On April 28, President Donald Trump fired all 22 members of the National Science Board (NSB), the body that oversees the National Science Foundation, a 76-year-old research agency that some members of Congress have described as the envy of the world and the “crown jewel” of American science agencies. Today, members of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology condemned the annihilation of the NSB in a letter to Trump, calling it “essentially a middle finger to Congressional intent.”
“The writing is on the wall, and it spells disaster for our scientific excellence,” they continued.
In fact, Trump’s firings of the National Science Board and his other attacks on science over the past year plus do more than just undermine science. They undermine national security, according to Rod Schoonover, ecological security expert and former director for the U.S. National Intelligence Council, and Bradley J. Cardinale, professor at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. The pair of scientists recently collaborated on a paper that explores some of the overlooked ways that ecological disruptions can threaten the ability of nations to protect their citizens, institutions, and interests against foreign and domestic threats. When I spoke with them about that work they also noted more broadly how essential good science is for nations to protect against security threats.
Read more: “When Climate Change Starts Wars”
“There’s a long history in the United States where national security and scientific integrity go hand-in-hand,” says Schoonover. “From the security standpoint, when you weaken science, governments become worse at detecting threats before they become emergencies.” The loss of people, data, models, monitoring networks, and institutional memory leads to poor decision making, he says. Everything costs more and is more susceptible to failure.
Forecasting systems are already suffering, points out Cardinale. Just take a look at weather apps. Because of all of the dismissals in the weather service at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association under Trump, their predictive models are fumbling, whereas European and Australian models are doing fine, he says.
“We’re pretty good at predicting locust outbreaks. We’re pretty good at predicting certain kinds of disease outbreaks. We can give people forewarning for some of these things—at least now,” says Cardinale. “But as soon as we start to ignore the science, those forewarnings and those forecasts are going away.”
The consequences could be with us for a very long time—long past the expiration date of the current administration, whenever that may be. “China is pouring money into science because they want to become the world leader now that the United States is giving it up,” says Cardinale. Virtually all of his students are all looking for jobs overseas.
“This is going to get far worse in the United States,” he warns, “before it gets better.” 
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Lead image: NMacTavish / Adobe Stock
