- Elizabeth Kolbert on the Texas floods and the administration’s undermining of climate research;
- How the Trump administration wants to discourage wind and solar projects;
- Recalling the Scopes trial, 100 years ago this month, and American’s continued antipathy toward science, and long-term thinking;
- Short items about Alligator Alcatraz and how to tell if someone is a criminal; and floating the execution of Trump foes;
- And some personal reactions to The Bear episode about the wedding.
I observe yet again that I don’t see much difference between the behavior of the current US administration and what the behavior of an outside agency would be, one bent on undermining, even sabotaging, critical government functions meant to secure Americans’ health and future and its status in the world.
The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert, 12 July 2025: Flash Floods and Climate Policy
Subtitled: “As the death toll climbs in Texas, the Trump Administration is actively undermining the nation’s ability to predict—and to deal with—climate-related disasters.”
It begins by recalling Tropical Storm Barry, in June. Then:
While Barry was making its way toward Texas, the White House was plotting destruction of its own. The Trump Administration has made no secret of its disdain for science, and on June 30th it recommended cutting hundreds of millions of dollars from projects aimed at improving climate and weather predictions. Among the many research centers the Administration wants to shutter are the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, and the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations. The last two of these are based in Oklahoma; all are funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Commerce Department. “I cannot emphasize enough how disastrous closing the National Severe Storms Laboratory and CIWRO would be—for ALL of us,” Stephen Nehrenz, a meteorologist with the CBS affiliate in Tulsa, posted on X after the budget proposal was released.
And then the Texas floods.
What can be said, and quite definitively, is that, in a warming world, flooding of the sort that occurred in Texas will be more common. The hotter the air, the more moisture it can hold. This is a recipe for fiercer downpours, and, indeed, a trend toward more intense rainfall has already been documented across the United States. … [details] …
In a sane country, information like this would prompt two responses. First, steps would be taken to limit the dangers of climate change by reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Second, more resources would be devoted to preparing for weather extremes. Unfortunately, that is not the sort of country we live in now. The federal government is openly trying to maximize fossil-fuel consumption—and, hence, emissions. On Monday, as twenty more deaths were reported in Texas, Trump signed an executive order aimed at further hobbling the solar- and wind-energy industries, which had already been kneecapped by previous executive orders, as well as by the provisions of the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, approved by Congress earlier this month. On Tuesday, as the death toll climbed by another ten people, the Environmental Protection Agency held hearings on a proposal to scrap Biden-era limits on emissions from coal-fired power plants. Trump and congressional Republicans have put an end to, as one commentator put it in Forbes, “any notion that a true energy transition is happening in the United States.”
Are these people insane?? Malign?? Or merely incompetent? (They rail against the “deep state” of unelected bureaucrats, but at least those folks were hired based on qualifications, on merit; most of Trump’s cabinet have no qualifications at all, aside from loyalty to Fearless Leader.)
Meanwhile, the White House is actively undermining the nation’s ability to predict—and to deal with—climate-related disasters. In April, the Administration dismissed nearly four hundred scientists who were working, on a volunteer basis, to draft the next climate-assessment report, which is due, under law, in 2027. Late last month, it shut down the website of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, where the Fifth Assessment report and its predecessors used to be available. It has cut off grants to climate scientists, kicked NASA climate researchers out of their offices, and hired climate-science deniers to fill key government positions.
\\
Adjacent to this:
Washington Post, 17 Jul 2025: Trump adds new level of scrutiny to wind and solar projects, subtitled “The new requirement threatens to slow the approval process for renewable energy projects as they race to begin construction before the deadline for tax credits.”
The Trump administration wants to discourage wind and solar power without outright banning it. A responsible nation would promote investments in renewable energy resources, because 1) fossil fuels will run out eventually and gradually become more expensive to harvest before they do, and more importantly 2) burning them is making the climate worse, to extent that threatens humanity’s survival, as has been forecast and documented for decades. Then why are they doing this? They’re trapped by conservative, short-term thinking; they’re beholden to fossil fuel industries who, being conservatives, donate lots of money to Republicans, knowing Republicans will pass laws to preserve their industries; or perhaps they’re enemy infiltrators bent on destroying the long-term survival of the United States, while other countries, like China, who *are* investing in renewable resources, will instead come to dominate the world.
\\
Adjacent but distinct. America can’t get over Scopes, the trial in which religious zealots strove (“Give me that ol’ time religion!”, they sang in the streets) to deny science, the reality of the world, in favor of their religious story. (I revisited INHERIT THE WIND, the play and movie based on the Scopes trial, here, way back in 2014.)
Salon, Heather Digby Parton, 16 Jul 2025: Donald Trump goes nuclear in the GOP’s war on science, subtitled “Billions of dollars in cuts to research are leaving lives at stake”
Parton begins:
One hundred years ago this month, the Scopes trial was held in Dayton, Tenn. For 11 days, jurors heard arguments about John Scopes, a high school teacher who had taught the theory of evolution in apparent violation of the Butler Act, a state law that made it illegal for public school teachers to introduce theories that contradicted the Biblical creation story. The trial, which featured celebrated attorneys Clarence Darrow defending Scopes and erstwhile presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan leading the prosecution, was widely publicized and sparked a national conversation about the tensions between science and religion — and government’s role between the two. Then, as now, the controversy was fed by a sense of paranoia and social anxiety over rapid cultural change. In the end, Scopes was convicted, which was later overturned on appeal. But the case took on legendary status, being dramatized in the play and film “Inherit the Wind,” and despite Scopes’ conviction, coming to be seen as a significant victory for science.
Since then, the right-wing in America has intermittently conducted an assault on science that, with the ascent of the religious right, gelled into an all-out war around the early 1980s. Many conservatives have, over the last 40 years, opposed AIDS research, stem cell research, basic facts about climate change — and legislation to address it — and measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Here’s the tie to the previous articles.
Under President Donald Trump, the GOP has decided to go nuclear. The federal government’s support of science and medicine is being systematically destroyed by devastating cuts to research, agencies and staff. It seems the administration and its allies in Congress want to set the United States back a century — back to the time of the Scopes trial.
Scientific advances have long met with resistance from many cultural conservatives. For numerous GOP voters, this suspicion is tied to religious fundamentalism and the very crux of the Scopes trial — that the theory of evolution contradicts the Bible and is, therefore, blasphemous. Denying that basic understanding of the natural world makes, in their minds, many scientific breakthroughs suspect.
And so on. Setting America back a century. Ending:
A century after the Scopes trial, it seems we might not have learned that much at all. The right has rarely been interested in long-term thinking. But the country used to let scientists and researchers think about it for us and deliver the fruits of their labor for our common benefit, which included saving countless lives. This approach served us very well for over a century. Now it seems we’re just going to tell people it’s their patriotic duty to be healthy and leave it at that.
“The right has rarely been interested in long-term thinking.”
\\
Current events.
The Atlantic, Alexandra Petri, 17 July 2025: Just a Tiny, Minuscule Technicality About the People Held at ‘Alligator Alcatraz’, subtitled “How to tell if someone is a criminal, according to the Department of Homeland Security”
They’re criminals by definition. Or: just look at them. Never mind they haven’t committed any actual “crimes.”
\
Raw Story, 17 July 2025: ‘Treason’: MAGA insider floats ‘military tribunal’ and execution of Trump foes
They don’t want to just fire people who aren’t sufficiently loyal to Trump, now they’re fantasizing about executing them.
\
A personal aside about The Bear.
We’re working our way through the current, fourth season, and last night watched episodes 6 and 7. The latter was a long episode about a big wedding; it brought back the Jamie Lee Curtis character from Season 3.
Three things struck me. In the course of the episode, a couple of the characters reveal to Carmy, the main character, that his siblings secretly told them how much they admired him, Carmy, without ever telling him. (Were they telling the truth?)
And my thought was: I can’t imagine my siblings ever saying that they admired me in any way. To them, I think, I’m an odd duck in an otherwise “normal” family. OK to deal with every year or two; doesn’t cause any trouble.
Second, there’s a scene in which all the major characters gather underneath the tablecloth of a banquet table, and admit to each other what they’re most afraid of. Spiders? Dancing?
And my thought was: even though my projects are abstract and I have no close friends who would notice — nor does my partner notice — I think I’m most afraid of dying without having made any difference. I think sfadb.com has made a difference, and I hope my expansions, currently in work, will make a bigger difference.
Third: in the wedding scene, a female singer sings Bruce Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest.
