berg80
Diamond Member
- Oct 28, 2017
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Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.
The first full draft of the assessment, on the state of America’s land, water and wildlife, was weeks from completion. The project leader called the study “too important to die.”
The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States.
But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, an environmental scientist named Phil Levin, sent an email telling members of his team that their work had been discontinued.
But it wasn’t the only email he sent that day.
“This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the reports’ authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”
Now key experts who worked on the report, called the National Nature Assessment, are figuring out how to finish and publish it outside the government, according to interviews with nine of the leading authors.
Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.
I hardly think it's a mystery why trump would kill a report like this. He wants to continue the deregulatory regime he started during trump 1.0. One that does damage to the environment in the name of almighty profit.
Mr. Trump has also frozen climate spending, begun withdrawing the United States from the main global pact to tackle climate change and launched an assault on wind energy while seeking to expand fossil fuels.
Whether intentionally or not, trump is affirmatively anti-environment. He has a short sighted approach focused on the immediate at the expense of the future. One he won't be around for. The sooner that eventuality is realized the better off the world will be.
The first full draft of the assessment, on the state of America’s land, water and wildlife, was weeks from completion. The project leader called the study “too important to die.”
The draft was almost ready for submission, due in less than a month. More than 150 scientists and other experts had collectively spent thousands of hours working on the report, a first-of-its-kind assessment of nature across the United States.
But President Trump ended the effort, started under the Biden administration, by executive order. So, on Jan. 30, the project’s director, an environmental scientist named Phil Levin, sent an email telling members of his team that their work had been discontinued.
But it wasn’t the only email he sent that day.
“This work is too important to die,” Dr. Levin wrote in a separate email to the reports’ authors, this one from his personal account. “The country needs what we are producing.”
Now key experts who worked on the report, called the National Nature Assessment, are figuring out how to finish and publish it outside the government, according to interviews with nine of the leading authors.
Trump Killed a Major Report on Nature. They’re Trying to Publish It Anyway.
I hardly think it's a mystery why trump would kill a report like this. He wants to continue the deregulatory regime he started during trump 1.0. One that does damage to the environment in the name of almighty profit.
Mr. Trump has also frozen climate spending, begun withdrawing the United States from the main global pact to tackle climate change and launched an assault on wind energy while seeking to expand fossil fuels.
Whether intentionally or not, trump is affirmatively anti-environment. He has a short sighted approach focused on the immediate at the expense of the future. One he won't be around for. The sooner that eventuality is realized the better off the world will be.
