US President Donald Trump is not considered a friend of education and science. A number of job cancellations and budget cuts were set for US research, and Trump also returned from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement. “The effects are not limited to the USA, because knowledge and science are globally networked,” emphasizes Sven Grimm from the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) in Bonn.
Reasures, for example, in the US health authorities NIH and CDC, increased the global risks for the spread of infectious diseases, said Grimm. “Especially in southern Africa, but also far beyond, this should have serious consequences for individual health and health systems – and for the development opportunities of companies.”
“Health of people locally and globally endangered”
With the measures taken and announced, the task of science is undermined to provide reliable, independent knowledge for society, said Katrin Böhning-Gaese from the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig. “For example, if the toxicity of chemicals is no longer known, people’s health is endangered locally and globally.”
Ulf Dittmer, director of the Institute of Virology at the University Hospital Essen, mentions the bird flippation virus H5N1 in the USA, which is circulating there for cattle, among other things. In the first cases in Texas, the Republican government there had massively influenced the investigations, for example by preventing analyzes of milk samples, explained the virologist. Only since the virus in California had arrived in California, a state ruled by the Democrats, has science has important virus sequences.
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To silence and cover up authorities
What happened in Texas can now also be seen by the CDC health authority, which was previously very transparent. “Now, for example, the observed H5N1 infection circles between domestic cats and humans are silent,” said Dittmer. Information on this was actively removed from the CDC website due to a government decree. “We’re that far.”
Climate behavior of the United States influences all people
It is still uncertain to what extent newly flare -up diseases such as measles will affect global health. The USA in the climate area has definitely followed for every single person worldwide. “The initial estimates assume that Trump is more out of greenery in 2030 in 2030-i.e. CO₂ equivalents-more than that would have been the case under bidges,” said Julia Pongratz from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich (LMU).
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Billions in greenhouse gases -CO₂ equivalents-more should be expelled in 2030 by Trump, according to the first estimates, than would have been the case under bidges. In 2023 the United States emitted 5 billion tons on greenhouse gases.
“Four billion tons are about as much as the EU and Japan are currently emitting together in one year.”
“Extremely dangerous”: poorer prediction of extreme weather
There were also serious consequences for predictions and warnings of extreme weather events, added Niklas Höhne, head of the New Climate Institute. “Because of the cuts, some climate data can no longer be collected, which leads to fewer accurate predictions of extreme weather events. This is extremely dangerous at a time when the USA in particular struggles with hurricose, tornados and storm surges.”
The researcher Böhning-Gaese emphasized that the deletion and change of scientific data records are very general. “The further implementation of the measures would be a relapse to the Middle Ages, since the knowledge of clever, good decisions, as has been propagated and developed since the clarification, is massively eroded,” she said. “Researchers from all over the world are currently trying to save the data, take the US authorities off the network.” But there is extremely complex.
International exchange severely restricted
Projects that do not fit into the Ideology of the American government are shortened or completely deleted in the USA. According to experts, it is very limited by experts, for US researchers, the possibilities of traveling to congresses or exchanging with colleagues outside the USA by zoom or email alone.
“Ultimately, this comes up with a censorship because it means that researchers from” selected “disciplines from the Trump administration can no longer represent themselves and their work equally,” said Munich doctor Sebastian Noe, board member of the German AIDS company.
An opportunity for researchers from all over the world?
Lisa Schipper, professor of development geography at the University of Bonn, sees developments in the USA as devastating – but also as an opportunity. So far, the US science has dominated global research, for example, climate research has tended to be most frequently cited by US researchers. “A bright spot could be that other voices from all over the world get more attention,” said Schipper. “Especially from developing countries in which extensive knowledge of the effects of climate change, adaptation and vulnerability is present, but this has so far been drowned out by the voices from the USA and other countries of the global north.”