Bob Park’s What’s New: July 25, 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 25, 2025
1. THE EPA PLANS TO CLAIM GREENHOUSE GASSES ARE NO PROBLEM
A New York Times report indicates that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to reverse its 2009 “endangerment finding” that says greenhouse gasses produced by fossil fuels cause climate change and endanger human health. There’s just one problem: the scientific evidence indicates that greenhouse gasses produced by fossil fuels do cause climate change and endanger human health. The Catholic Church once claimed that the earth sits at the center of the universe and the sun revolves around it, despite Galileo’s scientific evidence to the contrary. Guess who was right on that one? When organizations (religious or political) assert that they are right and science is wrong, they eventually end up looking silly and stupid. That’s what’ll happen to Trump’s EPA. It would be funny except climate change is an existential threat, and we will all suffer for this decision. Let’s hope the EPA changes its plans (but I doubt it).
2. THE UN SAYS COUNTRIES MUST FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE
While the United States continues down its know-nothing anti-science path, the rest of the world is not following us (thank goodness!). This week, the United Nation’s International Court of Justice said that countries could be in violation of international law if they don’t take measures to address climate change. The court President Yuji Iwasawa said that the climate crisis is “an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.” Will this change President Trump’s policies on climate change? Probably not. But it does indicate that science is alive and well in the rest of the world, even if it’s dying in the United States.
3. THE EPA IS GETTING OUT OF THE SCIENCE BUSINESS
Speaking of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Trump administration is planning to close the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and lay off hundreds of its scientists. Science magazine’s website quotes environmental engineer Jana Milford as saying “I’m really worried that this will be a setback that has reverberations for a long, long time.” Robert Kavlock, a retired EPA scientist, said “It’s just an incredible loss of expertise. It’s frustrating, and it’s maddening.” Kavlock’s right, it’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
4. RFK JR REMOVES THIMEROSAL FROM VACCINES
This week Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced that thimerosal, a preservative than contains mercury, would be removed from all vaccines in the United States. He’s making this change despite overwhelming evidence that thimerosal is safe (see the Friday, June 27 issue of What’s New for details). Here is what Kennedy said: “Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades.” Apparently RFK Jr thinks that scientists are dishonest, spiteful, lazy, and incompetent. That doesn’t sound like any scientist I know, and I’ve known hundreds of them. The explanation for RFK Jr’s decision really is misinformation and antiscience attitudes.
5. COKE IS PRESSURED INTO CHANGING ITS SUGAR
After pressure from president Trump, Coke announced that it will start using cane sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup in its soft drinks. What’s the difference? Not much. It’s just more anti-science nonsense at work. Here is what Katelyn Jetelina said in her weekly newsletter Your Local Epidemiologist: “What’s really at play here is the appeal to nature fallacy that we, humans, love to gravitate towards — the idea that something “natural” (like cane sugar) must be healthier than something “processed” (like HFCS). But both are sugar. Both are processed. And both, in excess, increase the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes.” Natural does not mean better. This decision won’t make us healthier. Coke’s change is not a big deal compared to the topics discussed earlier, but it’s shows of how evidence doesn’t matter to people in the Trump administration. It’s one more example of the Republican War on Science.