October 2020 – Page 6 – Echo Chamber 2016

“Mr. Trump’s disdain for science is so terrifying that two of the nation’s oldest scientific publications — Scientific American and the New England Journal of Medicine — have waded into the morass of electoral politics for the first time in their more-than-100-year histories. The Journal implored voters to fire the president come November, while Scientific American went a step further and endorsed Joe Biden. “The evidence and science show that Donald Trump has badly damaged the U.S. and its people — because he rejects evidence and science,” the editors there wrote.

That rejection began at the Environmental Protection Agency, where Mr. Trump appointed an administrator whose greatest ambition had been to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. After a string of scandals, Mr. Trump replaced him with a former coal industry lobbyist. The agency has effectively prohibited any study involving human participants and any scientist who receives federal grants from informing its environmental policies. It has deliberately downplayed climate change, going so far as to purge the term from its website. It has also weakened or dismantled scores of environmental protections, including curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, rules meant to keep toxic chemicals in check and protections for national wetlands and wildlife.”