Marble Falls       Every once in a while, someone do you a favor and brings together a mass of cuts and bruises to really show you where all the fatal wounds are.  Bob Marshall, an erstwhile reporter, sometime columnist, and all around environmentalist based in New Orleans, did that recently in the Times-Picayune by cataloguing many of the Trump administration’s attacks on climate change by looking just at how they affected one state, Louisiana.  This could probably be done for every state in the country now to some degree, even if Louisiana ranks right at the top of this hit list, or bottom if you are thinking about the degree of damage.

First, Marshall catalogued the manifestations of the attack:

• A respected environmental researcher resigns from the sometime prestigious local university, Tulane, saying her work was being inflicted by a “gap order” because of complaints from pols and petrochemical reps.
• Lake Maurepas, a short splash from New Orleans, was found to have severe levels of toxic metals and pollution by researchers at Southeastern University, across Lake Pontchartrain from the city.
• Louisiana – a two-time loser in a row – was named by US News and World Report as the most unlivable US state, largely because we ranked as the second most polluted in the country.

That’s just for starters, as Marshall lists the Trump’s actions that pile onto the state’s increasing danger:

• Trump has issued 145 executive orders retracting or killing regulations protecting Americans.
• Trump’s orders are projected to lead to 200,000 premature deaths in the next 25 years.
• Trump has ordered environmental agencies to remove results of studies from their websites.
• Trump has reduced funding at the National Science Foundation by 57%, the National Institute of Health by 40%, NASA’s science budget by 47%, the Department of Energy’s science money by 14%, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology by 28%.
• Trump sliced away 40% of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration budget which focuses on sea level and hurricanes, triggered by fossil fuel emissions.
• Trump shutdown 100 climate studies that were in progress.

As Marshall points out, none of that short list includes his attack on university funding and decimation of their research and science capacity.  Columbia has folded in shocking fashion.  The University of Pennsylvania just capitulated to save $175 million in grants.  Back to Tulane in New Orleans, as Marshall writes, the university “…has chosen to wave the white flag.  It’s worried funding from petrochemical giants could be jeopardized.  It apparently believes in that old saying, ‘The problem with tainted money is ‘Tain’t enough of it!’”

Needless to say, as bad as this litany of woe is and the coming body count, Marshall reminds his readers, just as it would be the case in many states around the country, similarly abandoned, all this was done with the support of Louisiana’s entire congressional delegation, especially its leaders who include the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader.  These guys have no qualms about the devastation they are administering to the state of Louisiana.  They don’t live here anymore, and likely have few plans to return.