It's hard to believe that there are still people who doubt the existence of climate change. After all, when even an oil giant like ExxonMobil is willing to say, "Yeah, this thing's real," it boggles the mind that anyone could be on the other side of this issue. And yet, not only do those people exist, one of them happens to be in the White House! And so now, as the world's future hangs in the balance, Donald Trump's administration has decided that the best way forward is the continued erosion of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The latest casualty for the agency? According to The New York Times, at least five academic scientists who have been fired from a scientific review board. Because nothing says finding solutions to scientific problems like firing scientists for believing in science.

“This is completely part of a multifaceted effort to get science out of the way of a deregulation agenda,” said Ken Kimmell, the president of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “What seems to be premature removals of members of this Board of Science Counselors when the board has come out in favor of the E.P.A. strengthening its climate science, plus the severe cuts to research and development — you have to see all these things as interconnected.” The scientists dismissed from the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors received emails from an agency official informing them that their three-year terms had expired and would not be renewed. That was contrary, the scientists said, to what they had been told by officials at the agency in January, just before Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

It sure sounds like Donald Trump and company are hell-bent on making the EPA the most ironically named agency in Washington. Because not only were these scientists dismissed from a scientific review board, but their potential replacements? Oh boy. Buckle up.

A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

Great. Who better to decide how to save the planet than the very people who are choosing to pollute it in the name of exorbitant profits?

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