'Blatant Attempt to Politicize the Science': Trump Reportedly Moving to End Long-Term Studies of Climate Crisis

There is no act of greater evil than this. It is pure brutal insanity to refuse to proceed with immediate and radical action to do everything possible to transition off fossil fuels onto renewables NOW and address human caused climate disruption with the urgency of a crisis which is endangering our nation and life on Earth - because that is exactly what is happening. I just cannot even begin to express my outrage at this assault, not just on science, but on all of life. There has never been a president and administration as dangerous and just insane as this one. Never. — Molly

A firefighter walks near a pool as a neighboring home burns in the Napa wine region in California.

 "The Trump gang is attacking the scientific process itself in an attempt to prop up fossil fuel industries, delay inevitable action, and run the carbon bubble as long as it will last."

By

Jake Johnson

In what environmental experts warned could be President Donald Trump's most dangerous assault on science yet, the White House is reportedly moving to end long-term assessments of the impacts of the climate crisis while pushing a polluter-friendly agenda that is making the planetary emergency worse.

As the New York Times reported late Monday, "the White House-appointed director of the United States Geological Survey, James Reilly, a former astronaut and petroleum geologist, has ordered that scientific assessments produced by that office use only computer-generated climate models that project the impact of climate change through 2040, rather than through the end of the century, as had been done previously."

As a result," according to the Times, "parts of the federal government will no longer fulfill what scientists say is one of the most urgent jobs of climate science studies: reporting on the future effects of a rapidly warming planet and presenting a picture of what the earth could look like by the end of the century if the global economy continues to emit heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution from burning fossil fuels."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the United Nations' leading climate body—warned in a landmark report last October that if carbon emissions are not dramatically and rapidly reduced, catastrophic effects of the climate crisis could be felt across the world as early as 2040.

But, as the Times reported, scientists say that Trump administration's attempt to cut off government climate projections at that year "would give a misleading picture because the biggest effects of current emissions will be felt after 2040."

"Models show that the planet will most likely warm at about the same rate through about 2050," according to the Times. "From that point until the end of the century, however, the rate of warming differs significantly with an increase or decrease in carbon emissions."

Philip Duffy, the president of the Woods Hole Research Center, told the Times that the White House's move to restrict government climate predictions "is a pretty blatant attempt to politicize the science—to push the science in a direction that's consistent with their politics."

Critics also expressed alarm on social media.

"The Trump gang is attacking the scientific process itself," tweeted environmentalist Alex Steffen, "in an attempt to prop up fossil fuel industries, delay inevitable action, and run the carbon bubble as long as it will last."

Donald Trump poses a mortal threat to all of humanity. https://t.co/SPXm0N9Ykz

— Justin Hendrix (@justinhendrix) May 27, 2019

Out of pure spite, Trump is hastening climate apocalypse. https://t.co/3dzb2q7h2X via ⁦@nytimes⁩

— Dan Froomkin (@froomkin) May 27, 2019

In addition to attempting to severely limit the government's climate science methodology, the Times reported, the Trump administration is also working "to question its conclusions by creating a new climate review panel" led by physicist William Happer, who once said the "demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler."

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