President Donald Trump has repeatedly proposed large cuts to federal climate and climate-related science programs, targeting agencies like EPA, NOAA, NASA, USGS, USDA, and international climate aid, and basically gutted Biden’s “Green New Deal” while clawing back money diverted to woke science projects that were rapidly dispersed before Trump returned to office.
To add to the woes of climate change grifters, once avid supporters like billionaire Bill Gates no longer believe global warming is an immediate existential crisis.
And many no longer believe the hoaxes asserted by climate “experts”, which is a victory for science over pseudoscience.
Other questionable, woke-oriented research has also been slashed at the NIH.
However, activist researchers will not be deterred and are now begging for funding from the state of California…to the tune of $23 billion.
Scarlet Sands-Bliss, a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley, typically gets up at 6 a.m. to make the drive to rural Lake County, where she’s researching how community members can prepare for extreme heat events. Last Monday evening, after a long day of meetings with tribal representatives and behavioral health workers, she hit the road again, racing down country byways to a pop-up science fair and lobbying event in Sacramento.Along with a couple dozen other students and postdocs from universities across California, she was there to present her work to state lawmakers and urge them to set up a $23 billion scientific research fund, at a time when the federal government is stepping back its support.It’s not the kind of advocacy Sands-Bliss originally envisioned when she embarked on a public health career. “I have some professors at Berkeley who really believe that we’re scientists and it’s not our job to discuss the implications of our work,” she said.
The intention is to place this inanity on the ballot for this November’s election. It looks like the campaign will paint Trump as an anti-science madman; therefore, “experts” should be able to use California tax dollars to fund nonsense research.
Early-career scientists like Sands-Bliss are helping lead the campaign to set up the California Foundation for Science and Health Research, which would dole out grants for projects in health, agriculture, earthquake and wildfire safety and other fields – with priority going to ongoing studies that have seen their funding axed by the federal government. Legislation authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener would place a bond measure to fund the proposed foundation before voters in November.The bill’s supporters say they are responding to the second Trump administration’s disruption of research in California. The administration has canceled or threatened to cancel federal grants for studies not aligned with the president’s priorities — including those that deal with diversity, race and gender disparities, or climate change.
The California Legislative Analyst’s Office projects an $18 billion deficit this year, reflecting a combination of higher‑than‑planned spending and revenue gains that are largely locked up by constitutional formulas rather than available to close the gap. There is no extra $23 billion to give Berkeley’s band of science Marxists, or anyone else in this state…no matter now nobel the cause.
California’s fiscal situation will not improve as corporations and residents flee the state for less grasping local governments elsewhere.
I suspect that when California voters consider their own expenses, what “science did for them in the Covid era and what it is doing to them in terms of energy prices and wildfire threat, they will turn down the opportunity to squander more money on narrative-based research.
If there were any science of value being offered, surely some innovator or entrepreneur would help fund it. These young scientists will learn that, in the post-Covid era, “science” is no longer trusted or automatically respected.
Respect, as well as funding, must be earned.
If the “young scientists” have difficulty securing funding, there are plenty of promising and profitable employment opportunities through trade schools. Alternatively, joining the military and serving the nation while applying science is another option.
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