Talk me out of my pessimism. Please.

So I've been getting pretty political lately, here at Skeptophilia headquarters.

Some of you are probably glad to see me address more serious topics, while others might wish I'd get back to Bigfoot and ghosts and UFOs.  For those latter, I'd ask your indulgence for (at least) one more politically-oriented post, that I was spurred to write because of comments from readers.

The conservative members of my audience have responded to my admittedly liberal bias with reactions varying from encouragement to outright scorn.  Some have said, "Come on, now, it's not going to be bad.  Just wait until some of the new administration's ideas are enacted, and you'll see that it'll make things better."  Others have said "buck up, Buttercup" or "suck it up, Snowflake" or other such helpful phrases.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So I thought, in the interest of trying to understand those who disagree with me -- the basic gist of yesterday's post, and more or less the overarching theme of this entire blog -- I'd address the part of my readership who are saying that things are going to be fine, and ask some specific questions.

First, it's undeniable that President Trump and his new appointees -- not to mention the Republican-controlled House and Senate -- have a lot of us pretty worried.  And despite the "Snowflake" and "Buttercup" responders, it's not simply because we're pissed at having lost.  I'm 56, and I remember vividly the presidencies of Reagan and both Bushes, and I can never recall being this specifically upset at this many things, this early into the administration.  Without even trying hard, I came up with the following, all of which happened in the last few weeks:

• In a move much like Canadian former Prime Minister Stephen Harper's gag rule on scientists, the US Department of Agriculture has forbidden scientists at the Agriculture Research Services to communicate with the public about taxpayer-funded work.  "Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents," Sharon Drumm, chief of staff for ARS, wrote in a department-wide email.  "This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content."  And just yesterday, a similar order was given to staff at the Environmental Protection Agency -- no press releases, no blogging or tweeting by scientists, no new content on the EPA website.
• Before Trump was even inaugurated, the Republican-led Congress voted to block an amendment protecting people with pre-existing conditions from losing health insurance coverage; voted away the provision that allows children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26; defeated a bill that would have insurance cover the costs of contraception; and denied an expansion of veterans' health care benefits.
• The Trump administration is reversing a mortgage-fee cut intended to help low-income and first-time home buyers easier access to mortgages.  Even Trump's supporters were surprised at how fast this one came.  "Wasn't expecting it -- and have no insight into how it all happened," one lobbyist said.
• In the face of virulent opposition from Native Americans and environmental groups, Trump has signed an executive order to force a move-forward on both the Dakota Access and Keystone Pipelines -- despite the fact that the first is routed through sovereign tribal lands, and that long-distance oil pipelines have been demonstrated over and over to be prone to leaks, resulting in fouled land and water.
• Congress has voted to rescind an Obama administration Stream Protection Rule, which requires coal mining operations to monitor water quality downstream of their mines -- even if those streams provide drinking water to downstream communities.
• A long-planned Climate and Health Summit in Atlanta, sponsored by the CDC, has been abruptly cancelled.  No reason was given in the terse email to staff notifying them of the decision, but Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said that the decision was made to "preemptively call off the event, rather than risk running afoul of an incoming president who has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and has nominated climate change skeptics to his Cabinet."
• Speaking of the Cabinet, there has been widespread criticism of Trump's choice of Rex Tillerson to the post of Secretary of State, due to his conflicts of interest regarding business deals with Russia.  Rick Perry, nominee for Secretary of Energy, is on the board of the company building the Dakota Access Pipeline.  Tom Price, nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a portfolio of nearly a quarter of million dollars invested in the pharmaceuticals industry -- an industry the HHS Secretary would be expected to regulate.  Last, there's Trump's own business-related conflicts of interest, which he has repeatedly refused to address.
• A bill has been quietly introduced into the House -- H.R. 193 -- calling for the United States to sever all ties with the United Nations.  It's called the "American Sovereignty Act of 2017" and if passed, would cut off all U.S. support for U.N. activities, including peacekeeping and diplomatic missions.
• In a move that has drawn comparisons to Kim Jong-Un's requirement that his birthday be celebrated as a national holiday with parades and parties, Donald Trump has issued an executive order declaring the day of his inauguration as a new national holiday, the "National Day of Patriotic Devotion."

Okay.  You get the picture.

I've been dragged, rather unwillingly, into political discourse largely because I am so alarmed at the direction our leaders are taking.  Honestly, I used the words "liberal bias" earlier, but I'm really more of a centrist; I do think we need to rein in spending, I do think we've got a good bit of government bloat, and I do think the "nanny state" concept -- protecting people from their own stupidity and poor judgment -- has gotten out of hand.  But this?  I look at this list of actions, all in a little over two months since the election, with nothing short of horror.  I see a corporate interests über alles approach, a move toward less transparency, a morass of conflicts of interest, a complete disregard for any kind of consideration of the environment, and a reckless surge forward to reverse changes in policy on medical insurance coverage and lending practices without any clear vision of how to improve them -- or what impact those might have on low-income families.

So, conservative readers: you tell me not to worry, that everything will be fine, that Trump et al. are going to Make America Great Again.  Okay, convince me.  However I think Donald Trump is kind of repellent, personally, I have no desire to see him fail.

The stakes are way too high.

I'm a facts-and-evidence kind of guy, and I'm listening.  I promise to consider carefully what you say, if for no other reason because I hate being a gloom-and-doom pessimist. 

On the other hand, if all you have to say is "suck it up, Snowflake," my response is gonna be "go to hell."  So be forewarned.

Silencing the experts

First, we had Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper imposing a rule on scientists mandating that their research pass government approval (i.e., not say anything that contradicts the party line) before they could publish it.  That rule was, fortunately rescinded within nanoseconds of Justin Trudeau winning the election last November, once again allowing scientists to speak to the media freely.

Then, here in the United States, we have such intellectual featherweights as Lamar Smith and James Inhofe at the helm of committees overseeing scientific research -- making about as much sense as putting weasels in charge of a henhouse.  The result has been round after round of budget cuts for scientific agencies, a pledge to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, and a campaign of harassment against climatologists researching anthropogenic climate change.

Now, presumably because this has all worked out so well for Canada and the United States, the leadership of the United Kingdom are doing exactly the same thing.

According to an op-ed piece by Robin McKie in The Guardian, the Cabinet Office has decided that researchers paid by government grants will be banned from lobbying for changes in laws or regulations.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I'm sorry, but isn't science supposed to inform government, and not the other way around?  The universe really doesn't give a rat's ass if you're liberal or conservative; data has no political spin.  The desperation of politicians to muzzle scientists when the science they're working on is inconvenient for the dominant political agenda is maddening at best and dangerous at worst.  Despite forty years of warnings from the scientific community, we here in the United States have sat on our hands with respect to all of the problems that come with runaway fossil fuel use -- environmental degradation from oil drilling and fracking, skyrocketing levels of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, and a global temperature rise that is predicted by mid-century to melt most of the Earth's remaining on-land ice, raising sea levels enough to inundate nearly all of the world's coastal cities.

And why?  Because of a disinformation campaign waged by anti-science politicians who are being funded (i.e., controlled) by the petroleum industry.  (I can't even bring myself to call them "climate change deniers" any more; at this point, the data are so completely clear that in order to disbelieve in climate change, you'd have to ignore the evidence deliberately and completely.)

Despite all of this, the British government is going ahead with its policy of keeping the experts out of the decision-making process.  As Robin McKie writes:

The government move is a straightforward assault on academic freedom...  [C]ritics highlight examples such as those of sociologists whose government-funded research shows new housing regulations are proving particularly damaging to the homeless; ecologists who discover new planning laws are harming wildlife; or climate scientists whose findings undermine government energy policy.  All would be prevented from speaking out under the new grant scheme as it stands.

Cambridge University zoologist William Sutherland agrees.  "If they go ahead with this new anti-lobbying clause – and they are leaving it very late if they are not going ahead – then we will have many more poor decisions being made by government for the simple reason that it will have starved itself of proper scientific advice."

The illogic of preventing the people who know the most from influencing public policy is apparently obvious to almost everyone except the ones in charge.  "Politicians don’t have to agree with scientists, but does anyone believe we will make better decisions without hearing what the evidence says on flooding, climate change, statins and e-cigarettes?" said Fiona Fox, head of Britain's Science Media Centre.  "The anti-lobbying clause will send some of our best researchers back to the relative safety of the laboratory and away from the media fray they already fear.  That will be a victory for ignorance and a blow for the evidence-based policy that our politicians claim to want."

"Claim" being the operative word, here, because as we've seen over and over again, most politicians are only interested in science if it supports the views that are expedient for their political agenda.

So the whole thing is infuriating, and it's to be hoped that the outcry from scientists and science-minded citizens will overturn this decision.  In other words, that they follow Canada's example, and not the United States', where (by and large) the anti-science types are still running the show.  Here in the US, my fear is that it will take some kind of catastrophe to demonstrate that letting the tail wag the dog is a bad idea -- and by then, it will be too late.