During an election year, many important issues get ignored. Everyone focuses on the hot topics, the headlines, and the excitement of the quadrennial “horse races.” Candidates leave long-term, complex issues to party platforms and policy papers that few voters read.
But ignoring some of these issues comes at your peril.
Science, which plays a vital role in governance and public policy, should not be a partisan issue, but it has become one.
Donald Trump be refuted and slandered During his time in office, he replaced the advice of public health experts he disliked with his own. Dangerous and unfounded Proposals for those fighting COVID. When asked about his medical qualifications, Trump said: Genetically Qualified His uncle was a famous scientist and could provide medical advice.
The medical professional's diagnosis is Scientific American President Trump's “incompetent and malicious response to the COVID-19 pandemic has culminated a presidency riddled with health-damaging policies and actions.”
On the issue of global warming, Republican orthodoxy has long held Discredit and deny Climate science reveals an inconvenient truth. But it wasn't always this way. In 2008, Republican Platform He declared that “prudent and reasonable steps” to reduce fossil fuel pollution were “good for our national security, our energy independence, and our economy.” Four years later, climate change was completely absent from the platform.
This change was driven by Republicans in Congress. Unholy Alliance It is a fight against the fossil fuel industry. Even today, weather disasters are causing tragic damage. Real-world evidence The climate science was right. 123 Republicans There are still climate change deniers in the current Congress, and Trump is a notorious denier of climate science. “hoax.”
No elected official in living memory has done more to smear and damage the federal government's scientific capabilities than Trump.
In 2006, under the George W. Bush administration, the Union of Concerned Scientists Federal scientists who investigatedSeventy-three percent acknowledged “inappropriate interference” in climate research in the past five years. Nearly half knew of pressure to remove the terms “climate change” and “global warming” from research. Two in five knew of scientific reports being doctored to change their meaning, and one in three knew of instances when the administration misrepresented research findings. In 2018, the Union of Concerned Scientists reported:Similar interferenceUnder the Trump administration.
If Trump returns to office, the war on science is sure to resume and intensify. Project 2025An ultra-conservative playbook prepared by the Heritage Foundation for Trump's second administration recommended that Trump dismantle climate-related research and programs at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the National Oceanic and Space Administration, which it calls “climate alarmism.”
be Scientific American AnalysisEliminating these programs would “severely impair researchers' ability to understand the many impacts of climate change on our daily lives.” Trump's plan Replacing civil servants with followers probably, 175,000 scientists They play a wide range of roles in national governments, from pollution control and national defense to environmental protection and public health.
President Trump’s willful disregard for science is deadly. I use that word carefully. In 2021, Formal evaluation A report published in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet on President Trump's impact on public health concluded that Trump's “hostility to environmental regulation” led to 22,000 deaths in 2019 alone, and that his “contempt for science” and budget cuts to public health agencies “hindered the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths.”
His disdain for climate science, and environmental science in general, will have long-term effects across the country. Scientists reported last year The United States is warming faster than the global average, and Americans are suffering “widespread and worsening” and “increasingly harmful” impacts. Those most likely to suffer are those least able to protect themselves from and withstand the effects of climate change: the elderly, the very young, the sick, and low-income households.
Global warming is already raising consumer costs, but for many Americans, worries about the cost of living trump worries about survival. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports: 2,325 Americans The number of people who died from extreme heat last year was more than double that of 24 years ago. National Safety Council Weather-related deaths and injuries have increased 124% in the past five years, health experts warn. Infectious diseases are widespread It's because of global warming.
The oil industry's long-running campaign to undermine credibility in climate science is driven by greed, pure and simple: lives, homes and communities lost are simply the cost of doing business.
There seems to be a most despicable type of cynicism at work in the contempt for Trump and the Republican Party. Lawmakers want campaign funds. By the end of July This election cycleIn 2010, Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate received an average of more than $80,000 from the oil and gas industry, compared with their Democratic counterparts, who received an average of $12,500. Republican House candidates received an average of more than $53,000, compared with their Democratic counterparts, who received less than $10,000.
Trump wants power. Recently, he told oil executives to “Drill, drill, drill” in exchange for $1 billion campaign fundHe has a special hostility toward science, the courts, and the mainstream news media because they produce the facts that falsify his fiction.
As we have seen with COVID-19, and as we continue to witness with climate change, science saves lives and ignorance takes lives. When ignorance is willful and puts lives at risk, it becomes immoral. We should not elect politicians who are guilty of such things.
William Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project and a former senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy.
