President Trump’s new budget isn’t a surprise. Trump tried to cut funding for the Special Olympics in his latest budget fantasy, but he got caught. But his quest to cut funding by 13 percent for the National Science Foundation, and his 12 percent National Institutes of Health funding cut are still on the table. Plus, an Energy Department program that supports new technologies is also on the budget chopping block.
That means the National Institutes of Health funding would drop by $4.5 billion, and funding for the National Cancer Institute would drop by $900 million. Plus, funding for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would decrease by $750 million. The National Science Foundation’s budget would take a $1 billion in 2020.
NASA also faces a 2.3 percent budget cut, but the current $21 billion NASA budget should be enough to put men on the Moon again by 2028, according to NASA officials.
Mr. Trump’s budget cuts hurt the scientific community, but his complete disregard for climate change is the major issue. The world was in climate change hell in 2018. Floods, hurricanes, tornados, cyclones and the disappearance of endangered life forms have never been this acute.
The bad news is 2019 will beat 2018 in terms of storm strength and flood frequency in all parts of the world. Climate change scientists say the climate will continue to disrupt human activities and change sea levels. In other words, the worst is yet to come.
The recent news that a massive iceberg is in the process of breaking off from the Brunt Ice Shelf in Antarctica is proof that low-lying coastal areas around the world are in jeopardy of disappearing sooner than later. Scientist predicted severe flooding in U.S coastal areas by 2050, but that prediction is old news. Parts of Florida, Louisiana, and California could be completely underwater by 2030.
The iceberg on the Brunt Ice Shelf will break off from the continent and fall into the Weddell Sea, but the exact date of that event is still a mystery. Two gigantic crevasses in the iceberg are on the verge of intersecting, and that will cause the more than 580 square-mile iceberg to calve off the continent.
The iceberg’s movement isn’t new. Scientists started watching the iceberg’s movement in 1915. But the first crack in the iceberg didn’t move for 35 years. Then, in 2013, the iceberg cracks started to move apart at a rate of one to two miles a year.
