{"id":31917,"date":"2018-03-05T07:04:48","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31917"},"modified":"2018-03-05T07:04:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-05T12:04:48","slug":"ignorance-and-greed-trumps-war-on-the-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31917","title":{"rendered":"Ignorance and Greed: Trump\u2019s War on the Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ignorance and Greed: Trump\u2019s War on the Environment<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Under Donald Trump, the environment has been the hardest hit of any sector of society, carried out by executive actions, the overturning of Obama-era regulations, and the enactment of new rules via cabinet review. This assault is occurring just as NASA reports that we\u2019ve just had another near-record year of global warming. It\u2019s insanity, and a classic example of willful ignorance. Trump, EPA director Scott Pruitt, and other officials simply choose not to inform themselves lest their position on climate change, which is based entirely on self-interest, be undermined.\u00a0 Since these people only know what Fox News and the fossil fuel industry tell them, they probably are unfazed about portents such as the three-year drought that has brought Cape Town, South Africa, to\u00a0\u201cDay Zero\u201d<\/a>\u00a0when the water pipes will be shut off and water strictly rationed.<\/p>\n

Behind the rules changes lies a telling fact: Trump does not have a science adviser\u2014a director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the White House.\u00a0 But since he has no interest in science, he evidently sees no reason to learn from or defer to anyone who does. The president\u2019s science adviser typically advises on everything from outbreaks of disease to global warming and nuclear weapons.\u00a0 By leaving empty a position all previous presidents have filled, Trump is sending a message that he is not merely a climate-change denier but also a science denier.\u00a0 Only one person sits in the OSTP office: a\u00a0Silicon Valley financier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As has been widely reported, the resignations, retirements, and constraints placed upon government\u00a0scientists crimp the executive branch\u2019s preparedness for what is to come.\u00a0 As just one example, geologists in the interior department are being\u00a0systematically constrained<\/a>\u00a0from presenting their research at major conferences.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ignorance and Greed: Trump\u2019s War on the Environment Under Donald Trump, the environment has been the hardest hit of any sector of society, carried out by executive actions, the overturning of Obama-era regulations, and the enactment of new rules via cabinet review. This assault is occurring just as NASA reports that we\u2019ve just had another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[992,5493,7844,220,369,19076,929,705],"class_list":["post-31917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-climate-change-denial","tag-counterpunch","tag-donald-trump","tag-drought","tag-global-warming","tag-mel-gurtov","tag-nasa","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31918,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31917\/revisions\/31918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}