Suppressing Science
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Galileo before the Holy Office, Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury |
In a Guardian article six former government scientist describe their experience attempting to tell the American people about the impact of climate change and how those efforts were aggressively thwarted by the Trump administration. Here are quotes from the six on how they felt as this important work was being subverted. Read the whole article to see how willing Trump is to suppress science.
“It broke my heart. I’d had this wonderful career, playing a small role in making the world a better place. Then we had a political leadership making decisions on ideology, denying science, basically being climate deniers. It felt horrible.”
“I have faced retribution, I was threatened and placed in a hostile work environment. It’s clear in some agencies there’s a culture of fear where scientists are being intimidated. When I wrote this report, politics was the last thing on my mind, I was thinking about climate change and these coastal parks.”
“There’s not even lip service to the science. Science can’t be controlled like ideological spin, so the administration is afraid of that. They don’t want scientists and their evidence-based opinions – they’d rather have cronies trot out the same tired talking points on fringe scientific views.”
“The Trump administration is threatened by evidence, by science and by expertise. These things interfere with their ability to hobble government agencies and reduce oversight. It’s mind-boggling and a profound threat to democracy but it also increases risks to American health and safety. Every American should be concerned, regardless of political stripe.”
"Within a couple of days of me leaving an opposition research firm did a freedom of information request for all my emails and the EPA immediately handed them over. I found out they made a big effort to connect with all the rightwing media to trash me. They made up this lie that I was being paid more than a Congress member for every year of my retirement. It got really ugly, so I got off social media.”
“They try to downplay the role of climate change and research that they’re funding. So even in grants that the agencies are receiving, they’re now being vetted by political officials to essentially make sure that climate change is not mentioned in those proposals. It’s not a great time to be a climate change scientist in the federal government.”
What About the People?
Just shut down the coal power plants. Easy to say from a distance, but those plants and the mines that feed them their coal are operated by people. What happens to them? Do these folks in Wyoming move to China ad start building solar panels or do they watch their communities die?
“Pacificorp’s own analysis shows that keeping aging coal plants running will mean higher electricity bills for Wyoming families and businesses,” Connie Wilbert, director of Sierra Club’s Wyoming chapter, said in a statement. Her organization has campaigned against coal burning.
“Wyoming can no longer keep its head in the sand on the declining economics of coal power,” she wrote. “Now is the time to help coal-dependent communities in Southwest Wyoming make an orderly transition away from coal rather than risking the sort of sudden job losses that we’ve seen in recent coal bankruptcies.”
Not Enough Water
Once water was abundant with three seemingly infinite sources — the river and two vast aquifers. But, when the climate changes and droughts persist, agriculture based upon abundance struggles with shortage. As always the family farm and the small operators feel the burden first and the deep pocketed, well connected corporate farms expand.
Like Nissen, Brown’s ultimate hope is for people to face up to the conditions at hand and then consider what sort of future they want for the valley, before it’s too late. For both of them, the point of the subdistrict system, this experiment in self-governance, is not simply to guarantee the valley’s economic future, but, crucially, to sustain a certain sort of life on the land and the communities this life supports.
“If we want as many people, as many families, working the land as possible, that’s a value we need to be working towards,” Brown said.
Even while family farms and smaller operations endure in the San Luis Valley, many people describe a trend towards consolidation — larger farms growing at the expense of smaller operations, while outside dollars buy up land as investments or tax write-offs. Department of Agriculture census records show an increase in the number of large, rich farms in recent decades.
Trump Destroys Credibility In Everything
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Mark Twain may have said this, but it never appeared in any of his writings. In any event, we finally have a president who is more than willing to do something about the weather. As with everything else, he lies about it. To the detriment of one of the last shreds of commonality we had as Americans.
We need all the indisputability our government can offer as climate change brings us more intense hurricanes. Most people know weather forecasting is a complex, science-based endeavor, and we all count on its being as accurate as possible. Millions of Americans hang on every word and graphic to make life and death storm preparations.
This of course escapes Trump. Even before Hurricane Dorian, Trump displayed his disinterest in accuracy with repeated proposals for major cuts to the National Weather Service. Congress thus far has ignored those cuts.
Dorian brought out the worst of this disinterest. The man who has sowed fathomless division with his more than 12,000 falsehoods as counted by the Washington Post, gave the nation his now infamous fake Alabama alert and altered map. Worse, rather than own up to his mistake, Trump set off a shameful chain reaction of bullying.
Maybe Meat is the Problem
...American companies are responding. In late July, as global attention began to focus on the fires, U.S. agricultural giant Cargill announced a target to cut the emissions intensity across its North American beef supply chain by 30 percent, by 2030. In August, Brazilian firm Marfrig Global Foods SA announced a partnership with U.S.-based agribusiness company Archer Daniels Midland Co to introduce a plant-based meat alternative — which will be called the Rebel Whopper — to Burger King restaurants in Brazil. Last year, Marfrig had sold Keystone, a U.S. subsidiary, to Tyson Foods, which is responsible for 15 percent of beef exports from Brazil.
“President Bolsonaro’s reaction has given companies sourcing from Brazil little option,” says Richard George, spokesperson for Greenpeace.
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