Progressive cyberspace was partly amused and mostly shocked by Trump’s choice to run the Environmental Protection Agency—and by run we mean run into the ground and light the wreckage on fire. The question being bandied about, is he qualified to do that job? Well, that all depends on what your definition of is, is. First, some qualifications:
Short of appointing stuffed animals or corporate logos to cabinet posts, there’s no way the picks are going to any get worse than the choice of virulently anti-EPA Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to head, yes, the Environmental Protection Agency. To say he's in the pocket of America's most polluting companies is an understatement. He was quite literally caught copying industry-written letters onto his own stationery and sending them to other government agencies as the opinions of his own office. He's a crook, in other words.
So yeah, if the goal is an energy industry marionette who will turn the EPA into a giant rubber stamp for pouring deadly toxins into your backyard—unless it happens to be in the same neighborhood as a Trump property—then yes, Pruitt is manifestly qualified. Given Trump’s other choices, I guess we should be grateful he actually has any experience in the field at all.
- Are you alarmed by the contempt of science, i.e., the rejection of facts, reasonable inferences, testable predictions, etc., that is taking over DC? I’m sure we’ll have more on that for years to come, but for now join Daily Kos and weigh in on the science-y issues of the day, or if you have already, tag, write, and/or follow Daily Kos’s Science Matters here.
- The image above shows New Horizons in artists’ conception as it nears KBO MU69 in late December 2018. We had a chance to ask Principal Investigator Alan Stern about that future visit just last month:
Until we see MU69 close up, objects like it -- and there are billions of them! — they only show up as tiny specks of light in our most powerful telescopes. ... out there, where its so cold so far from the Sun, we believe they’re in the most pristine state. That can teach us a lot, we can't even guess how much until we see it ...