UPDATE: Trump Officially Picks Climate Change-Denying Non-Scientist as Top USDA Scientist

UPDATE TO OUR MAY 19, 2017 STORY BELOW:

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Sam Clovis, a climate change-denying conservative talk show host with no background in food or agriculture is expected to be named the USDA chief scientist.  Did we mention he's not a scientist?

The USDA’s research section studies everything from climate change to nutrition. Under the 2008 Farm Bill, its leader is supposed to serve as the agency’s “chief scientist” and be chosen “from among distinguished scientists with specialized or significant experience in agricultural research, education, and economics.”

Clovis has never taken a graduate course in science and is openly skeptical of climate change....better known for hosting a conservative talk radio show in his native Iowa and, after mounting an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2014, becoming a fiery pro-Trump advocate on television.

You are not alone in being baffled by this.  We will face longterm consequences from the overwhelming amount of unqualified individuals in positions of power. 

Catherine Woteki, who served as undersecretary for research, education and economics in the Obama administration, compared the move to appointing someone without a medical background to lead the National Institutes of Health.  “This position is the chief scientist of the Department of Agriculture. It should be a person who evaluates the scientific body of evidence and moves appropriately from there,” she said in an interview.

Ricardo Salvador, director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists also expressed concern about Clovis’ appointment, saying in a statement that the USDA’s chief scientists should be a scientist, not a political ally.  “If the president goes forward with this nomination, it’ll be yet another example of blatant dismissal of the value of scientific expertise among his administration appointees,” Salvador said. “Continuing to choose politics over science will give farmers and consumers little confidence that the administration has their interests at heart.”

Clovis's climinate change denial is well known from his numerous appearances as a Trump adovcate on cable news networks.

Clovis has repeatedly expressed skepticism over climate science and has called efforts to address climate change “simply a mechanism for transferring wealth from one group of people to another.” He has indicated the Trump administration will take a starkly different approach at the USDA.... Trump’s agriculture policy would focus on boosting trade and lessening regulation and not the impact of climate change. “I think our position is very clearly [that] Mr. Trump is a skeptic on climate change, and we need more science,” he said. “Once we get more science, we are going to make decisions.”

The attack on science, logic, and reasoning continues with another unqualified person in charge.

Source: https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-expected-pick-for-top-usda-scientist-is-not-a-scientist

Photo Credit: Associated Press