The climate change battle dividing Trump’s America The Observer, 18 March 2017
Ever since Donald Trump became US president, certain sectors of American society have felt particularly embattled. His statements on Mexicans and Muslims are notorious, but there is another community, less heard about, that has also been sent reeling: scientists. If politics has never been a world that is overly respectful to empirical research, Trump’s victory exploited a growing popular suspicion of expertise, and a tendency to seek out alternative narratives to fact-based analysis. Conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination campaigns and climate change deniers have all traded on this rejection of science, and their voices have all been heard, to differing degrees, in the new administration. But for the science community perhaps the most provocative act so far of Trump’s short time in office was the appointment of Scott Pruitt, a Republican lawyer and climate change sceptic, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “I’d say a lot of Trump’s cabinet picks are not ideal,” says Shaughnessy Naughton, of the science activist group 314 Action. “But Pruitt is really an offence to the organisation. He’s spent his career suing the EPA. He’s for state rights when it’s for polluters and against state rights when it’s for conservation or protecting the environment.” Naughton is the founder of 314 Action, which seeks to promote Stem – science, technology, engineering and maths – education and help scientists become politicians. The name refers to the first three digits of the mathematical ratio pi, a scientific imprint that occurs everywhere in life. But too often, Naughton believes, science has remained aloof from politics, while politics has grown less troubled about getting involved in science. Pruitt is perhaps the most conspicuous example of this development. As attorney general for Oklahoma, he frequently sued the EPA in alliance with oil and gas lobbyists. Since taking over at the EPA, he has promised to weaken regulation of carbon emissions from cars and power plants, and has withdrawn requests for information on industrial production of methane. A leading EPA official called Mustafa Ali, who is involved in environmental justice, recently resigned from the agency, complaining that there has been a “concerted effort to roll back the positive steps that many, many people have worked on through all the previous administrations”. “Science is under attack,” says Naughton, “and this administration is an example of that. If you look at the science committee in the House [of Representatives], it’s clearly hostile to empirical evidence. We are not going to win this battle by signing polite letters. We are going to win by getting a seat at the table. That means getting people that have pro-science agendas and scientific backgrounds elected at all levels of government.” Though it has only existed since the end of last year, 314 Action has already had more than 3,000 scientists and people from scientific backgrounds sign up for training. One of them is Brian Johnson, a 32-year-old nuclear engineer. Johnson doesn’t have much of a political history. Now he’s aiming to run for Congress in the 2018 elections. “The more I look into it,” he says, “the more I realise it really is a huge commitment. I will probably have to resign from my job in order to campaign.” Johnson says he waited to see if Trump would honour his campaign commitment to appoint the best people. When that didn’t happen, Johnson got angry. “He appointed Rick Perry to be in charge of the Department of Energy,” he says. “He’s not exactly a nuclear engineer. He’s been looking to defund data collection on global warming. He’s just protecting his interest in fossil fuels, not serving the American people.”
Perry, a former governor of Texas, is an enthusiast for extracting fossil fuels, does not believe that the human effect on climate change is a proven case, and is on record as wanting to scrap the Department of Energy, which is largely devoted to nuclear energy and its applications. (…) The Trump election may be an opportunity for scientists to reassert themselves. For while his presidency may at first be a backward step, it will provide the impetus to force science back on to the national agenda. It might be the wake-up call that’s needed for the pendulum to swing back the other way. The European temptation to look down on America and its more garish habits has proven particularly irresistible in recent months, but there remains an energy and optimism in the country that should not be underestimated. 314 Action is a fine example of a spirit that doesn’t dwell in defeat but instead looks at practical ways of putting things right. Trump should beware. The scientific revolution starts here.
