Bob Park’s What’s New: July 11, 2025
No, Bob Park — the physicist who wrote the What’s New newsletter for years — did not write this. Instead, I am imagining what Park would have said were he alive today. The opinions are mine and not necessarily those of Bob Park (but they should be).
What’s New, by Bob Park
Friday, July 11, 2025
1. THE BBB CUTS SUPPORT FOR GREEN ENERGY
As climate change worsens, the world desperately needs to transition to clean energy. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill will end many of the tax credits for solar and wind power enacted in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, while creating a friendlier “environment” (get it?) for oil, gas, and coal. “I don’t want windmills destroying our place,” Trump said last week. “I don’t want these solar things where they go for miles and they cover up a half a mountain that are ugly as hell.” Meanwhile, this week the climate.gov website ceased to exist. The science is clear and the evidence is overwhelming: we face a climate disaster, yet our government calls it a hoax. The whole world will pay a steep price for these decisions.
2. MEASLES, YES! VACCINES, NO!
Data from Johns Hopkins University confirms that measles cases in the United States reached a 33-year high in 2025. Over 90% of the cases were in people who are unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown. Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical associations are suing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. over his recent changes to vaccine policy. When did your child’s pediatrician become the bad guy and a nut-case vaccine conspiracy-theorist become the good guy? Um… that would be January 20, 2025.
3. WHAT ABOUT THE SCIENCE BUDGET?
The federal budget for science was not set by the Big Beautiful Bill. Instead, that will be decided in the coming weeks during the appropriations process. The Senate and House Appropriations Committees will hold hearings about 2026 budget proposals, including funding for science agencies. President Trump wants a 56% cut to the National Science Foundation, a 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health, and similar cuts to other agencies. Such cuts will of course be devastating. The good news: unlike the BBB, the appropriations bill needs 60 votes in the Senate, and Congress has traditionally been favorable to science (especially medical research). The bad news: Congress has so far been reluctant to oppose anything President Trump wants. It’s time for America to decide if it supports the Republican War on Science.
4. ALOHA MAUNA LOA
President Trump announced that he plans to defund Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory. Since 1956, Mauna Loa has been collecting the data on carbon dioxide emissions that underlie the Keeling curve (carbon dioxide concentration versus time), one of the many pieces of evidence indicating climate change. Trump seems to have adopted the “don’t ask/don’t tell” approach: Don’t ask mother nature if greenhouse gasses are going up, and don’t tell the public to worry about global warming. The Hawaiian word “aloha” can mean either hello or goodbye. Tragically, this times it means both: goodbye to Mauna Loa and hello to climate denial.