What the Trump administration is doing to science - especially weather, climate and environmental science - is criminal.
Even life-threatening. And stupid. Just plain stupid.
Against the backdrop of Earth's sea ice shrinking dramatically - particularly in the Arctic - as rising emissions of greenhouse gases warm the planet, scientists warn that Trump and his congressional allies are "deliberately obstructing research on global warming."
Already we've reported drastically cut environmental protection budgets; the erasures of publicly available data on everything from regulatory violations, violators, sanctions and even the simple words "climate change" from the website of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
But now The Guardian reports a new and growing row has erupted after a key polar satellite broke down a few days ago, leaving the U.S. with only three aging polar satellites, each operating long past their shelf lives, to measure the Arctic's dwindling ice cap.
Congress, under control of Republicans antagonistic to climate research, earlier this year insisted a backup sea-ice satellite - the one that would have replaced the broken eye in the sky - had to be dismantled because the budget-cutters did not want to provide funds to keep it in storage.
Scientists say there is no chance a new one can now be launched until 2023 or later. By then, none of the current aging satellites will still be in operation.
Seriously. Our taxpayer money built this satellite, and climate deniers in Congress ordered it destroyed. This is beyond penny wise and pound foolish. Beyond short-sighted. It is thievery, homicidal. Did we mention criminal?
We're not the only ones.
"This is like throwing away the medical records of a sick patient," David Gallaher of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo., told The Guardian. "Our world is ailing and we have apparently decided to undermine, quite deliberately, the effectiveness of the records on which its recovery might be based. It is criminal."