Welcome to 2025, where STEM no longer stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, those are now useless and don’t need to be funded. Our new education mantra for the future? Conspiracy, Hysteria, Idiocy, Religion and Partisanship, from here on known as CHIRP, sure to build a glorious future for all Americans. Let’s look at the data thus far (it’s only August so I’m sure there is more to come).
Start with vaccines. You know, those things that have saved millions of lives that we no longer want to mandate in public schools, support with nationwide education programs or any other visible signs of support. The new norm, let’s encourage measles outbreaks, we currently have the worst one in the last 30 years with more than 1300 cases and 2 deaths in 39 states, all starting in West Texas, that beacon of scientific enlightenment. The cause? Unvaccinated people, driven by fear mongering about autism (despite a lack of any real proof on this) or religious objections (you know that well documented book in the New Testament that Jesus labeled non-vaccinus to highlight his fundamental Christian opposition to the concept). What vaccines weren’t in use at the time of Christ? Don’t bother me with facts, clearly Jesus was against them since so many “Christian” parents and their religions have such well thought out objections. And we all know “Christians” only espouse the word of Christ right? To ensure we adhere only to the finest standards of scientific evaluation we installed that well known expert Robert F. Kennedy, Jr in charge of HHS, he of “brain worm” and swimming in sewage outfall fame. I felt inspired by his Alfred E. Neumanesque oratory proclaiming- “Uh, I wouldn’t take scientific advice from me”, a statement that only builds confidence in the person completely dismantling the scientific and research arms of the CDC, NIH and other key health organizations in America. Drink raw milk!
Onward to Lee Zeldin, an even more tragic figure, who unlike RFK, Jr, should and probably does actually know better but nonetheless is so determined to maintain his lips grip on Trump’s ass that he decided to declare greenhouse gases have no ill effects on human health, thereby absolving the EPA of the need to regulate them. This while the lead or co-lead story every night on the nightly news (yes I’m old and actually watch it), is the latest spate of once in a thousand year weather (now a weekly feature as the years have gotten significantly shorter), washing, blowing, burning or whatever through some section of America with catastrophic floods, winds, wildfires and mudslides. The cause? Climate Change aggravated by man’s obsession with fossil fuels supercharging the atmosphere with CO2, methane and water vapor, leading to massive heat domes, tornados in places they never used to form, rains measured in inches per hour constantly and all the other clearly identified side effects of climate change. The scientific community (and the rest of the world) has accepted that greenhouse gases are disrupting weather everywhere, posing ever increasing threats to human life (just look at the Hill Country Floods in Texas or the hurricane disaster in North Carolina last year). No worry. Just to help out we’re disabling FEMA, or maybe we’re remaking it into a Republican state disaster assistance agency only, as it is starting to look like more of the latter. Climate Change is the biggest existential threat to human existence since the Ice Age, but we’re going to disclaim the science. We’re also going to completely undo our renewable energy policy because we need to burn coal! Good, clean coal, with the highest levels of greenhouse gases imaginable and the added benefit of toxic coal ash to store in ponds so it can filter down into our groundwater supply. Who wants clean, cheap solar power when we can raise the price of electricity by burning coal or natural gas to generate electricity? What did you say? Solar and wind power have been the greatest contributors to new power generation in the last five years? Why, because they are now cheaper to build and run than fossil fuels, installations being led by those liberal bastions of Texas, Iowa, Florida and North Carolina! Surely not. Oh by the way, Florida and California are basically becoming uninsurable due to relentless climate change impacts, here’s guessing Texas, Louisiana and some western states will follow suit shortly, maybe after this hurricane season.
On a similar note, the administration continues to propose eliminating or defunding NOAA and the posting of Agriculture Department forecasts (who needs weather forecasts anyways, certainly not farmers), NASA’s weather satellites, EV/Battery technologies (ceding dominance in a key industry for the future to China), while expediting installation of huge data centers to strain the electric grid, consume scarce water resources and heat up the environment so we can continue to generate AI chatbots that spew out hateful rhetoric (large language models) or ever so helpful assistance in call centers (call United HealthCare sometime). The driver, Tech Companies that donate huge sums of money to political causes and Cryptocurrency that ultra safe financial instrument deigned to take over the world. Yeah technology!
The complete disassembly of the renewable energy business will put America so far behind in the global energy race it’s not even funny. We’re making genius type moves; investing in critical rare earth materials while destroying the industries that drive their demand; shipping all our LNG overseas only to drive up U.S. prices for residential gas, opening every protected wildlife or scenic area under federal jurisdiction for drilling while the oil rig count drops weekly in the Permian basin and my favorite, insist we abandon EV’s in favor of gas guzzlers. Then stand around and ask why no one in Europe, Japan or China wants to buy American cars. Brilliant!
In other scientific news, a few predictions going forward based on the current trend of ideologically driven information obscuration transformation (hereby abbreviated as IDIOT). I offer these suggestions to our incredibly well read and technologically astute leadership. Black should now be determined to be the absence of whiteness. This hits on several levels, offering a contradiction in terms along with providing a racial dog whistle. Also, down is the new up. Up is just, well too uplifting and who are we kidding, we want to be miserable in America right? Right is the new left, after all, what is the opposite of right? Wrong of course! Finally, the obvious motto for the Trump regime- living in the past. Who wants a future, when we can dwell in a comfortable, hateful, oppressive past that had one overall defining quality? White privilege. Don’t you miss it? Don’t worry, we’re headed back there as quickly as possible, lead by suppressing votes from all non white districts, erasing all non white history within the control of the government and reinstalling those beacons of freedom, confederate statues. Other more subtle moves, like exploitation of tribal burial or religious grounds for mineral/energy development or continuing to pretend like Puerto Rico doesn’t exist are just cherries on top. MAGA! Oh wait, maybe that is MAWA. Make America White Again. No sorry, got distracted from the science thing. MASA. Make America Stupid Again. There we go. We can’t handle the truth so let’s change it!