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EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

nytimes.com

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Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#71

Post by notpc »

notarealdoctor wrote: post #20
notpc wrote: post #5

Like it or not, increasing fossil fuel extraction and cutting environmental regulations is now the policy of the President of the United States. The public communications of the executive branch are under his authority and he's not just going to let the EPA run its public relations and releases contrary to his agenda. Like others have pointed out, there are other ways the public can get the information. But it won't…

> Like it or not, increasing fossil fuel extraction and cutting environmental regulations is now the policy of the President of the United States. Like it or not, the Internet is here for those who want to fact check: https://news.vice.com/story/president-obamas-climate-change-...

The fact that Obama wasn't as environmentalist as some would have liked doesn't change the fact that Trump is clearly much much less so.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#72

Post by snuxoll »

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #63
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The United States isn't a democracy. It's a Republic. A lot of the apparent jingoism was first WWII propaganda, then cold War propaganda. Prior to that, Americans simply considered the rest of the world to be mostly irredeemably corrupt. I don't know if we can determine Trump's actual opinion on climate change. He's opportunistically jumping on a bandwagon.

A democratic republic is still a democracy, albiet an indirect one.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#73

Post by astrodust »

_uhtu wrote: post #14
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The United States can't be a functioning democracy not because of it's size but because our actual political rules are awful. The electoral college, built in gerrymandering, weak restrictions on lobbying, the rules of our democracy are immensely undeomocratic when compared to other first world nations.

It's also difficult to get consensus when you have several large demographic groups with radically different cultures.

To take the South as but one example, the average African-American lives in a world that is completely different than your average white Southerner. The interaction on political, social and even geographic levels is extremely limited. They may as well live in different countries.

Then there's regions like New England that don't interact with the Southern group, and the West Coast which does its own thing as well. You're left with these quasi-independent groups of states that are thrown together under a single national banner and forced to pick who gets to drive every four years.

Spain has a similar problem, as does Belgium, and in more extreme cases such as Iraq where stark religious and tribal differences make conflict very difficult to reconcile.

It's not population, it's consensus, and that gets harder and harder to achieve when you have large, demographically incompatible groups.

No amount of fussing with the rules is going to fix this. Weakening the Federal government and empowering the states could alleviate some of the pressure, but it also puts a lot of people in a very bad place: They have to pick between living with their family in the place where they have a lot of roots, or cutting loose like some refugees for another state that will treat them better.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#74

Post by pizza »

RKoutnik wrote: post #12
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

It's worth noting that 3 million more people voted for Hillary. I wouldn't chalk this one up to a design issue, rather implementation (in this case, weighting votes by geographic region). We've submitted a patch and are waiting for enough reviewers to approve: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

What do you think of range voting?

http://rangevoting.org

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#75

Post by serge2k »

throwaway91111 wrote: post #64
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

The population limit for democracy is about 500 people. That's why we have a republic.

They are not mutually exclusive. The united states is a democracy.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#76

Post by cyrusaf »

notarealdoctor wrote: post #39
kbrwn wrote: post #13

It feels like such a strange time to be alive. Even if you disagree with the concept of man-made climate change the distortion of scientific studies seems like something that everybody can agree is wrong. So much of science is funded by govt grants. The idea that everything must conform to the view of the current administration or it is not worth funding seems dangerous and economically limiting.

If the staff of any government agency is increased by 1000, will results improve? How about by 10,000 or 100,000? Does it take 1 Million? Is there anything wrong with cutting what isn't helping or is redundant and applying those funds where they are needed more?

I think many would make the argument that not enough is being done environmentally and that more action needs to be taken. Cutting funding to the EPA and lifting restrictions are reversing the progress that we have made environmentally in the past couple decades.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#78

Post by sytelus »

wklauss wrote: post #15
_m8fo wrote: post #3

All of these changes that Trump is making in his first week are making me wonder: what's the population limit, really, for a well functioning democracy? I'm no historian, but didn't the United States go around saying how great democracy is? I don't know about you, but to me it definitely feels like it doesn't work quite as intended. As for the article at hand, all I can offer is this" Trump's blatant distrust for cli…

> What exactly is he afraid that'll happen? [1] Why all of the resistance? He is afraid of being proved wrong. It's a very common problem with climate change deniers. Facts and figures keep piling up but they always grasp any possible alternative explanation. The longer they sustain their position, the fooler the look if they backtrack, so they tend to become more and more entrenched in their opinions. Trump just hap…

Nop. There is huge amount of vested interested in denying climate change. All the big industries including oil, gas, coal have regularly sponsored "studies" that would twist facts and have spent enormous in lobbying to push back on climate change theories. Many other industries such as automotive has interest in curbing regulations that says reduce pollution by x% by y year. Climate change affects almost all of the manufacturing in one way or another.

Thing is that once you accept climate change as man made event, the immediate consequence is asking all the businesses to spend extra on minimizing impact. That never goes well with businesses. My theory is that republicans initially started denying climate change due to lobbying and then they had to take that as religion because science doesn't support it.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#79

Post by twinkletwinkle »

notarealdoctor wrote: post #39
kbrwn wrote: post #13

It feels like such a strange time to be alive. Even if you disagree with the concept of man-made climate change the distortion of scientific studies seems like something that everybody can agree is wrong. So much of science is funded by govt grants. The idea that everything must conform to the view of the current administration or it is not worth funding seems dangerous and economically limiting.

If the staff of any government agency is increased by 1000, will results improve? How about by 10,000 or 100,000? Does it take 1 Million? Is there anything wrong with cutting what isn't helping or is redundant and applying those funds where they are needed more?

No one is talking about staffing. We're talking about the executive gag order and similar policies. The number of employees is irrelevant if they aren't allowed to communicate their findings in a transparent way.

Re: EPA Science Under Scrutiny by Trump Political Staff

#80

Post by Brakenshire »

notpc wrote: post #5

Like it or not, increasing fossil fuel extraction and cutting environmental regulations is now the policy of the President of the United States. The public communications of the executive branch are under his authority and he's not just going to let the EPA run its public relations and releases contrary to his agenda. Like others have pointed out, there are other ways the public can get the information. But it won't…

Yes, I expect goverments to vet release of data by all statistical agencies. Unemployment goes up? Just withhold the data! Problem solved.
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