We mentioned Trump’s odiously un-American Executive Order on immigration yesterday, but it warrants more discussion. On top of all the other heartache it’s caused, the ban is already setting back science, as this poignant Atlantic piece and this Science story and this Nature article and this New York Times piece and this InsideClimate News write-up and this Mashable post demonstrate through quotes and stories from many of the scientists whose lives and life-saving work are already being upended.
If that weren’t bad enough, Greg Laden has a post laying out an even darker future we may face. It’s well worth the read, but the basic premise is that without a check on power and the rule of law to prevent dictatorship, racism leads to holocaust. And Trump seems to have no regard for the rule of law, and little interest in having his power checked. In a similarly chilling vein, at the Atlantic, David Frum’s feature essay describes exactly how Trump could prey on the confusion and apathy of the public to flaunt the rules and build an autocracy. These both make it clear how important it is that media acknowledge that being objective is not the same as being mindless.
A lesson which we know all too well in the climate world, where lately there have been a lot of very alarming stories lately based on various comments made by Myron Ebell, famed climate denier and fossil fuel preacher. In an attempt to remain relevant since leaving the transition team, Myron’s been giving interviews far and wide, telling the press that Trump will pull out of Paris, cut the EPA’s funding in half, and so forth. Most recently, he was in the UK to talk to his brothers-in-arms at the GWPF, who are apparently experiencing a 60 percent drop in membership dues. What a pity!
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But yesterday, the EPA transition head who replaced Ebell sent a memo to the agency making it clear that while changes are “likely,” when it comes to the “many news outlets [that] are quoting individuals who are no longer serving on the EPA transition team,” they shouldn’t take them at face value, because “much of what we see is just not accurate.”
Which is reassuring, because what we’re seeing that’s not from Ebell is plenty worrying. Take Trump’s executive order yesterday requiring any new regulation be accompanied by revoking two others, for example. The reactions to this EO are like many of the others, describing it as “ham-handed”, “totally nonsensical”, “absurd… also likely illegal.”
While the 2-for-1 aspect has gotten the most press, the text also asks that costs be quantified and assessed, and that any regulation that costs more than it benefits should be revoked. Which actually makes perfect sense and is completely sensible and reasonable. Of course we shouldn’t impose rules that don’t provide benefits! But how you count those costs and benefits makes all the difference.
For now, federal agencies are guided by the social cost of carbon (SCC). With that in place, rules like the Clean Power Plan make perfect sense, and meet Trump’s demands of having a net benefit. And Trump can’t (legally) unilaterally change the SCC without scientific justification that can stand up in courts. Which fossil fuel interests have already tried and failed to do.
That just leaves Congress, who can pass legislation to prevent the SCC from being used. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Senator Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resource Committee, has indicated he intends to do.
Now, the National Academies of Sciences did release a report on January 11th about how the federal interagency working group that calculates the SCC should adjust its framework. Will that advice be followed? We’ll see…
In the meantime, those of you who have ever spent any time on Twitter or in comment sections will very much enjoy this comic identifying the eleven types of trolls.
Somehow not featured? The short-fingered vulgarian who insults his way to the presidency, then lets a white nationalist “news” site head and Dick Cheney-Darth Vader-Satan wanna-be run the show in such a way that the fact that the president’s statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day made no mention of the Jewish people was barely a blip on the radar because the administration was busy banning the United States from sheltering refugees from the atrocities in Syria.
And with that, Greg Laden’s post about racism leading to genocide no longer seems so far-fetched.
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