sachs328_ALEX EDELMANAFP via Getty Images_trump covid-19

Las mentiras que infectaron a Trump

Oct 5, 2020 Jeffrey D. Sachs

NUEVA YORK – A diferencia de decenas de millones de personas en todo el mundo que han contraído COVID-19 como consecuencia de la pobreza, de la mala suerte, de la vulnerabilidad como trabajadores esenciales o de malas decisiones de los responsables de las políticas, la infección del presidente norteamericano, Donald Trump, es por iniciativa propia. El desdén de Trump por la ciencia y su menosprecio descarado por los consejos de salud pública condujeron directamente a su propia enfermedad; mucho peor, han alimentado la creciente tasa de mortalidad por COVID-19 en Estados Unidos –ahora, más de 214.000 personas.

Desde que comenzó la pandemia, los expertos en salud pública de todo el mundo han rogado a la población que utilice máscaras faciales, evite las grandes aglomeraciones y mantenga distancia física de los demás, para frenar la transmisión del virus. Trump, un hombre de temperamento patológico, rechazó todos esos consejos. Apenas dos días antes de anunciar que él y la primera dama habían dado positivo, Trump se burlaba de Joe Biden por usar una mascarilla. “Yo no uso una máscara como él”, dijo Trump en el primer debate presidencial. “Cada vez que lo vemos, lleva puesta una máscara. Podría estar hablando a 60 metros… y aparece con la máscara más grande que yo haya visto”.

Trump rechazó las peticiones de los expertos en salud pública y de las autoridades locales y ha venido realizando grandes mítines tanto puertas adentro como al aire libre en los últimos meses, en los que asistentes sin mascarillas aparecían parados muy cerca unos de otros. Y Trump desdeñó las precauciones básicas en la Casa Blanca, incluido el distanciamiento físico del personal y la obligación de un uso de mascarillas faciales en las reuniones.

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Jeffrey D. Sachs

Writing for PS since 1995
328 Commentaries

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University, is Director of Columbia’s Center for Sustainable Development and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He has served as Special Adviser to three UN Secretaries-General. His books include The End of Poverty, Common Wealth, The Age of Sustainable Development, Building the New American Economy, and most recently, A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism.

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Leo Arouet Oct 9, 2020

I think America and the world have had enough of Trump. A character who does not pay taxes and who in 2016 paid $ 750 in taxes, owning large properties and golf courses. We hope that Biden gives him what he deserves in this election.
- P. Kamath Oct 10, 2020
  
  Trump says that he has paid taxes in millions. Tens of millions of Americans believe him. $ 750 is a rounding off fraction somebody for got to pay . That’s all!
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Robert Wolff Oct 7, 2020

https://blog.jim.com/global-warming/science-is-the-belief-in-the-ignorance-of-experts/

Clearly the [Creationists] far right have twisted Richard Feynman’s statement to its opposite meaning. The true meaning of his statement was that Donald Trump is the very type of person Feynman was referring to as a “Expert”, i.e. the type of person that scientists call ignorant (not a scientist).

Maybe we scientists should refrain from calling ourselves “Experts”, in order to obviate the propaganda of Creationists.

Clear to me than anti-warmers and others who dismiss the findings of scientists have totally misunderstood what Feynman meant when he said, “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” It is actually opposite from Christine’s interpretation below (that scientists are experts and therefore Feynman was denigrating scientists and science).This misinterpretation in the MSM is fallacious and totally misleading.

Feynman defined “Experts” as people who were NOT scientists (in the article, “They are merely an imitative form of science-like the South Sea Islanders making airfields, radio towers out of wood, expecting a great airplane to arrive. They even build wooden airplanes of the same shape as they see in the foreigners’ airfields around them, but strangely, they don’t fly.”).

So scientists themselves believe in the ignorance of “experts” who are NOT scientists, but who are attempting to imitate scientific technology without understanding why it works.

The problem we have today in the Press is that when you call a scientist an “Expert” that is the OPPOSITE of what Feynman meant an expert is.. It is actually the scientists that doubt the unscientific “Expert” (e.g. Trump is an “Expert” and knows everything, denies science, and is really the type of idiot that Feynman declared was an idiot).
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Victor Kamendrowsky Oct 6, 2020

The science is clear and damning to fossil fuels. This is why petrozombies have allied themselves with evangelicals and racists.
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Mirek Fatyga Oct 5, 2020

Prof Sachs nicely illustrates the dilemma facing people who, by temperament and inclination, would like to stay in the political center. If you want to stay in the center, maintain common sense, sanity and commitment to science, you are forced to fight both the right and the left, as they both use science for political purposes when it is convenient to them, thus undermining what is left of public trust in the institutions of science. This is a tragedy in the making, since 8 billion people (going on 10) cannot be fed, clothed, housed and provided for with a half decent standard of living without strong commitment to science. To understand the magnitude of the challenge, one only needs to say that extending current per capita use of oil in North America to 8 billion people would require the world oil production to roughly quadruple, and to match EU it would have to double. Either scenario is not very likely to happen, certainly not on a sustainable basis.

Western fires, mentioned by Prof Sachs as a demonstration of catastrophic effects of climate change, are a great example of abusing science for political purposes, and the consequences of such abuse. Western fires are caused, in no particular order, by the following factors: (1) a century worth of questionable land management practices since catastrophic fires at the beginning of the XXth Century, also known as fire suppression policies, (2) population encroachment on fire prone areas which leads to spectacular loss of property and life (3) general population growth which increases the number of human induced fires (4) wholly inadequate power grid (5) periodic drought in California which met with (1)-(4) and aggravated these trends. (6) Possibly some warming of the climate since 1980, which followed ~40 years of climate cooling prior to 1980, all for poorly understood reasons.

Let's not even discuss the question how likely is it that this particular periodic drought has anything to do with carbon dioxide. Let's simply say that any politician who says that he/she is going to prevent future fires by forcing the whole state into Teslas is committing gross malfeasance and deliberately deceiving their constituents. For, what the constituents need to do first and foremost, is to demand that their politicians attend to (1) - (4), a rational and potentially effective response to the fires, and if the politicians insist that Teslas are the way forward, give them a boot and look for someone else. Incidentally, switching the whole state to Teslas by whatever date, not too far in the future, would be a catastrophe unless one fixes the power grid first. What is next: witch trials?

Green agenda does have some positive effects. Green subsidies produced electric cars which are becoming commercially viable. This is very important as future generations can get plenty of electricity from nuclear power. However, the damage done to science by extravagant claims of impending catastrophe is severe and dangerous. Current situation with covid-19, when the entire right part of the political spectrum suspects that covid-19 is a left wing fraud and refuses to take common sense protective measures, is a glaring illustration of these consequences.

Dear politicians and professional deep thinkers: stop treating science like a political prop. Stop corrupting institutions of science by giving them incentives to join political projects. Focus on resolving real, tangible problems, with a pro people agenda. Just cease and desist the fear mongering for political gain. Please. And please again. How much more damage are you going to inflict? Prof Sachs? When you look at Covid-19 epidemic and public reaction to it, do you think you may be bearing some of the blame for this dismal situation? Or will you just, conveniently, blame it all on Trump?
- Michael Public Oct 6, 2020
  
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Janos Nagy Oct 5, 2020

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- Michael Public Oct 6, 2020
  
  This comment was removed by a moderator. Replies to this comment may also be deleted. Please note that we moderate comments to ensure the conversation remains topically relevant. We appreciate well-informed comments and welcome your criticism and insight. Please be civil and avoid name-calling and ad hominem remarks.
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- Mirek Fatyga Oct 5, 2020
  
  wearing a mask does not require testing. Testing, indeed, is not perfect, neither is masking. The trick is, reducing probabilities. This is actual science, and he is not so far from it.
  - Janos Nagy Oct 5, 2020
    
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