President Trump and Science

President Trump

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington DC 20500 

Dear President Trump, 

I read today that you are supporting a manned mission to Mars and are willing to commit over a billion dollars to that mission.  I am not writing you to affirm or disparage that choice.  Rather I wanted to point out that such a mission will be made possible by the science of engineering.  Further, the purpose of such a mission will be to investigate the red planet by employing science as a way of analyzing and understanding Mars.  I applaud your implicit support of what science can do, but I am perplexed. 

Science has told us, clearly and without equivocation, that human use of fossil fuels has so altered our atmosphere that it is bringing about global climate change.  The ice caps are melting.  Seas in Europe and Asia are drying up.  Storms are increasing in frequency and intensity.  Temperatures are getting higher, in some places beyond what humans can endure.  It seems strange to me that you will accept the value of science in the context of a manned mission to Mars, but will utterly reject it in the context of global climate change.  This makes no sense. 

Here is partly why.  Seven years ago this summer I was diagnosed with melanoma.  The cancer moved to my liver and a tumor began to grow there.  I am lucky enough to live near the University of Chicago and scientists and the U of C Hospital were engaged in scientific studies to determine the effectiveness of several new approaches to cancer which use the body’s own defenses to fight the chancer.  Science provided a tool which allowed scientists to develop a theory regarding how immunotherapy might work, then test different combinations until they found a drug that worked.  Due in part tot he effectiveness and efficiency of science, I am still alive.  

Your decision to fund the Mars mission indicates that on some level, you understand the value of science as to tool to help us learn things.  The thing is, if you are going to buy into science's usefulness in getting us to Mars, and science is also telling us in plain terms that human burning of fossil fuels is causing global climate change, it makes no sense for you to hide from or try to deny that truth. 

I encourage you to reconsider your position on global climate change and make some smart decisions that will help the United States to take its place on the world stage working to eliminate global climate change rather than standing idly by and watching as it endangers people and communites.

Regards, 

Bill Boerman-Cornell