Trump - Climate Change? A Chinese Hoax...

Chicago Climate March – April 29^th

Imagine your doctor deciding to remove a mass in your abdomen without benefit of an MRI or even an X-Ray.  “I’ll find it,” he says, “and we don’t need all that information anyway.  Just feel around in there.  My kind of medicine has been removing stuff for hundreds of years.” 

Or how about you airline pilot deciding to get you to California by pulling out a magnetic compass mid-flight and heading in a westward direction. 
“Attention, passengers, if you look out the right side of the plane, you’ll see north; and the left will see south.  That’s really all we need to know to get safely where we want, isn’t it?” 

Ignore science, disregard research information, and flout empirical findings at your own peril.  On the national as well as personal level.

The office of science advisor for the current occupant of the Whitehouse has not been named.  The actual title is White House Office of Science and Technology Policy or OSTP.  And the previous staff, which helped Obama craft, revise and research over 30 studies of subjects as varied as advanced manufacturing and cyber-security was the most active in our nation’s history (Atkins).

Now? The office remains empty or seriously compromised.

But President Trump promises to name a new leader for the office soon.  Very soon. So fast it’ll make your head spin. Bigly.  

Of course, this may not be good news.  Take for example Michael Pruitt, Trump’s choice to lead the EPA, an office that now disregards once held “science based decisions” in favor of pursuing “economically and technologically achievable standards” (according to Emily Atkin’s article in the New Republic).  “Among other things, the office’s mission statement no longer reads that the office provides the president with ‘accurate, relevant, and timely scientific technical advice.' Now, it just reads “advice.”’

And, the names to fill the office once held by Obama's Science Advisor John P. Holdren, previously professor of environmental policy at Harvard University, are not likely to give you any desire to inhale without concern.

One of Trump’s monetary and influential alt-right backers has been the Mercer family.  They have strongly promoted and endorsed sheep rancher/biochemist Arthur Robinson, a strong climate change denialist, according to Jane Mayer in the May 2017 New Yorker.  Trump has been coy in regards to selecting Robinson despite the influence of his alt-right backers, but Robinson has not been fully eliminated from the list – short or long.  Robison calls himself a Jesus plus-nothing – else Christian and his research includes a factory of freezers with fourteen thousand samples of human urine that careful examination will help illuminate new ways of extending our lives.  He remains skeptical of global warming and contests the Kyoto Accord. He sells a self-designed curriculum for schools (and his home-schooled children) which refutes the possibility of evolution.

Another possible choice for Science Advisor to the President (Trump) is Dr. William Happer.  Happer is an often called-upon expert for Breitbart and a retired Princeton physicist who dabbles in climate policy.  He remains infamous for his analogy that our “demonization” of carbon dioxide is little different than Hitler’s demonization of the Jews.  Attempts to have Dr. Happer flesh out his connection often end in profanities or admonishments   Happer theorizes that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is actually a benefit to our world, encouraging the growth of plants and the greening of our deserts ( a good thing).  “With our without Happer’s help, the Trump administration, like the Republican Party, is already steeped in climate denial; the Mercer family, Trump’s biggest financial backers, recently spent two days at a Heartland Institute Conference, the theme of which was essentially , “more CO2 in the atmosphere is essentially great.”  Like the Koch’s, with whom Happer is associated, he falls in line with their assessment of global warming.  Yes, it is warming, but in a very "mild, and manageable way."

(http://theslot.jezebel.com/possible-trump-science-advisor-compares-climate-science-1793497686)

Finally, and most likely, is David Gelernter, an anti-intellectual computer professor at Yale being considered as well.  Gelernter, who was injured by uni-bomber Ted Kaczynski while opening an envelope, is a hard right anti-Obama author who decries the liberal influence in government and education.  Gelernter doubts any credibility in science’s pointing to man-made climate change. He also finds the liberal elite culpable for the loss of family values and the disintegration of patriotism. He expects participation in the Science Advisor's Office as a given.   (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/01/18/david-gelernter-fiercely-anti-intellectual-computer-scientist-is-being-eyed-for-trumps-science-adviser/?utm_term=.b7e5d8831aa5)

 Meanwhile, according to NASA satellites sea ice has shrunk to its least amount at both poles. 

2016 was the third year in a row that marked global temperature increases and records.

Major storms were recorded for the last year (2016) beyond expectation and a 6% level of increased moisture in our atmosphere contributes to flooding and downpours.

Biologists are documenting multiplying numbers of mammalian species lost as many water levels rise in oceans surrounding smaller islands and land projections.

CO2 passed the 440 ppm level in our atmosphere last fall, and scientists doubt that it can return to anything less.  Have we reached the tipping point?

People’s Climate March

April 29, 2017 at 12:00 PM

Federal Plaza 230 S Dearborn Chicago, IL 60601

See you there.