The bird you’ve posted–is that a crow? I love crows. I use to teach a lesson on world mythology. Crows featured in many stories as tricksters and helpers. I remember using a science article regarding the intelligence of corvids in conjunction with the lesson. Students loved the cross-curricular connections. Anyway, your bird just reminded me of it. :)
If I understand you correctly it sounds like you are criticizing DEI, ESG, ect, but then you talk about CBD and who contributes to GBIF, so I’m not really sure what you are saying?
Sorry if I’m missing something, it just looks to me like you are touching on several different topics without making a clear point that I can see
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This just occurred to me–will we see state and national parks reduce services as a result to cuts in funding? Is there any info. out there? I use parks mostly for observations rather than private land. I would hate for hours or staffing to be reduced. It would, I think, have an impact on observers here. If off-topic–feel free to delete. It just suddenly occurred to me, and I didn’t want to start a similar thread.
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I think effects of government budget on the park service would be a legitimate topic for a standalone thread
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That happened before. It was incredibly terrible, especially because there was no recourse to what damages the “tourists” were doing
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I guess, but I don’t know if there is info, and I don’t want to overload the moderators. I think it’s an important discussion (I’m worried), but would it be valuable here? Perhaps, a moderator could let me know.
Park Service employees are among the targeted federal workers.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/03/trump-hiring-freeze-national-park-service-00202098
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To clarify this is saying the park service is affected by the across-the-board attempts to cut federal staffing, rather than being targeted specifically
Still going to have a bad impact, but I don’t see this as evidence of the censorship plot some users are discussing
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This seems accurate to me. My impression is that conservative politicians are more likely to perceive DEI, climate change, and the Covid response as fundamental ideological attacks (E.g. I think a lot of conservatives I know care more about climate change being used as a “Trojan horse for socialism” than about climate change directly, regardless of how justified that belief is). They might see biodiversity information as a hassle when dealing with environmental regulations impeding development but I don’t think that calls for as much effort from their perspective.
Given that, I think they’re less likely to target biodiversity science directly. Many people with conservative inclinations still enjoy fishing, hunting, hiking, and other activities that involve natural, biodiverse spaces. However conservation work, ecology, taxonomy etc. may well take losses from general cuts on scientific funding as a result of the fact that the current administration apparently a) believes there’s a lot of financial mismanagement happening and b) likely doesn’t see a lot of value in that kind of work relative to other uses of funding. It’s a pity that the days when the bipartisan environmental laws around water, pollution, hunting etc. were possible have gone.
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I agree with this a lot, I think much of what people interpret as anti-science is really opposition to the govt trying to exert more control over peoples lives or influence on society, people see the scientists in government promoting regulations,I really don’t think the pure science of covid or climate would be so controversial without the regulatory aspect
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Thank you. Seems as if the impact will be significant, perhaps severe. I appreciate the article.
And in response, one of their favorite tactics is to curtail access to pertinent information. Censorship, book bans, defunding libraries and misinformation are their go-to tools. If they think golf course development or oil drilling are being hindered by biodiversity concerns, they’ll hobble public access to sources of accurate information.
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The US is presently going through a backlash against progressive policies which, arguably, may have over-reached in the eyes of the average American. A lot of the vitriol is overblown and driven by social media and misinformation campaigns. I think the current extreme actions by the federal govt will ultimately fail and the pendulum will swing back towards more moderate policies. But it will be a mess for some time.
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I sincerely hope so. I do think some damage may prove irreparable. For example, the pandemic had a major impact on education–we still don’t have the full understanding of its effect on students, education, and educators. Perhaps, some of the pandemic losses will be made up, and some may not prove as important as thought. I do worry that potential changes in education will have impacts that are not easily correctible, and that these impacts will be on a generation of students who were already affected by the pandemic.
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[Edit: was asked to remove necessary context]
I mentioned earlier the Florida ban on government officials mentioning climate change. The point [of what I was trying to say before] is that the federal government is not the only level of government that we might need to be worried about. State and local governments also have jurisdiction over certain datasets and repositories, and can also decide to purge data that does not fit into their policies. Think about public universities, for example, or state departments of natural resources.
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Yes, that is a crow, I found that crow before and I heard a “caw caw” sound and I looked and then it was there. I loved that crow. It was so cute. Crows are my favorite corvid.
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That statement would be political and not relevant to the original question of needing to be concerned. Supporting someone now or in the past does not mean you can not be critical or concerned. In fact one should be just as critical with those they support as those they oppose.
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Joshua trees
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Unfortunately yes, there is a lot of potential .gov data that could get purged, just because the people doing the data purges have no idea what they are looking at, and the political backing to do just whatever they want. If they decide for some reason that the USDA plants database is ++plus bad because it lists wetland status, then boom it’s gone!
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This is one of my top concerns. They know that storing data and collecting data take money, but they don’t necessarily have the understanding of why those data are important.
Talking with people about how my sister studies grasses, most of them just burst out laughing. It sounds ridiculous - grasses? Who cares? What a waste of money! It’s not like she studies cancer, or how to build a better bomb! But like 70% of crops are grasses, and they’re frequently invasive, so they are very, very important. I just don’t trust people to understand that.
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