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EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

washingtonpost.com

71–80 of 197 posts

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea. Who pays for it?

[flagged]

Obviously a lot of things can work more smoothly when people are willing to give away value for free.

Obviously people are a lot more willing to give away value when it costs them virtually nothing (like roads in a rural area with definitionally extremely low traffic)

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#72
post #65

It feels like in the US we need collective, civic organizations independent of the Federal government. I would like to see the Democratic party and other left-leaning / governance institutions / activists on specific issues work to make priorities resilient of the government. Especially since working on many of these issues is popular and not particularly partisan. And many people in upper-middle class would rather d…

Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.

Conservative people tend to protect their believes, no matter how wrong they are based on new evidence. Humanity has many examples of this happening through millennia, it is widely documented...

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#73
post #8

I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to think climate change is a hoax, and environmental regulations are in the way of earning money. Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good.

In a way it is? Let me explain. The USA is big, but China bigger. If the USA over optimizes on reducing greenhouse gas today, at the expense of our long term economic and world power, China, who cares for less about preserving the world will continue to destroy the world and claim the most power simultaneously. So while we can reduce OUR footprint by taking ourselves out of the game, the world still loses. So now try…

But China is deploying more wind and solar energy than the USA. If anything the refusal to diversity energy sources is leaving USA even more behind the competition in the long term.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#74
post #8

I mean it's entirely obvious from everything that this administration does that it fundamentally opposes the entire purpose of the EPA. They want people to think climate change is a hoax, and environmental regulations are in the way of earning money. Wind power is bad, and "clean coal" is good.

In a way it is? Let me explain. The USA is big, but China bigger. If the USA over optimizes on reducing greenhouse gas today, at the expense of our long term economic and world power, China, who cares for less about preserving the world will continue to destroy the world and claim the most power simultaneously. So while we can reduce OUR footprint by taking ourselves out of the game, the world still loses. So now try…

This perspective relies on seeing Chinese lives as worth less than American lives. On average individual Americans contribute more to the problem than individual Chinese people.

One example is airline miles. Americans travel 2000 miles by plane every year. In China the figure is 1000 miles. So your argument is basically "sure, we could stop traveling by plane, but if Chinese people travel an extra 50 miles a year that wipes out our progress." But that's a pretty poor argument to justify continuing to do 2000 miles/year, if you genuinely think the problem should be addressed.

If both countries reduced to 100 miles/year, it probably wouldn't be enough. But this is an ongoing choice all around. It's not reasonable to suggest that Chinese people have less individual need for air travel. Looking at contribution per country and not per person is not reasonable.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#75

[flagged]

I read the whole article. There isn’t much more context beyond the article headline apart from an unconvincing denial from the press secretary.

Ditto.

The sources appear to be a combination of anonymous and the EPA employee union leader. The administration is flatly denying that such a meeting happened.

The only added context is that the studies being stopped are around water safety levels. PFAS are specifically called out as the Trump admin immediately pulled back PFAS regulations.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Obviously a lot of things can work more smoothly when people are willing to give away value for free. Obviously people are a lot more willing to give away value when it costs them virtually nothing (like roads in a rural area with definitionally extremely low traffic)

Somehow when the county maintains them, the "virtually free" roads somehow become enormously expensive.

You can see the government having a monopoly and captive buyer causes them to be horribly inefficient, as they have no competition (and no private competitor will emerge when the price at point of use by their competitor is zero).

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#77
post #65

It feels like in the US we need collective, civic organizations independent of the Federal government. I would like to see the Democratic party and other left-leaning / governance institutions / activists on specific issues work to make priorities resilient of the government. Especially since working on many of these issues is popular and not particularly partisan. And many people in upper-middle class would rather d…

Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.

Because the right is trying to dismantle all those things

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#78
post #65

It feels like in the US we need collective, civic organizations independent of the Federal government. I would like to see the Democratic party and other left-leaning / governance institutions / activists on specific issues work to make priorities resilient of the government. Especially since working on many of these issues is popular and not particularly partisan. And many people in upper-middle class would rather d…

Out of curiosity, why does this have to be a left-leaning initiative? I personally don’t use these political labels as I’m often confused by how they are used.

It doesn't and yet it does. Primarily because big oil dumped a bunch of money into conservative media to demonize the EPA.

The EPA was originally put into place by richard nixon as was championed in a bipartisan fashion.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, totally losing the benefit of the doubt when it comes to matters of censorship and lying, is one consequences of being the administration historically most infamous for censorship and lying. Normally that is motivation enough for people to choose not to become infamous for censorship and lying. If any evidentiary memos or documents are due, they are due from the administration (with credible independent verif…

The Federal courts have reached this point too. There’s a “presumption of regularity” where the government has historically been seen as a mostly truthful arbiter that would make good faith efforts to follow court orders. So when a judge would ask, “Do you plan to deport these people tonight?” to a government lawyer, if the lawyer replied, “No”, the court wouldn’t intervene because government lawyers obviously wouldn…

One of the worst instances of this was when the government lawyers essentially replied "We thought only the written orders count" when asked why they didn't comply. I'm not a lawyer, but from the reactions of actual lawyers this is not how it works in court, at all.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#80

It feels like in the US we need collective, civic organizations independent of the Federal government. I would like to see the Democratic party and other left-leaning / governance institutions / activists on specific issues work to make priorities resilient of the government. Especially since working on many of these issues is popular and not particularly partisan. And many people in upper-middle class would rather d…

Isn't this one of the goals of their Project 2025?
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