Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science | Hacker News Reader

Trump Administration Hardens Its Attack on Climate Science

nytimes.com

96 pointswhack44 comments

The biggest issue we're going to have is that at some point someone else will be in charge, and the science will resume, but there will be a big hole in the data, because this current administration is no longer funding the collection of critical data for climate models. We won't even really feel the effects of this for probably a decade or more, when the models finally see the effects of the lack of data.

It's kind of brilliant, in a perverse way.

In 2028, there will be strong indicators of continued climate change. But denialists will be able to say "well we can't say for sure, there's this huge gap in data from 2016-2024, we need to have at least 16 years of solid data in order to say for sure."

Climate scientists seem pretty sure already that climate change is happening. In 2028 when the effects should be even more obvious do you think there will still be denialists? There's reason to believe the bottom third of Florida will be underwater by 2030 [0], if a significant fraction of the US is still denying it by then it might be time to give up hope in our nation's continued presence on Earth.

[0]: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newsweek.com/how-long-all-f...

> when the effects should be even more obvious do you think there will still be denialists?

If you think there won't be, I'd say you're far too optimistic.

That's definitely a big issue.

But I think a bigger issue is that we're going to spend 4-8 years making little progress actually fixing climate change. Any changes we do have greater impact the earlier we do them. It was a smoldering fire in a wastepaper basket 30 years ago. Now one bedroom is on fire. We're going to spend another 2-6 years doing nothing while the fire continues to spread. Hopefully we'll still be able to put it out once we get an adult into office.

I think that's the biggest issue.

Up until three years ago there was "an adult in office" and not all that much was actually being done. Sure, more than now, but it's not like they had plans for shutting down all coal plants or something of the sort

Not to mention the loss of experience and knowledge as people in the affected programs move on to other, potentially more stable, and potentially more lucrative, employment.

Who is not collecting data?

Budgets are being slashed across the admin, but NOAA is prime example. They've said multiple times they can no longer meet all of their priorities because of the lack of budget. It came to head during the government shutdown, when they simply stopped doing any work for a month.

Godless untrustworthy liberals, duh.

If we discover how to read historic climate data from carbon atoms, like we do with radioactive decay, do you see all the money we spent so far as a waste?

No, to the contrary, the data we collect now would be used to verify that we are reading the carbon atoms correctly.

So bizarre. The US defense department even says that climate change is one of the largest threats to US security. So, basically the Trump administration is pure politics.

> So, basically the Trump administration is pure politics.

Every administration's positions and policies reflect their politics, and their donor base. This one isn't different in that way.

This particular administration's positions represent the interests of the fossil fuel extraction industry, whether via the appointment of fossil fuel industry executives to positions of authority over environmental policy, or in the leniency by the administration toward particular authoritarian petro states like Saudi Arabia and Russia.

It would be a much more accurate article if instead of "climate science" it said "climate change prediction and mitigation."

The Daily podcast covered this story aswell today - https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/podcasts/the-daily/trump-...

This is mostly unrelated to the point of the article, but I noticed that Trump in this article is repeatedly referred to as "Mr. Trump". Only once as "President Trump." This seems a little bit out of the ordinary to me. I can't recall Obama ever being called "Mr. Obama".

This isn't a criticism at all - but simply piqued my curiosity. Is there a reason for this? My only assumption is it's meant to be a minor indicator of the author's sentiment regarding Trump. Or is it just common NY Times style?

EDIT: It appears it's simply a well document common style decision. I should have looked it up before posting!

It seems to be a stylistic choice amongst some major publications. The first time they say "President Foo", the second time Mr. Foo.

From the Times directly: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...

And NPR discussing the same style for Obama https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/1412934...

Searches for "Mr. Obama" bring up plenty of results, but more to the point it's a fairly common journalistic practice to use President Foo for the first mention and Mr. Foo for subsequent mentions. (Non-presidents usually get Mr. Foo and then just Foo.)

Here's an NPR story from the Obama administration about it: https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2011/10/12/1412934...

>Or is it just common NY Times style

Yes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...

It's your assumption which I find out to be wrong. Use Google to search your hypothesis before making a statement:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&ei=t73uXOCZD5fN-...

I did a quick google search and came across: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr...

Which uses the example of Mr. Obama interestingly

I believe this is just common NYTimes style. [1]

> I’m not sure whether one of my long-ago predecessors got similar complaints about The Times’s references to “Mr. Lincoln.” But I can assure readers that we have been consistent for many years in how we refer to an incumbent president: It’s “President Trump” (or President Obama, or President Bush) on first reference, and “Mr. Trump” or “the president” (lowercase) thereafter.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...

This is an opinion piece with a red hot flamebait title and a buried lede. Surely there's a better way to start this conversation on HN.

There are an awful lot of hard facts presented. What parts specifically do you take issue with?

The first six paragraphs of personal gripes, opinions, and hyperbole, for a start.

If the story started and ended with hard facts, interpretation, and interview, it would be less painful to read and more effective in conveying the point.

The way it's written, I'd be surprised if a healthy 20% of readers would reach the actual news: that the horizon for the government's first-party predictions of climate change is being shortened to about twenty years rather than about eighty. That would be something specific that you could make up your own mind about, instead of adopting the tedious framing, and something you could take up with your representatives and your community.

But what conversation is your comment meant to start?

Agreed!

Anyone who is voting down this comment should checkout the article.

Any journalist that calls the President of the US "Mr." instead of "President" is trying to belittle them.

If they writer showed respect and stuck to facts instead of baiting, then it would be more impactful to thoughtful and intelligent people.

Since that is not how it is written, it comes across as an appeal to emotion.

This is just common NYT style. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...

It’s common elsewhere too. Here is a cbs news article talking about the style (using Mr. Obama in this case). https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-disrespect-in-calling-the-pr...

Discrediting the article’s tone is easier than attacking its conclusions, but that’s not how we have a productive discussion, and I hope we can agree it’s not useful.

If my point was to discredit it's conclusions, I would have.

I pointed out that the article was appealing to baser instincts by it's writing methods.

Everyone who think's I support Trump (I don't) or think climate change is hoax (I don't) assumed this. Nothing in my comment indicates this.

Maybe people downvote based on emotions as well?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/reader-center/why-does-ny...

The Nytimes refers to nearly all people using personal, not professional, titles when their professional title is obvious from context or already previously stated in the article.

The "Mr." stuff is just a quirk of the NY Times' opinionated editorial style; they also forego the Oxford comma despite that being a perpetual source of confusion.

To me, climate change is not such a big deal in terms of the human species.

My belief is that we will eventually feel the impact from the earth, made by ourselves.

So it's beyond climate change. We have fucked the earth up to a starte where we can't go back.

But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue.

We are not so smart as we believe, and out arrogance will be a deadly.

> But. The earth has a tendency to regulate itself and take care of itself. It will wipe out humanity if it needs to and then time will continue.

There is no evidence that the Earth is sentient and assigning needs and wants to it is fallacious. Geological records show that the Earth has gone through several eras where life flourished followed by major extinction events. If we want to achieve long term stability for the human civilization, we need to achieve the power to control the climate and transform landscapes. Of course, we need to do it judiciously; but not developing such capabilities is shooting ourselves in the foot in the long run.

Civilization as we have known it is at risk. I guess some people are either too ignorant to understand or are not invested enough in their progenies futures. Either way, fun times ahead.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com