We're 'screwed': Some scientists dread Trump 2.0 and fear the worst — here's why

12 December 2024

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Under President Joe Biden, U.S. oil production, according to Reuters, hit a record high. But Biden, unlike President-elect Donald Trump, acknowledges climate change as a dangerous crisis.

Biden, as president, has favored a combination of fossil fuels and green energy, whereas Trump has called for an even greater emphasis on fossil fuels — much to the concern of scientists who study the disastrous effects of climate change.

In an article published on December 12, Salon's Matthew Rozsa lays out some reasons why so many scientists dread Trump's second presidency.

Dr. Kyla Bennett, director of senior policy at the activist group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), is one of them.

Bennett told Salon, "When 98 percent of climate scientists say that climate change is human-caused and it's here, it's bad. We've blown past the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold…. Every disaster movie starts with somebody ignoring a scientist. We are living in a disaster movie, and we are going to get screwed."

Rozsa warns that a variety of federal government agencies — from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) — will suffer during Trump's second presidency.

"Numerous current and past government scientists spoke with Salon — some only on background to protect themselves from Trump's promised retribution — expressing similar concerns about the incoming president's Agenda 47 and Project 2025, policy platforms which call for laying off thousands of government scientists at agencies like the EPA, NOAA, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy," Rozsa reports. "Claiming this will boost America's business interests, Trump has also justified his agenda largely by promoting the pseudo-scientific claim that human-caused climate change is a 'hoax."

Rozsa adds, "It is a falsehood that can be traced back to President George W. Bush's administration, which spurred the resignation of his first EPA head in 2003."

Bennett warns against MAGA Republicans' proposal to move EPA and NOAA workers to a red state like Oklahoma.

Bennett told Salon, "Most of the 7000 employees that work (in the EPA and NOAA) will not move because they have spouses, they have children, they have lives and they don't want to pick up and move to Oklahoma or Texas. We are going to lose expertise. We are going to lose the true scientists who work there and who care deeply about the environment, and we are going to lose the guardrails of the laws that we have."

Read Salon's full article at this link.

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