I had a friend in high school who loved speeding down country highways at night with his headlights turned off. It was a helpless feeling to know he was out there, risking his life along with everyone else on the highways. Anyone who understands the helplessness of watching risky behavior knows the stress it can cause. President Trump's risky behavior has people so stressed that they're taking to the streets.
The focus of Earth Day 2017 will be a National March for Science on April 22, which will include one in Columbia, motivated by the Trump administration's defunding of science. Facing the challenges of this century without the vision science provides is as risky as flipping off the headlights.
Trump's March 13 budget proposal called for giving pink slips to 3,200 public servants at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), many of them scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding how toxins in our environment move from mines and wells through the energy, manufacturing and agricultural industries and back into our air, water and food.
At the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), the budget targets those who study planet Earth. The budget message is that NASA should only explore deep space and not look back to the home planet. NASA provides the world with data and analysis on climate change, oceans, carbon dioxide levels, atmospheric heat, weather patterns and ozone levels. A primary benefit of planetary science is to better understand the only one we'll be living on for the foreseeable future.
Cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of Agriculture are largely targeted at scientists who study how to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Climate science has specifically been a target of the Trump administration, as stated by his budget director, Mick Mulvaney, on release of the budget. "Regarding the question about climate change, I think the president was pretty straightforward we're not spending money on that anymore," he said in response to a reporter's question.
Science not only warns us of impending doom, it lights the road to solutions. But the Trump budget cuts deeply into the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Scientists there have helped drive the rapid expansion of rooftop solar panels, electric vehicle batteries and LED lighting, industries where job growth in the private sector now dominates the fossil-fuel industry. The National Solar Jobs Census 2016 found that solar industry employment growth outpaced the overall U.S. economy by 17 times.
Negotiators at the Paris Climate Agreement made informed decisions based on sound science, much of it performed by dedicated scientists at EPA, NASA, NOAA and Departments of Agriculture and Health. Hundreds of scientists from around the world, including non-government scientific organizations, added to the research, even scientists at ExxonMobil. But it is our publicly funded scientists who are being attacked.
We need U.S. scientists in our public institutions to maintain and grow the knowledge gained through centuries of research. We can't depend on the private sector to fund and make public research needed to protect our future. Exxon scientists knew the threats of climate change a decade before Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state, joined the company in 1989. Did Exxon warn us?
Decimating public science in the United States will force scientists to move to other careers, foreign countries or industries where their research will not light our path to the future.
Mid-Missourians can join a March for Science on April 22 in Columbia starting with a 2 p.m. rally at the Boone County Courthouse Plaza, then a 3 p.m. march to a science festival at Peace Park that runs from 3:30-5:30 p.m. By attending you will help send a message to Congress, that Missourians support science. Hope to see you there!
George Laur is group leader for Citizens' Climate Lobby of Columbia/Jefferson City. Email: [email protected]