Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 197 posts

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#81

Post by bilbo0s »

mothballed wrote: post #63
rectang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal taxes paid by California’s residents and businesses subsidize the budgets of the states who have made retaliatory gerrymandering efforts necessary. Spending money on Prop 50 is rational because California is on the verge of a durable situation of taxation without representation. This same phenomenon shows why California will struggle to replace the federal government for funding basic research.

It never ceases to baffle my why Californians tend to opine towards a strong federal government when the documents authorizing it are structured such that California is virtually guaranteed to get the worst end of the deal. California has 12% of the population and 2% of the senators. Every time Californians urge to give the federal government more power, even for "good" things, the rules of the game virtually demand…

Because they’re rich.

In the US, the rich always win anyway. Full stop.

If you believe otherwise, I’m sorry to say, but you’ve probably not been paying attention.

Under the current administration, as under all administrations, it’s the poor and middle class states that have the problem.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#82

Post by kmeisthax »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #53
fabian2k wrote: 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…

[dead]

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#83

Post by gurumeditations »

mothballed wrote: post #46
johnebgd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great idea. Who pays for it?

[flagged]

Government is just organized volunteering. You’re describing a government. You created your own mini government for your road maintenance.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#84

Post by rectang »

mothballed wrote: post #63
rectang wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Federal taxes paid by California’s residents and businesses subsidize the budgets of the states who have made retaliatory gerrymandering efforts necessary. Spending money on Prop 50 is rational because California is on the verge of a durable situation of taxation without representation. This same phenomenon shows why California will struggle to replace the federal government for funding basic research.

It never ceases to baffle my why Californians tend to opine towards a strong federal government when the documents authorizing it are structured such that California is virtually guaranteed to get the worst end of the deal. California has 12% of the population and 2% of the senators. Every time Californians urge to give the federal government more power, even for "good" things, the rules of the game virtually demand…

Well, now that taker states have figured out how to hack the system and bleed giver states while doing things such as neutering the EPA without facing electoral consequences, attitudes seem to be changing amongst people who previously were all right with subsidizing taker states on humanitarian grounds.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#85

Post by mothballed »

gurumeditations wrote: post #83
mothballed wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Government is just organized volunteering. You’re describing a government. You created your own mini government for your road maintenance.

If I (willingly) don't pay my taxes someone will put me in a tiny cage, violently ("tax evasion").

If I don't fix my road, I just can't go anywhere, which obviously forces me to voluntarily fix it. If I don't voluntarily fix it, I'm stuck until someone comes along with a backhoe, and given only the tiniest % of people will purposefully sabotage their ability to go buy groceries, the burden of having to fix a neighbors road is so miniscule that it fits well within tolerable natural rates of charity.

The end result is the county roads are enforced by violence (tax man will toss grandma out of her house if she doesn't pay up, and assault her if she resists), while the private roads are enforced by a mixture of voluntary action on your own property and some relatively rare charity for those who just don't give a shit if they ever leave their house.

The difference here is the government can initiate violence against me, while the people involved in the private roads cannot.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#86

Post by cogman10 »

dmd wrote: post #37
gWPVhyxPHqvk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could all band together and have another dedicated group collect money for it. It wouldn't be optional, either, because we mostly all agree it's valuable. Of course, there would have to be yet another group that sets how much money to collect, and how to spend it.

Oooh I love this idea. We could have some sort of process where everyone gets a say in deciding how the money is spent. Except maybe rather than everyone doing that you could have instead people whose job it is to do it, and everyone gets a say in deciding who those people are. I wonder if this sort of thing has ever been tried.

It was tried once. Unfortunately it was ultimately killed off by a corrupt leader who took over the military and started deploying them the cities to stop crime. That leader ultimately strong armed the other elected officials into doing his bidding leading to the destruction of the once great nation. He ignored the law and the will of the people.

He was ultimately assassinated in 44BC. I believe his name was Julius Caesar.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#87

Post by mikeyouse »

fabian2k wrote: post #79
mikeyouse wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cato - one of the few actually principled right-leaning think tanks have written extensively about this (and other instances of Trump administration contempt). It’s just as bad as you’ve described and infuriating for anyone who actually values the rule of law.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/carousel-contempt

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#88

Post by solaric »

GenerocUsername wrote: post #53
fabian2k wrote: 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…

> China, who cares for less about preserving the world

The premises of your argument are refuted by facts.

A larger percentage of people in China (compared to the USA) believe climate change is a serious threat to humanity and support policies to tackle climate change. https://ourworldindata.org/climate-change-support

The US is much worse than China in terms of emissions per capita, both historically and today https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita

China also leads the world in tech that is crucial for the move away from fossil fuels (solar, wind, electric vehicles and batteries). You can easily look up evidence for this, if you feel any initial doubt.

This recent news article has a nice snippet on the current trajectory on climate change https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/24/china-doubles-down-... "China pledged Wednesday to cut its world-leading levels of climate pollution by up to 10 percent during the next decade — one day after U.S. President Donald Trump urged global leaders to abandon the effort to halt the Earth’s rising temperatures."

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#89

Post by cogman10 »

rectang wrote: post #84
mothballed wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never ceases to baffle my why Californians tend to opine towards a strong federal government when the documents authorizing it are structured such that California is virtually guaranteed to get the worst end of the deal. California has 12% of the population and 2% of the senators. Every time Californians urge to give the federal government more power, even for "good" things, the rules of the game virtually demand…

Well, now that taker states have figured out how to hack the system and bleed giver states while doing things such as neutering the EPA without facing electoral consequences, attitudes seem to be changing amongst people who previously were all right with subsidizing taker states on humanitarian grounds.

This is something baked into the constitution from the beginning.

The entire reason we have the senate is because the less populated slave states didn't want to get steam rolled by the the more populated northern free states. It was an anti-democracy measure to ensure low population regions get over-represented.

Re: EPA tells some scientists to stop publishing studies

#90

Post by rob74 »

reval wrote: post #65
softwaredoug wrote: post #28

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 current right-leaning US administration (ok, some would call it far right - or rather, if you would go by the standards of pretty much any other country, you'd have to classify it as far right) is so fond of conspiracy theories and rejects science? But yes, in principle I agree that accepting scientific consensus shouldn't be a partisan issue...
Post reply on HN