A major climate change summit was planned for February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until Donald Trump was elected president.
According to Energy & Environment News, the CDC “quietly and abruptly” canceled the summit after the November election.
The CDC organizers of the Climate and Health Summit — which was scheduled to be in Atlanta, the headquarters of the CDC — did not say exactly why the last minute cancellation happened but told E&E News, “We are currently exploring options so that the Summit may take place later in the year.”
The White House purged all references to climate change from its website the moment Trump took office Friday and replaced it with a web page that shows an energy plan that would increase development of oil, coal, shale, and natural gas through drilling and mining.
E&E notes the summit took months to prepare and the theme would have been on the “state of the science on climate and health, adaptation efforts through interagency collaboration, and communication and stakeholder engagement strategies.” Additionally, a political rival of Trump’s was scheduled to be a keynote speaker.
Up until last Friday afternoon, the CDC viewed climate change as a public health issue and used its resources to examine climate change as a problem in states and cities. The CDC stepped away from other issues like gun control, abortion, and HIV research, which were too politically toxic to handle, Richard Jackson, former CDC director told E&E.
“The folks in power say we make policy; we don’t meddle in science. But it’s hard to make policy if the science doesn’t agree with them, so they meddle in the science,” Jackson said.