Mayor sees Trump as threat to environment

Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl today said she sees actions of President Donald Trump as a threat to the environmental and human health.

The mayor, in a statement, said she and members of the city Environment Board she appoints are concened about the president’s “appointments to critical executive-level positions of people who dismiss scientific evidence and favor corporate interests over human and environmental health.”

[block:block=168]

She adds, “We are concerned about moves to weaken environmental regulation, chill scientific research and censor public communication. These developments represent a threat to the environmental and human health of our city and region.”

And she cited a statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science which said, “Censorship, intimidation, or other restriction on the freedom of scientists employed or funded by governmental organizations to communicate their unclassified scientific findings and assessments not only to each other but also to policymakers and to the public is inimical to the advance of science and its appropriate application in the policy domain.” 

Tisdahl said Evanston residents “rely on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other scientific and regulatory agencies of the federal government to assure that we—and all Americans—have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, healthy workplaces, and the hope of a future free from the harshest consequences of climate change.”

The mayor added, “The Evanston Environment Board and I call on our elected federal representatives, as well as the citizens of Evanston, to act boldly to support strong, uncompromised, transparent federal agencies and to make full use of all of the tools at our disposal to protect human and environmental health in our region and our community.”