New Scientist Editorial 8 March 2017
"One Twitter account parodying Trump has medieval king Donaeld the Unready railing against a rival: “Canute. What a loser. Can’t even hold back the sea. It’s just water. We’re going to be so tough on the sea. Canute was too soft. Sad.”
The real Donald has cast himself as a latter-day King Canute, deluding himself that he is able to hold back the forces of nature with an executive order. Except, of course, that Canute was actually a wise ruler who wanted to show his followers that he didn’t have dominion over nature. The chances that Trump is doing the same? Zero. Sad indeed."
As the editorial points out:
A Chill wind of change is blowing through climate research. To nobody’s great surprise, given President Trump’s rhetoric to date, the White House is said to be ready to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to documents seen by The Washington Post, NOAA – the federal government’s leading climate science agency – faces an overall budget cut of 17 per cent. Its basic science arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, will lose more than a quarter of its funds. The money will be diverted to the military, on which the US already spends far more than any other country.
Some in the Trump camp claim they are not opposed to climate science, just to the “politicised” version of it now practised by NOAA and other agencies. This is nonsense. Climate science has been politicised only by those who deny its findings in the service of an antiquated model of US enterprise – one in which success depends on corporate freedom to trash the commons.
Most of the world recognises that cleaning up industry is not only morally responsible, but commercially sound too. Even ExxonMobil, from whose corner office Trump plucked Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state, has made the right noises about a carbon tax, despite its appalling track record on climate change. Such a tax would impose rigour on carbon-intensive industries – and Exxon thinks it would win out in the subsequent competition. But rather than putting pressure on it to act on its words, Trump has applauded its recidivist plans to expand its Gulf Coast operations.
"One Twitter account parodying Trump has medieval king Donaeld the Unready railing against a rival: “Canute. What a loser. Can’t even hold back the sea. It’s just water. We’re going to be so tough on the sea. Canute was too soft. Sad.”
The real Donald has cast himself as a latter-day King Canute, deluding himself that he is able to hold back the forces of nature with an executive order. Except, of course, that Canute was actually a wise ruler who wanted to show his followers that he didn’t have dominion over nature. The chances that Trump is doing the same? Zero. Sad indeed."
As the editorial points out:
A Chill wind of change is blowing through climate research. To nobody’s great surprise, given President Trump’s rhetoric to date, the White House is said to be ready to gut the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to documents seen by The Washington Post, NOAA – the federal government’s leading climate science agency – faces an overall budget cut of 17 per cent. Its basic science arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, will lose more than a quarter of its funds. The money will be diverted to the military, on which the US already spends far more than any other country.
Some in the Trump camp claim they are not opposed to climate science, just to the “politicised” version of it now practised by NOAA and other agencies. This is nonsense. Climate science has been politicised only by those who deny its findings in the service of an antiquated model of US enterprise – one in which success depends on corporate freedom to trash the commons.
Most of the world recognises that cleaning up industry is not only morally responsible, but commercially sound too. Even ExxonMobil, from whose corner office Trump plucked Rex Tillerson to be his secretary of state, has made the right noises about a carbon tax, despite its appalling track record on climate change. Such a tax would impose rigour on carbon-intensive industries – and Exxon thinks it would win out in the subsequent competition. But rather than putting pressure on it to act on its words, Trump has applauded its recidivist plans to expand its Gulf Coast operations.
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