“Science is science and facts are facts. My administration will ensure that there will be total transparency and accountability without political bias. The American people deserve this and I will make sure this is the culture of my administration.”
– Donald Trump, quoted in “What Do the Presidential Candidates Know about Science?” Scientific American, September 13, 2016.
In the “Presidential Science Debate 2016,” a science literacy project with media partner Scientific American, candidate Donald Trump gave answers that continue to elucidate his views on energy and the environment. (Answers were also provided by Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson did not choose to participate in the questionnaire.)
Trump’s energy/climate policy views have been previously chronicled here:
Trump’s energy views, below, are not quite free-market or libertarian with a seeming role for nuclear power despite its non-competitiveness and a possible continuation of renewable-energy subsidies. Energy independence/security is overemphasized, although allowing the US to achieve its full oil, gas, and coal potential is certainly a positive goal. But there is a lot of upside for free-market energy and noninterventionist climate policy under a Trump Administration.
The Alarmist Left is going Malthusian over the Republican nominee. An article by the Center for American Progress reported: “‘If Donald Trump is elected, he would be the first climate-denying head of state in the world,’ the Sierra Club’s executive director Michael Brune said on a Wednesday press call.” States the League of Conservation Voters: “A Donald Trump presidency would be an environmental disaster.”
Judge for yourself. Here is some of the latest from the Trump camp.
Q. The Earth’s climate is changing and political discussion has become divided over both the science and the best response. What are your views on climate change, and how would your administration act on those views?
A. There is still much that needs to be investigated in the field of “climate change.” Perhaps the best use of our limited financial resources should be in dealing with making sure that every person in the world has clean water.
Perhaps we should focus on eliminating lingering diseases around the world like malaria. Perhaps we should focus on efforts to increase food production to keep pace with an ever-growing world population. Perhaps we should be focused on developing energy sources and power production that alleviates the need for dependence on fossil fuels. We must decide on how best to proceed so that we can make lives better, safer and more prosperous.
Q. Strategic management of the US energy portfolio can have powerful economic, environmental, and foreign policy impacts. How do you see the energy landscape evolving over the next 4 to 8 years, and, as President, what will your energy strategy be?
A. It should be the goal of the American people and their government to achieve energy independence as soon as possible. Energy independence means exploring and developing every possible energy source including wind, solar, nuclear and bio-fuels.
A thriving market system will allow consumers to determine the best sources of energy for future consumption. Further, with the United States, Canada and Mexico as the key energy producers in the world, we will live in a safer, more productive and more prosperous world.
Q. Nuclear power can meet electricity demand without producing greenhouse gases, but it raises national security and environmental concerns. What is your plan for the use, expansion, or phasing out of nuclear power, and what steps will you take to monitor, manage and secure nuclear materials over their life cycle?
A. Nuclear power is a valuable source of energy and should be part of an all-the-above program for providing power for America long into the future. We can make nuclear power safer, and its outputs are extraordinary given the investment we should make. Nuclear power must be an integral part of energy independence for America.
Q. We now live in a global economy with a large and growing human population. These factors create economic, public health, and environmental challenges that do not respect national borders. How would your administration balance national interests with global cooperation when tackling threats made clear by science, such as pandemic diseases and climate change, that cross national borders?
A. Our best input to helping with global issues is to make sure that the United States is on the proper trajectory economically. For the past decade we have seen Gross Domestic Product growth that has not provided adequate resources to fix our infrastructure, recapitalize our military, invest in our education system or secure energy independence.
We cannot take our place as world leader if we are not healthy enough to take care of ourselves. This means we must make sure that we achieve our goals in tax reform, trade reform, immigration reform and energy independence. A prosperous America is a much better partner in tackling global problems that affect this nation achieving its national objectives.
Q. Science is essential to many of the laws and policies that keep Americans safe and secure. How would science inform your administration’s decisions to add, modify, or remove federal regulations, and how would you encourage a thriving business sector while protecting Americans vulnerable to public health and environmental threats?
A. This is about balance. We must balance a thriving economy with conserving our resources and protecting our citizens from threats. Science will inform our decisions on what regulations to keep, rescind or add. A vibrant, robust free market system will regulate the private sector.
Q. Evidence from science is the surest basis for fair and just public policy, but that is predicated on the integrity of that evidence and of the scientific process used to produce it, which must be both transparent and free from political bias and pressure. How will you foster a culture of scientific transparency and accountability in government, while protecting scientists and federal agencies from political interference in their work?
A. Science is science and facts are facts. My administration will ensure that there will be total transparency and accountability without political bias. The American people deserve this and I will make sure this is the culture of my administration.
Robert:
Pleas clarify where the questions in red came from.
Thanks
Mark
“Presidential Science Debate 2016” is best described as a science literacy project with media partner Scientific American. So it is ‘consensus science’ oriented with AAAS and other groups behind it.
Thanks Rob. That’s arguably a slight improvement over NAS:
https://www.nap.edu/read/21712/chapter/1#ii
Next time maybe Trump will consider a line or two from Eisenhower’s the Military-Industrial Complex Speech. Here’s a few to contemplate:
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.
Robert, I have been digging into turbine fire issues especially the unreported ones. I came across this regarding 80,000 hectares of a national park burned due to turbine (s) failure.
http://www.plasticstoday.com/injection-molding/are-thermoset-bearings-an…
Each year there are approximately 117 wind turbine fires, a major cause of wind farm failure, according to several reports from 2014. One of the major causes, outside of lightning, is overheated bearings and gearboxes. According to an article in Engineering Design Insider ( EDI), “wind turbines often catch fire and burn much more frequently than is reported.”
The publication cites a study from the UK and Sweden, and researchers at Imperial College London, Edinburgh University and SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, who report that “while an average of 11.7 turbine fires are reported annually, more than 117 fires actually occur worldwide. At present, there are an estimated 200,000 turbines in operation around the world.”
The report notes that a wind turbine fire can be more significant than other types of energy fires such as gas or oil, and gives the example of an Australian wind farm containing 112 turbines. “When one of them caught fire during a heat wave, the entire farm was shut down, cutting power to 63,000 homes,” said the report. “In addition, burning debris from the turbine ignited ground fires that destroyed 80,000 hectares of a national park. The cause of the fire was found to be electrical failure in the nacelle. Lightning strikes are the most common cause of wind turbine fires.”
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This is what I suspect was the actual fire based on 80k hectares and location.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/feb/05/weatern-australia-fire-quadruples-to-80000-hectares-as-abbott-offers-aid
I have no doubt that there have been others in the Western US , Canada and elsewhere where the cause was intentionally omitted for political and other reasons. This is the first time I have (finally) found information regarding a large scale fire caused by wind turbines.