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3 charts show the dismal state of science under Trump

The state of science has suffered bigly during President Trump’s first year and a half in office, a survey of 63,000 federal scientists published Tuesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows. Spoiler alert: Government employees are at best displeased with the administration’s stance on science, and at worst wholeheartedly downtrodden.

The analysis is billed as the first to assess federal employees’ perceptions of how the Trump administration uses science to make decisions. It found a general decline in the way science is regarded across pretty much all federal science agencies, and an increase in censorship. Thirty-five percent of Environmental Protection Agency employees and 47 percent of National Parks Service employees said they had been asked to omit the phrase “climate change” from their work.

It gets worse: Workforce reductions were reported by 79 percent of respondents across every single one of the 16 agencies surveyed. And 87 percent said those reductions made it harder for them to “fulfill their science-based missions.” The EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in particular, saw many staff departures.

Union of Concerned Scientists

The federal science workforce that remains is operating under a vacuum of leadership: Trump had only filled 25 of 83 vacant “science appointees” positions as of June this year. And those new political appointees generally had a negative effect on science, according to the survey. The EPA is the best example of the toll this new leadership took on science-based decision making. Under former Administrator Scott Pruitt, the EPA often evaluated the work of scientists based on its “alignment with Trump administration priorities rather than on its scientific merits,” the authors of the survey write.

Union of Concerned Scientists

Indeed, these results indicate that spirits at the EPA have plummeted. This chart compares morale at the EPA in 2007 to morale in 2018. It’s currently at an all-time low.

Union of Concerned Scientists

One bright spot in this mess is the unyielding strength of “scientific integrity” at federal agencies — that is, the policies that guide how science should be protected. Those include training in whistleblower rights and how to report violations. A majority of respondents, especially those at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Food and Drug Administration, agreed their agencies stuck to their integrity policies.

This general resiliency doesn’t outweigh the survey’s rather dismal takeaway, however. It offers a sobering assessment: “Political leaders are creating work environments that diminish the overall effectiveness of scientific staff, instill fear in the workforce, and lead to counterproductive self-censorship.”

Hey, here’s a new idea: What if we just let scientists do their jobs?

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3 charts show the dismal state of science under Trump

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Is the Military Reluctant to Support the Use of Force?

Mother Jones

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Retired Gen. Charles Dunlap says we shouldn’t be too worried about all the generals that Donald Trump is picking for his cabinet:

Many in the civilian world misunderstand the ways most generals see the world….Retired generals don’t clamor for war; they are typically the voices urging that all other avenues be exhausted before turning to force.

As chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then-Army Gen. Colin Powell authored a thoughtful but tempered use-of-force doctrine that said America should only go to war with defined objectives and a clear exit strategy. It was designed to persuade civilian policymakers to be extremely cautious about ordering troops into battle. It didn’t work, and true “hawks” of Powell’s tenure often proved to be high-ranking civilian officials with liberal political leanings.

My sense is that this is true. But that doesn’t mean it is, of course. Maybe my sense is wrong. I’d like to hear more about this from both civilian and military folks who have held high-ranking positions in previous administrations. When it comes to the use of force, are ex-generals generally voices of moderation?

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Is the Military Reluctant to Support the Use of Force?

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IMF: Greece Is Totally Screwed

Mother Jones

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Jordan Weissmann reads the latest IMF report on Greece and calls this one of the saddest passages you’ll ever read about a developed country:

Greece will continue to struggle with high unemployment rates for decades to come. Its current unemployment rate is around 25 percent, the highest in the OECD, and, after seven years of recession, its structural component is estimated at around 20 percent. Consequently, it will take significant time for unemployment to come down. Staff expects it to reach 18 percent by 2022, 12 percent by 2040, and 6 percent only by 2060.

IMF staff projects this astronomical unemployment rate despite the fact that Greece’s working-age population is expected to decline by 10 percentage points over the next few decades. IMF also projects that by 2060 Greece’s government debt will increase to 250 percent of GDP; financing needs will increase to 70 percent of GDP; and real GDP growth will be stuck at 1-2 percent.

That’s 45 years of projected misery. And only if nothing else goes south during that time.

The most remarkable part of all this is how quickly the IMF has changed its official mind. Last year, during Greece’s most recent funding crisis, the IMF projected that everything would soon be hunky dory. Now, a mere 11 months later, they’re projecting decades of catastrophe. Despite their claims that much has changed over the past year, one might well be suspicious that the 2015 projections were massaged no small amount to make them politically palatable.

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IMF: Greece Is Totally Screwed

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for February 19, 2014

Mother Jones

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Staff Sgt. Austina Knotek takes a photo with the United States Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Ray Odierno in Kabul, Afghanistan, February 7, 2014. Staff Sgt. Austina Knotek is an Information Technology Specialist from Crown Point, N.M. assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps. Knotek noticed the large crowd outside her work area and realized the Army Chief of Staff, General Ray Odierno, was conducting a media engagement with Fox & Friends, which included more than a dozen Soldiers in the background. (U.S. Army Photo by Nate Allen)

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for February 19, 2014

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Where Obama’s new chief of staff stands on climate change

Where Obama’s new chief of staff stands on climate change

Earlier today, President Obama named his new chief of staff, Denis McDonough. (McDonough will replace Jack Lew, who Obama nominated to bring his unique signature to the Department of the Treasury.)

Reuters/Jason Reed

The president shakes McDonough’s hand as Lew looks on.

In 2011, Obama’s then-chief of staff, William Daley, was identified as being instrumental in killing the EPA’s proposed standard on ozone. Which raises the question: How will McDonough approach environmental issues? And especially, how will he respond to Obama’s stated prioritization of climate change?

MIT Technology Review looks at McDonough’s track record on climate:

Prior to working for Obama, McDonough served as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. While there, he argued that the United States — along with other industrialized countries — has an obligation to help poor countries deal with climate change related problems and to help them reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. If his writings at the time are any indication, he could push both for market-based policies for addressing climate change and for funding to help poor countries adapt to climate change as it happens.

On another tricky question, McDonough seems to support the more controversial choice.

[H]e also recommended funding to help poor countries adapt to climate change, noting, as he wrote in 2007, that “even if appropriate measures were taken today to reduce global emissions by 80 percent by 2050, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other long-lived greenhouse gases are already such that the next 50 years of climate change cannot be averted.”

Funding for poorer nations is something that leaders from developed countries have repeatedly sought to undermine in international negotiations.

McDonough’s views are interesting. In a room with President Obama, they’re at best the second-most important. But at least we can feel confident that someone in the room understands the scope of the climate threat.

Source

Obama’s New Chief of Staff on Climate Change, MIT Technology Review

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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Where Obama’s new chief of staff stands on climate change

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