It is a challenging time to be a scientist in the United States. Talking to colleagues in academia and industry, it is clear many US scientists face difficulties unparalleled in modern times.
US president Donald Trump‘s bizarre tariff-led approach to international economics has received a great deal of attention. This is to be expected given the chaotic effect of his actions on international markets and the possibility of triggering a recession in the US and further afield.
Similarly, a great deal of media attention has been paid to Trump’s approach to international politics. His strange transactional diplomacy has shaken the old order profoundly and left former allies very unsure of the place of the US in the world. On the domestic front, Trump’s attempts to muzzle both the press and the universities are of great concern
However, another aspect of the Trump administration is equally alarming but has received much less attention ̶ namely, an unprecedented attack on federal agencies and organisations created to regulate industry and to protect ordinary citizens against the avarice of big business.
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This assault is particularly noticeable in the case of legendary US agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).
In the EPA’s case, an organisation that introduced vital environmental protections against pollution over many years, Trump appointed Lee Zeldin, a republican congressman with a long record of advocating for the fossil fuel industry, as director. Zeldin immediately installed substantial cuts to a great many environmental protection programmes at the agency and dismissed thousands of personnel.
This pattern has been replicated at many other federal agencies, with swingeing cuts and widespread redundancies instigated by Doge, the so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency led by Elon Musk. The situation is particularly acute in the US Department of Health and Human Services, with widespread closure of programmes and thousands of lay-offs in world-leading agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control.
The approach of the Trump administration was predictable, as it follows the plan set out in Project 25, a programme for government published by conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation. During the election, enough concerns were raised about Project 25 for the Trump campaign to distance itself from it. After the election, key authors of the plan were appointed to prominent positions in the new administration and lost no time in implementing the programme.
From the point of view of the individual working in industry or academia, the cuts are no less serious. Funding for scientific research has been reduced dramatically across the board – indeed, many hard-won grants already awarded have suddenly disappeared, with dire consequences for the hiring of postgrads and the purchase of laboratory equipment.
Needless to say, the situation is most acute in the case of research related to climate science. Trump and his supporters have never masked their contempt for climate science and it comes as no surprise that programme after programme in climate research has been stopped in its tracks due to a guillotining of funding.
To pick one example, a famous experiment at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii has been providing direct measurement of the rise in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere since the 1950s. This data is critical in investigating the relation between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, yet the observatory now faces substantial cuts and possible closure due to a planned reduction in federal funding.
It seems clear that the US government is not only in denial about the reality of global warming, but is actively involved in suppressing scientific investigation of the phenomenon. It’s hard to imagine a more blatant example of the dangers of the politicisation of science.
Attacks by republican administrations on climate science – or indeed on the regulation of industry – are not new. Many scientists will recall former president George W Bush’s efforts to curb research into climate science at Nasa. As one of Bush’s advisadvisersgedly put it at the time, “you don‘t have to ban science you don‘t like, you just stop funding it”.
This time around, the situation is much more serious. One reason is the assault on science by the Trump administration is much more focused and co-ordinated. Another is that global warming has continued unabated in the intervening years. Indeed, we have seen an acceleration in the rise of almost every observable, from rising surface temperatures to ice-melt, an acceleration that is directly attributable to the failure to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
This situation can only get worse with Trump in charge of the world‘s largest economy. The only question now is how much damage can be done in four years, and what comes afterwards.
- Dr Cormac O’Raifeartaigh is a senior lecturer in physics at the South East Technological University (Waterford) and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics
