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Transcript:
Last week I talked about a new study that showed that conservative Americans now distrust science so much that they even hate the fields of study that support their worldview. Today, I want to drill down on one of those fields: ecology and conservation.
I know that many people might be surprised to hear that, at first. I grew up with Captain Planet, where a diverse team of teenagers have special rings that give them the power to save the environment. Today, that seems super liberal, right? I mean, this one kid’s power is “heart,” for fuck’s sake.
But I also grew up in a very rural area where farmland was vast and hunting and fishing were such popular pastimes that sometimes classes would be canceled because deer season opened up on a weekday. And so by necessity, the conservative population of poor white people kind of had to care about the environment. If people poached out of season, there would be fewer trophies for everyone. If a company dumped pollutants in the water, we couldn’t safely eat the catfish and blue crabs we caught in the creek.
And so back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, “conservation” wasn’t considered oppositional to “conservatism.” But Big Oil and other large industry lobbies were already hard at work to convince these hunters, fishers, and farmers to vote against their interests, by spreading the lie that anthropogenic climate change was a myth, and that it’s actually authoritarianism for the government to protect our land, air, and waterways from multi-million dollar corporations.
So, here we are in 2025. Republicans control every branch of the US government to an extent beyond anything we have ever seen in the history of this nation, considering the additional powers the Supreme Court and Congress have handed over to Trump’s executive branch. And in the next few weeks, the agency protecting our air and water is likely to be effectively destroyed, with far reaching negative effects.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, has existed in some form or another since 1807, when Thomas Jefferson established the Survey of the Coast as the country’s first scientific agency. Several agencies were combined under the official NOAA title in 1970 for “better protection of life and property from natural hazards… for a better understanding of the total environment… [and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources,” as proposed by Richard Nixon. Because again, back then this was an obvious bipartisan issue that clearly benefited everyone.
Today, NOAA is one of the most prominent and important bastions of Earth sciences research in the world. I can’t even list everything they do, but it includes observing and gathering data on our coasts, the oceans, the climate, and the weather, and providing it to scientists for research as well as warning the general public of potential dangers like hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and algae blooms. They help protect endangered species, and monitor our fisheries to be sure populations remain healthy and safe to eat. Just to name a few things. If you’d like to know what they’ve done to improve your neighborhood lately, they have an interactive map that allows you to see some of their projects. For instance, near me there’s a wonderful spot for fishing that was devastated by invasive algae, so NOAA came in and cleaned it up and educated people to let them know how to safely dispose of their bait to keep it from coming back.
If you’re interested, check that map out now because it probably won’t be there for long. Project 2025 called for the organization to be destroyed, and so Trump has dutifully complied with his Religious Right masters. In the past few months, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has fired 1,300 people, which is about 10% of NOAA’s total workforce. Many of those people were rehired and then fired again. Because of efficiency.
A few weeks ago, insiders managed to leak Trump’s plans to go on to completely wipe out every scientific endeavor underway at the organization by eliminating the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research office. NOAA will be completely dismantled and “It would take the U.S. back to the 1950s in technical and scientific skill,” as put by Craig McLean, chief scientist at NOAA.
One anonymous NOAA veteran who took an early retirement told the Guardian, “We can look at other countries that are actively making these mistakes, where they have air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable,” they said. “I think it’s done. I think this is done. The enemies are in the gate. I don’t see any indication so far of anyone stopping it. They’re just letting it burn. I honestly don’t understand how US science will recover.”
Another NOAA veteran said that he resigned because the organization defied a collective bargaining agreement by forcing him to move from Montana to Seattle with one week of notice. As I noted last year, unionizing was the last desperate attempt scientists had to protect themselves from a second Trump administration, and they’ve just decided to violate that bargaining. Because not only are they anti-science fascists, but Congress and the courts are either moving too slowly or not doing anything at all to stop them from shitting all over every protection we have.
The Guardian also notes that Bryton Shang, one of the DOGE children who flew to California to try to open up a water pump during the LA wildfires, has been made a senior adviser to the NOAA administrator. So yeah that’s cool.
I’ve referenced the destruction of NOAA in other videos as “Trump is taking away your ability to know what the weather’s going to be like tomorrow” but it truly is so much more than that. Like, do you like salmon? I mean, eating them, sure, but even just knowing that this critical part of our ecosystem remains in place? Well, NOAA is the primary organization that gives Native American tribes the money they need to fix the overfishing that white people did for the past century, and without that money the Pacific salmon is FUCKED.
Do you like having access to goods made overseas? Well it’s not just the tariffs making them more expensive: as Pro Publica notes, NOAA’s climate and weather data is what keeps ships from sinking.
Do you like local produce? NOAA’s climate and weather data allows farmers to set their planting schedules for the best chance of a successful harvest.
Hey conservatives! Do you like fucking WAR? NOAA’s data is used to plan strikes and keep Navy ships from sinking.
These cuts are going to be devastating, and it looks like it’s going to happen this month. I usually like to end these videos with a little tip on what you can do to try to make things better, and I do still think it’s worthwhile calling your Congress critters. And I also usually suggest going out and building community, so with that in mind, I’ll share a thing that I’m doing: setting up a weather station! I know, I know, it’s not going to save the Pacific salmon. But it is kind of cool that there’s a network of weather nerds out there continuing to gather data like temperature, sunlight, precipitation amounts, and air quality and making that data freely available. A lot of you have said that you’re too introverted to go out and build connections with your neighbors, so maybe this is a good option! You get to learn some technical skills, crunch as much data as you want, AND help your neighbors, and you don’t even need to leave your front yard! It’s something.
