Trump's Shadow War on Climate Science (Foreign Policy)

[bronxiteforever]

FP
The resignation of a State Department official is the latest instance of a systematic suppression of evidence, former officials and whistleblowers say.

BY ROBBIE GRAMER | JULY 31, 2019, 3:38 PM


Rod Schoonover, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, resigned in protest this month after the White House blocked his prepared testimony before a congressional intelligence panel on the national security implications of climate change. Schoonover said what he planned to say did not adhere to the Trump administration’s position on climate change.

Schoonover’s departure is the latest example of how the Trump administration’s seismic shift on environmental policies has played out behind the scenes inside Washington’s policymaking machine, including at the State Department, as environmental studies are quashed, intelligence assessments muzzled, and even public references to climate change quietly scrubbed from U.S. government websites.

...Trump’s director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, cautioned this year in the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment on worldwide threats that “[g]lobal environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.”

The intelligence assessment warned that climate change could exacerbate natural disasters and that extreme weather could threaten public infrastructure and military installations, degrade food security, and stoke political unrest and migration challenges. Coats will step down from his post next month. Trump’s pick to replace him, Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe, has drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers and ignited fears among some former intelligence officials that the country’s top intelligence position will become more politicized under Trump.

More here

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/31/trumps-shadow-war-on-climate-science-state-department-intelligence-analyst-resigns-white-house-muzzles-intelligence-assessment-climate-change-environment/

[Mountain Mule]

1. "A consensus of peer reviewed literature has nothing to do with truth."

From the link above. The tRump administration has declared war on science in general and climate science in particular. May Mar a Lago sink to the bottom of the ocean as sea levels continue to rise. The Koch brothers' bottom line is more important than national security. If America gets any "greater," we will soon be joining the ranks of the third world.

[bronxiteforever]

2. +1 we just celebrated Apollo 11 50th that was

Made possible by science. I remember when the heroes were scientists and engineers working with slide rules to explore space ( and they still are today, working with complex machines that dwarf the lowly slide rule).

Now an entire political party has as its main platform the denigration of scientific truth. The dumbing down of our Country is in full swing and in the front of the GOP parade is the pied piper of ignorance : the POTUS.

[Mountain Mule]

3. Members of the cult of Trump take glory in their ignorance

Anyone with a college degree is a "member of the elite," and even those who have managed to graduate from high school are viewed with suspicion. Their worldview is based entirely on the lies told by Fox News and Trump's psychotic tweets. I also belong to another political forum where Democrats and Trumpers opine about the latest issues. I think that your average Medieval peasant knew more about the world than tRumpers do. They even believe that witches are real and that these modern day witches are infiltrating our universities. I kid you not. If the tRump cult were all to board a sailing ship and float off the end of the world, I would not miss them. (I keep my slide rule as a souvenir myself)