From climate change to healthcare to agricultural science, Trump and his allies have made it clear that they are more than willing to ignore scientific evidence and advice in order to justify cutting funding for important studies and programs.

Throughout his political career, Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear that he will ignore accepted scientific facts and the advice of experts in STEM fields if their information conflicts with his worldview. From climate change to healthcare to agricultural science, Trump and his allies have made it clear that they are more than willing to ignore scientific evidence and advice in order to justify cutting funding for important studies and programs, ignoring the healthcare needs of thousands of Americans and getting rid of important, landmark environmental regulations.

The Withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord

Trump stated his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accord as early as June 1 of 2017, when he stated that “the Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.”

This goal was realized on November 4^th of last year, when the Trump administration finally began the official process of withdrawing the United States from the agreement it had been part of as a member nation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. In a press release written by Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo, the stated reason for the decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement is “the unfair economic burden imposed on American workers, businesses, and taxpayers by U.S. pledges made under the Agreement.”

The Paris Climate Accord was lauded by environmental scientists and policymakers for its steadfast commitment to keeping global temperatures stable and reducing emissions of greenhouse gases while taking economic and development considerations into account. As of now 184 countries have ratified the accord, and the United States is the only nation that has decided to withdraw from the agreement after ratifying it.

Seeing as there are only 195 countries in the world, the fact that a highly developed and industrialized nation responsible for much of the world’s pollution is one of the few countries that has decided not to follow the guidelines agreed to at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change conference seems somewhat narcissistic, if not downright selfish. Greenhouse gas emissions from the United States contribute to 13% of the global total and the United States is the world’s second largest producer of greenhouse gases after China. Essentially every other country in the world from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom have ratified the agreement, but the United States stands apart as one of the only nations in the world unwilling to accept the results of accepted scientific research and join the fight against climate change.

Even teenagers like Greta Thunberg can see the true gravity of the situation with regards to the earth’s rapidly changing climate, but Trump responds to activists like Thunberg with scorn and ridicule, using schoolyard bully tactics on social media sites such as Twitter in an attempt to undermine their positions.

The Digital Soapbox

Trump’s non-sensical, rambling and offensive tweets have long been an indicator of the fragmented nature of his crazed mind, but some of the most ridiculous things he has ever said have been his comments on climate change using this digital soapbox. For example, in January of 2016, when temperatures in the midwestern United States reached record lows of negative 60 degrees due to environmental disruptions caused by climate change, Trump responded by tweeting “What the hell is going on with Global Warming? Please come back fast, we need you!” 

Later that month, Trump continued to use Twitter to joke about the extremely pressing issue of climate change by exclaiming “Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old-fashioned Global Warming right now!”

These tweets and Trump’s widespread anti-science stance have often put him at odds with government-employed scientists at agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, whose twitter account responded to Trump’s weak attempts at anti-intellectual humor by stating that “winter storms don’t prove that global warming isn’t happening.” 

This wouldn’t be the last time Trump’s lack of faith in scientists and general ignorance would bring him into conflict with weather experts and meteorological scientists. In fall of 2019, as hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas and headed north, Trump took to Twitter to issue a warning proclaiming that the hurricane would hit several southern states, namely Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.

This warning contradicted to opinions of most meteorologists and also geographically didn’t make any sense; Alabama’s coastline is along the Gulf of Mexico, whereas all the other states mentioned are on the eastern seaboard. The twitter account of Birmingham, Alabama’s National Weather Service affiliate quickly countered that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east,” which led to Trump digging in his heels and insisting that the citizens of Alabama were at grave risk, which led to the “Sharpie Gate” scandal.

The scandal came to a head when Trump gave an update on the hurricane from the Oval Office, complete with a map from the National Weather Service that had clearly been hastily and shoddily modified with a Sharpie marker to make it appear as if Alabama was in the hurricane’s path. It is a violation of federal law to falsify an official government weather report, and Trump’s ensuing comments when asked about the matter, which essentially consisted of trumped up excuses and long strings of “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know” prove that he is willing to throw expert advice, scientific evidence, and even good old fashioned common sense out the window in order to save face and preserve his perverse pride.

Experts Abandon Ship

Many high level federal officials have resigned as a result of the systemic disregard of advice from science experts or blatant attempts to bury this information that make up Trump’s war on science, and many more have been dismissed by Trump in the throes of his retributive rages as punishment for not supporting him in his crusade against common sense.

One of the most notable cases is that of Rod Schoonover, who formally worked as an analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In summer of 2019, Schoonover was preparing to testify before a congressional intelligence panel about the various ways climate change could affect military and national security interests. The Trump administration attempted to keep him from testifying, which Schoonover contends was due to the fact that the testimony he had prepared to give was in conflict with the Trump administration’s views on environmental science.

Aghast, Schoonover resigned, but not before warning that the Trump administration’s complete denial of elementary climate science is placing the United States at a grave national security risk. Responding to questions regarding whether or not the administration was attempting to discredit scientists and mislead the public about scientific information, Schoonover responded “Yeah, it felt like it. Is it a pattern? Seems like it.”

Schoonover is far from the only government expert who has resigned from his position as a result of the current administration’s refusal to take scientific evidence and concerns into account.

Matthew Davis worked as a biologist at the Environmental Protection Agency for over ten years, participating in groundbreaking research that led to some of the first regulations curbing mercury emissions from coal-powered power plants.  Last year, the Trump administration asked Davis to come out in favor of a repeal of these regulations, which led him to realize, “I am now part of defending this darker, dirtier future.” Rather than continue to work for a government that was attempting to undermine some of the most important things he had worked for in his career as a biologist and government employee, Davis decided to resign from his position.

… Or Are Thrown Overboard

A key facet of Trump’s environmental policy is his claim that environmental regulations such as those proposed in the Paris Climate Accord agreement are bad for American business interests. As a result, he has quite a cozy relationship with large oil and gas corporations as well as manufacturing interests in a variety of different spheres. These businesses and organizations often argue that environmental legislation, whether on an international scale such as the Paris Climate Accord, a federal level such as EPA regulations or local environmental controls prevent innovation and stifle American economic interests.

This has led to Trump administration to make unprecedented cuts to important oversight agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, where the President has demanded to decrease the number of staffers helping the agency realize its important work to the lowest numbers since 1985. 

Obviously, many scientists and staffers within the agency have expressed concern that these cuts will severely diminish the capabilities of the EPA to effectively perform its job.

Making matters worse, in the Executive Order on Evaluating and Improving the Utility of Federal Advisory Committees issued by Trump’s White House on June 14, 2019, Trump ordered government agencies to do away with a third of the federal advisory boards that assist these agencies by providing expert, technical advice.

According to a study completed by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, since Trump’s election over 25 percent of references to climate change on government websites have “disappeared.” 

Government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency aren’t just regulatory bodies that provide policy advice and assist in enforcing legislation, they also provide funding to important initiatives such as healthcare research and pollution analysis. Unfortunately, since Trump took office, huge amounts of this funding have stagnated or disappeared.

It’s easy to find the list of Children’s Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Centers that receive grants from the Environmental Protection Agency or the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences on their website. Every center that at one point was receiving financial support from government agencies such as the EPA has its grant status listed as “currently inactive” or “no cost extension.”

The centers are housed at some of the country’s top research institutions, such as Duke University and Johns Hopkins, and perform vital research investigating the effects of environmental toxins and pollutants on the health of developing children. However, groundbreaking scientific research requires both innovation and reliable funding, something that these institutions have lost as a result of the Trump administration’s crusade against government spending at the cost of scientific research.

Trump’s administration has also been involved in unprecedented acts undermining the legal protection of sacred American Indian land protected by federal law in order to complete his border wall with Mexico and support the interests of oil and natural gas companies in the southwestern United States.

Earlier this month contractors began destroying and desecrating land inside the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, a UNESCO ecological preserve and sacred burial ground for the people of the federally recognized Tohono O’Odaham Nation, in order to continue construction of Trump’s wall along the United States-Mexico Border.  The Trump administration has also been involved in ignoring federal protection of land around the important cultural and historic sites of Bear’s Ears and Chaco Canyon in order to allow fossil fuel interests to plunder land of tremendous religious and environmental importance.

As climate change looms on the horizon and new healthcare challenges arrive every day, scientific evidence and new research inquiries will continue to be one of the  most effective ways to surmount these obstacles. The Trump administration has continually disregarded scientific experts and established scientific principles in order to kowtow to big business and attempt to establish American economic superiority. As Trump closes his ears to the warnings of established scientists, he is also simultaneously doing away with government grants and programs that have funded essential research, investigation and projects for years. His administration’s assault on sacred and protected American Indian lands in order to pillage them for oil and gas shows his complete lack of respect for other cultures and the environment. Trump may be succeeding with his goals of cutting government spending, but at what cost?