just in gop’r phonyness lives!
House Republican to bring Bill Nye to Trump's State of the Union
Celebrated children's TV show host and outspoken environmentalist Bill Nye "The Science Guy" will attend this year's State of the Union address in Washington, D.C., as guest of GOP Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma…..
"If we were talking about climate change the way we discuss whatever happened in Niger or the president's extraordinary tweet of today, we would be doing something about it," Nye told Time Magazine in October.
Bridenstine's pick of Nye may also be sending a message about his own ambitions. The congressman is Trump's nominee to head NASA. Bridenstine's nomination was sent after a narrow committee vote to the full Senate in the fall, but a vote has not yet occured.
His nomination met heavy criticism, including from his own party, for Bridenstine's lack of formal science education.
in today’s other environmental news:
One year in, Trump's environmental agenda is already taking a measurable tollOne year in, Trump's environmental agenda is already taking a measurable toll
One year into the Trump administration’s unrelenting push to dilute and disable clean air and water policies, the impact is being felt in communities across the country. Power plants have been given expanded license to pollute, the dirtiest trucks are being allowed to remain on the roads and punishment of the biggest environmental scofflaws is on the decline.
The real-time impact of the most industry-friendly regulatory regime in decades is at times overshadowed by policy battles that are years from resolution. President Trump’s moves to shrink national monuments, return drilling to the waters off the West Coast and allow natural gas companies to release more methane into the air are destined to be tied up in court for the foreseeable future. The contentious Keystone XL pipeline may never get built as volatile oil prices threaten its profitability.
Yet the air and the water are already being affected as the administration tinkers with programs obscure to most Americans, with names like “Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for Steam Electric Power Plants” and “Air Quality Designations for Ozone.”
The numbers emerging from the federal government’s database of enforcement actions against polluters show that from the time EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt took the helm early last year through November, the dollar amount of pollution-control equipment and cleanup activity the EPA demanded environmental scofflaws install dropped by more than 85%. Even compared with the dollar amount required during the same period of the George W. Bush administration, there is a dropoff of more than 50%.
2017 was world’s second-hottest year on record, federal scientists say
Federal government researchers said Thursday that 2017 was the second hottest year on record in terms of global average surface temperatures.
The finding by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) follows three years in a row in which global temperature hit a new record. Last year’s average temperature was eclipsed only by 2016’s.
The heat average follows a decades-long trend of rising global temperatures, which researchers say is nearly certain to be a sign of climate change, attributable primarily to greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity.
Trump isn’t reporting CO2 emissions, ending an era of global transparency
On New Year’s Day, the Trump administration missed an important deadline. It wasn’t related to the debt ceiling, DACA, or the Iran nuclear deal. Rather, the United States was due to present its biennial update the rest of the world on our progress in reducing the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change. Instead, the sound of crickets.
Previous presidential administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have taken widely different approaches to climate change.
President George H.W. Bush supported and helped establish the underlying United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty that was ratified overwhelmingly by the U.S. Senate in 1992. President George W. Bush pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol but emphasized technological cooperation for cleaner energy sources.
President Obama (in whose administration both authors served) advanced a broad program of domestic measures to spur clean energy and climate preparedness while leading the global community to a universal climate agreement in Paris.
But no matter their differences, previous administrations agreed on at least one thing: Countries must be transparent about their emissions, as well as their actions to address climate pollution, and should report on these issues regularly and comprehensively.
Such regular reporting is the bedrock for any successful strategy to address the climate challenge. Because global warming is a truly global phenomenon, no country wants to act on its own if it believes that others are shirking. To address this so-called “free rider” problem, the United States has been the most vociferous advocate for transparency throughout the history of global climate talks.
but no worry:
Study: White House abandoning science advice at unprecedented levels
A
report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on
Thursday provides a stark portrayal of how the federal government's relationship with scientists has deteriorated since President Donald Trump took office.
According to the
report by UCS, a nonprofit group of independent scientists, the administration's skeptical view of science advisers is represented by diminished staffing at the White House and across various government agencies.
President Trump is the first president in four decades to not appoint a presidential science adviser, the report said. Less than a third of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is full, with only 38 of 130 total positions filled.
In terms of government posts at the National Academies of Science that are designated as "scientist appointees," Trump has only filled 20 out of 77 positions. Comparatively, at the same point in their respective administrations, President Obama had 62 roles filled and President George W. Bush had filled 51.
Looking at science advisory boards and committees across the various government agencies, the UCS study found that membership dropped 14 percent due to factors such as freezing of membership and disbanding of committees altogether. Examples include the Food and Drug Administration's disbanded Food Advisory Committee and the Department of the Interior's (DOI) disbanded climate science advisory committee.
The total number of science advisory committee meetings in 2017 also decreased 20 percent from 2016, the study found.
we wont know how bad they are killing us before long.
and remember the ENTIRE GOP IS COMPLICIT IN THIS!!!!!