Oct 28, 2019
America has a conflicted relationship to science. Presidents and Congress love science until data is at odds with their beliefs, political and economic interests. Public confidence in science is growing as evidence of the impacts of climate change on rising sea levels, displacement and migration in coastal communities is now widely accepted. Jacob Carter, biologist and research scientist from the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy points out the unprecedented suppression of science by the Trump Administration, including reports issued by federal agencies ranging from the US Environmental Protection Agency to the US Fish and Wildlife Services. Scientists within the federal system are being defunded, censored and prohibited from attending meetings on their areas of study. This aggressive stance has left our federal scientists with a serious morale problem and is dissuading early career scientists from entering the public service pipeline. Jacob is heartened by the outpouring of scientists and community members who showed up for the March on Science and the fact that public trust in science is at an all-time high.