No One Knows Where Trump’s War on Science and the Environment Will End
As we have discussed previously, estimating the cost to the environment associated with the Trump administration is an impossible task. For one, it’s a moving target, in that it never stops–and it will never stop, for a great many years after the president is removed from office and we begin to pick up the pieces and initiate the repairs.
Per this article in the Washington Post, the federal advisory panel for the National Climate Assessment is disbanded–as of today. When we get up tomorrow morning, there will no longer be a group within the federal government focused on assisting policymakers and private-sector officials in interpreting key data points in government’s climate analysis and building them into their long-term planning.
Of course, all this is happening in the context of North Korea, Charlottesville, ties to Russia, and utter chaos in the White House; no one expects news on dismantling environmental protections to make the front pages. In fact, that’s part of what makes this whole thing so pernicious: Americans’ attention is being thrown and tumbled around like a tennis shoe in a clothes dryer. No one has any idea what shocking horror we’ll be talking about 48 hours from now.
But let’s keep this in mind: physics doesn’t have an attention span– long or short; it doesn’t give a damn what we think or do. It just acts in conformity with its well understood principles–unfortunately, to the great detriment of humankind.
Craig,
Perhaps you, and many others would be a little less hysterical if you took a step back and stopped judging the current administration by traditional political behaviour.
Essentially, President Trump and his administration is not made up of professional politicians. The President’s administrative and managerial background is that of an entrepreneur, developer and promoter.
What you think of as ‘chaos’, the President views as simply the process of establishing new management. I’m not arguing whether this is right or wrong, but it’s pointless to stay in a constant state of indignation and outrage because the new administration doesn’t behave like previous administrations consisting of professional, experienced politicians.
After a corporate takeover, it’s quite normal for a period of instability. New methods, new policies are being tried and tested, often many of the personnel don’t transition, while others emerge.
Trump comes with no deep party loyalties or ideological objectives. Like many corporate bosses, he hands people a task and depending on how they perform, retain their positions or depart.
Steve Bannon was useful and effective in helping the President get elected, but unlike politicians with party loyalties of needing alliances,if Steve Bannon proves unable to make the transformation to government, he goes.
This will be the same with all appointments. In one way it’s a positive, but in others it’s a negative as governments only have some responsibilities in common with corporations.
President Trump doesn’t care about opinion polls, or how popular he is at any one time. He knows that in an executive presidential system, he’s got the job for four years, and he’ll worry about charming the shareholders (voters)in three years time.
His experience in business has taught him if something doesn’t work, drop it, and move on quickly.
I can understand how such a change in leadership style must be very unsettling for passionate crusaders, with long term commitments to strong ideological beliefs, but there are some advantages.
Think of the terrible social damage done by prohibition, or drug war, even the environmental damage occurring due to creating a vast corn ethanol industry.
The stubborn, passionate ideological commitment to these disasters, allowed the damage continue being wrought long after the reasoning was discredited.
President Trump is shedding extreme of ineffective executives as he settles into the job. He seems to be learning the lessons, often painfully, but he’s learning how the Washington mule operates.
I wouldn’t worry too much about government environmental policy, although important, the march of technology and knowledge can’t be stopped.
@MarcoPolo
As usual I tackle 2GreenEnergy blogs from a different perspective from time to time as you are aware, so I hope this short piece is not to far out of phase with the subject in general. I think not.
It is becoming inevitably more apparent to many, that history may reflect rather scathingly on how the global renewable energy technologies period 1995 – 2025 was largely ill-conceived and mismanaged through emotional bordering on irrational thinking and decision making, rather than professionally detached scientific and visionary thinking, by most nations. Most certainly reflections by responsible decision makers in the sector in hindsight, about this protracted period of “lost scientific and commercial opportunities” will ruminate widely throughout the global energy technologies and scientific establishments, and no nation will go untouched by this introspection in varying degrees.
What might be the tipping point therefore that weakens the bonds that bind us to the renewable energy paradigm that has been embraced globally with near hysterical fervor at times? Well foremost might be a universal recognition and acceptance that future global clean energy generation imperatives cannot be satisfied by renewable energy technologies. Equally important is that a prosperous and “equal opportunity for all people” world of the future (which is a critical global aspiration) is only possible by affordable access and availability by all peoples to ‘huge energy generation technology’ to power new age energy intensive industries; and economy modernization industrialization technologies and opportunities.
An emerging global ‘push back’ counterbalancing renewable energy technologies is unfolding already; and a lesson we can take from the history of human technological endeavor over several centuries hitherto, is that in general terms there can ultimately only be one winner in any technology type.
A recent article published in the highly regarded South China Morning Post (Hong Kong) 19/08/2017 by US correspondent Robert Delaney headed, “Nuclear Renaissance – China is set to make an emphatic statement in clean power generation as it prepares to commission its revolutionary AP1000 reactor in Sanmen”, provides a compelling insight and analysis into the key ingredients of this important subject.
http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china-pips-us-race-start-worlds-most-advanced-nuclear-power-plant
19/08/2017
Lawrence Coomber
Lawrence,
Great to hear from you ! Comments and contributors seem to have decreased in number since Craig stop sending alerts. (I hope that’s not an indication of Craig losing heart).
Thanks for your comments. What you write makes a great deal of sense. Even previously gung-ho wind and solar nations like the Netherlands are having a re-think and beginning to explore the possibilities of advanced nuclear.
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/thorium-nuclear-reactor/
The Trump administration will soon restructure and reform the 60 year old regulations stifling the US Nuclear industry. These regulations have ensured any new nuclear project must spend twenty to twenty-five years and billions of dollars in completely unnecessary red tape before commissioning.
It’s by means of this completely artificial handicap that allows anti-nuclear opponents to claim the nuclear industry lacks economic viability.
No one has yet seriously addressed the problem of solar panel disposal. Twenty-five years from now, the world will face a massive and increasing environmental problem of how to dispose of hundreds of millions of highly pollutant, almost indestructible solar panels each year.
No provision is being made to address this looming problem. Suggesting to ‘green’ advocates and politicians this problem should be addressed now, and solar panel manufacturers should be make provision for the disposal of their future waste, doesn’t provoke the sort of informed discussion expected, but angry cries of “climate denier” , heretic etc !
I believe contributions like yours are very valuable if we are to continue provoking thoughtful discussion.
@MarcoPolo
I have been working in India this month and seem to have acquired after 49 years since my first visit there aboard an aircraft carrier, some (credibility or notoriety) not sure what precisely, but traction nonetheless with some concerned people on the fringe of the emerging RE industry there. And so they very well should be concerned!
Like most complicated subjects though, forecasting outcomes over time, is often simply a matter of being able to carefully and dispassionately ‘connect all the dots’. But it seems that quality ‘dot connectors’ are getting a bit hard to find these days. LOL And as a consequence nations are all going broke, and functioning in increasing disarray.
Dot connectors might also be depicted as ‘fuzzy logicians’ I believe.
I started my computing science undergraduate days at Canberra University whilst still in the Navy in 1977 and my first tutor was a bit concerned as I proved to be a dangerously creative machine language programmer (from my Navy missile guidance training) and I started writing viruses in the first semester. No one even knew what a virus was then, including me, but I realised at the outset that this ‘fuzzy thinking’ might one day be useful.
Well of course viruses have proven exactly the opposite, but nevertheless in the right hands this form of thinking can manifest into being adept at ‘connecting fuzzy dots’ so to speak.
And that’s what we see around us everywhere these days with snippets of information floating about like rudderless gossamer threads having no roots or substance. It takes a bit of ‘fuzzy logic’ to bring them all onto the Barry Jones whiteboard cogently. And I have found through truck loads of hands on experience in many things for a long time now, that final outcomes are always far removed from that which gave rise to the initial momentum.
I have a brief meeting with Mr Modi in January I have been informed, to discuss some ideas about manufacturing some energy related stuff in India, that I am involved with elsewhere. Being true to form though (which I always strive for) I am predicting a very prickly (or fuzzy logic) meeting. LOL
Lawrence Coomber