. He made a royal decree to save companies money, but it meant that the sky would get very dirty with all kinds of things falling from it. What, then, Chicken Little?
The Sky is Falling in Hail Alley: Instead of acorns, Colorado, located in the middle of Hail Alley, gets the most hail of any state in the U.S. Hail Alley also includes parts of Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Over the past 18 years, hailstorms have increased in both frequency and severity. In the last ten years, hail-related insured damages in Colorado have totaled $5 billion. Insurance premiums have increased, coverage options have decreased, and several insurance companies are considering leaving the state.
The Sky is Falling in Tornado Alley: Tornado Alley includes Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Missouri, and Iowa. Here, tornadoes lift up and drop small towns and corn, wheat, and soybean crops—they all fall from the sky. In 2020, there were 1,086 confirmed tornadoes. By 2024, the number had climbed to 1,780. While tornadoes can hit cities, they tend to travel through rural areas and hit small towns. In the most violent tornadoes (EF4 and EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita (EF) scale), wind-driven debris can reach over 200 mph, making it highly destructive. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), flying debris causes about 70% of tornado fatalities in severe tornadoes.
Tornadoes are now occurring in greater numbers further east in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee. On March 16, 2025, a tornado dropped a school bus on the edge of a first-story roof at Winterboro High School in Talladega County, Alabama.
The Sky is Falling in Hurricane Alley: Florida, the Gulf Coast, and the Southeast Coast are Hurricane Alleys. The combination of wind and rain from hurricanes is lethal. Due to global warming, hurricanes are growing in intensity, moving more slowly, and carrying more water, leading to more rainfall and flooding. And like tornadoes, hurricanes destroy trees and buildings and carry debris. The hurricane-blown debris damages structures, power lines, and other infrastructure.
The Sky is Falling in Cancer Alley: In Louisiana, there is an area that stretches about 85 miles along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans that is called Cancer Alley. It is home to around 150 petrochemical plants and refineries, as well as approximately 50 plastics manufacturers and other chemical processing plants. Here, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) fall from the sky. These include benzene, formaldehyde, toluene, xylene, 1,3-butadiene, and chloroprene. Heavy metals like lead, arsenic, chromium-6, cadmium, and mercury also fall from the sky. Other industrial byproducts, like dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), are released as well. The Black residents who have lived here for generations continue to suffer, year after year after year, most dying from cancer.
On March 12, 2025, the Department of Justice withdrew its lawsuit against the Denka Performance Elastomer plant in Laplace, Louisiana, on behalf of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), despite its cancer-causing pollutant, chloroprene. Nothing changed on the ground—no facts, no legal theories, no laws. The only thing that changed was the person in the White House—eliminating accountability. Outrageous.
Concentrations of petrochemical and chemical plants like those in Cancer Alley are known as “Sacrifice Zones” because of the harm they cause to the surrounding poor communities. Other notable Sacrifice Zones include the Houston Ship Channel in Texas, the Ohio River Valley in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio, and the industrial corridor along Lake Michigan from South Chicago and the Southeast Side in Illinois to Gary, Indiana. In these areas, the sky is also falling.
The Sky is Falling in Flood Alley: We need rain, but heavy rainfall in Flood Alley, an area known for frequent flooding in the Midwest and Central United States along major rivers like the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red Rivers, is very destructive. The states in Flood Alley include Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. Over the last three years, there have been seven significant rainfall events that led to damaging floods. Rebuilding from these is very challenging,
The Sky is Falling from Wildfires: Twelve states in the U.S. are known for wildfires. Colorado is third, after California and Texas. The other nine are Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. When wildfires burn, soot falls from the sky. These particulates are also called carbon black. Particulate matter (PM) poses different risks based on size. PM10 particulates (≤10 microns) can irritate the eyes, nose, and throat. PM2.5 particulates (≤2.5 microns) are more dangerous because they can penetrate deep into the lungs and enter the bloodstream. The quantity of particulates is measured in micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m³). Unbreathable air occurs at 500 to 1,000 µg/m³, which causes severe respiratory distress, even for healthy people. Short-term lethal exposure happens at 1,000–2,000 µg/m³. The worst recorded PM2.5 levels during wildfires have exceeded 1,500 µg/m³.
As global warming increases, wildfires are also increasing in number in other states: Oregon, Washington, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Michigan. While they have fewer wildfires, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and New York are also experiencing this increase. Global warming is drying out brush and forest lands, causing wildfires in new locations.
The Sky is Falling from Coal Plants: Downwind of some coal-burning power plants, sulfuric and nitric acids fall as acid rain. This comes is formed from sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. These pollutants react in the atmosphere and then rain down. Of the 1,300 coal plants we once had, 264 are still operating in 24 states. Of those, 140 still contribute significantly to acid rain. Acid rain can negatively change the pH of soil and bodies of water, create smog, and cause respiratory problems. It can also damage buildings through corrosion.
Unfortunately, Chicken Little was right. The sky is falling in really disastrous ways, and much of it is being driven by global warming. Project 2025 described the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as a primary component of the “climate change alarm industry” and said it “should be broken up and downsized.” On March 12, 2025, NOAA laid off 1,029 people, 10% of their workforce. It is believed that another 10% will be let go soon, crippling the agency—tornado-like destruction. Apparently, this is based on the premise that if the federal government no longer speaks about climate change, then climate change will cease to exist. This is the same logic used by Trump when he suggested that if we stopped testing for COVID-19, the number of cases would decrease—an absurdity from the “master” of logic.
But Chicken Little should be worried for other reasons. Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order, Putting America First [Last] in International Environmental Agreements, ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord.
On February 14, 2025 (Happy Valentine’s Day), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) fired 419 probationary employees. On March 14, 2025, a judge ruled that they had to be rehired. That happened immediately, but then they were put on administrative leave until the EPA could create better reasons to justify their firing besides “DOGE told me.”
On March 12, 2025, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced a name change for the agency in line with his directive to implement 31 major environmental deregulations. The EPA will now be known as the Environmental Destruction Agency (EDA). The former EPA, created on December 2, 1970, through an Executive Order by President Richard Nixon, now stands in stark contrast to the agency’s new mission of dirty air, dirty water, and a dirty environment. The EDA’s objective is to make America one massive Superfund site.
With all that is happening to harm our environment and our country, we should all be a little hysterical. This is not about unfounded fear but responding to a large-scale societal crisis that is cataclysmic. Imagine—Chicken Little as a role model. Unfortunately, there is no way the King will listen.
Time left to January 20, 2029: 1,403 days
