ESSAY: The Severe Consequences of Ignoring the Science
by Ben Santer, Climate Scientist and John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur fellow
The Mahnmal
In 2013, a decision was reached to switch the water supply for the town of Flint in Michigan. Until April 25, 2014, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department provided Flint residents with drinking water from Lake Huron. After that date, Flint’s drinking water was taken directly from the Flint River.
Federally required corrosion controls were not implemented following this switchover. Corrosive river water leached lead and iron from aging pipes, contaminating Flint’s water supply.
In 2015, testing by the EPA and Virginia Tech found elevated levels of lead in Flint’s drinking water. A 2015 study by scientists at the Hurley Medical Center and Michigan State University explored the public health consequences of this increased lead exposure, concluding that: “The percentage of children with elevated blood lead levels increased after water source change, particularly in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods”.
This finding was deeply concerning. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Children younger than 6 years are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely affect mental and physical development”. The town of Flint was being poisoned by a potent neurotoxin, with potentially very serious long-term developmental consequences for thousands of Flint’s children.
The response to this unfolding public health crisis should have been swift, effective, and bipartisan political action. Unfortunately, the timeline of the Flint water crisis tells a different story. The timeline points towards delay, initial denial of the scientific evidence of elevated lead levels in Flint’s drinking water, ad hominem attacks on the scientists involved in lead testing, and repeated, incorrect assurances that Flint River water was safe to drink. While legal liability for the decision to switch Flint’s water supply is still being adjudicated, it is undeniable that many citizens of Flint suffered lasting harm and were poorly served by their elected representatives.
In November 2016, our country made a change in something just as fundamental as the water supply. Prior to November 2016, we had an Administration in which facts and objective reality mattered. After that date, the importance of facts and objective reality were diminished. Under the Administration of the 45th U.S. President, facts could be countered by “alternative facts”. The 45th President defined reality. If he stated that the crowd size at his inauguration was larger than at any previous inauguration, evidence to support this incorrect claim had to be found. If the President’s forecast of the path of a major hurricane was incorrect, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had to affirm the forecast. If the President incorrectly dismissed the virulence of COVID-19, scientists supporting this view had to be found and put in front of a camera.
In this brave new world of Presidentially defined reality, lies were — and remain — a daily occurrence. There is the lie that the November 2020 Presidential election was fraudulent. The lie that COVID-19 would miraculously disappear and was no more concerning than the flu. The lie that scientists do not know whether climate change is real. The lie that human-caused planetary warming is a part of an elaborate “hoax” to reduce American economic competitiveness.
The cumulative effect of this change from a fact-based world to a world of “alternative facts” has been just as harmful as Flint’s change in water supply. The incessant lies corroded our democracy, releasing a steady stream of toxins into our public discourse. Many who had the temerity to disagree with the 45th President were mocked or fired. Many who reported critically on his Administration were labeled “enemies of the people”. Federal judges who failed to uphold the President’s executive orders were publicly demeaned.
The lead poisoning caused by switching to Flint River water will have harmful long-term effects on the health of thousands of Flint’s citizens. It is more difficult to evaluate the long-term damage caused by the corrosive effects of the lies, “alternative facts”, and baseless conspiracy theories propagated by the 45th President of the United States. This damage is measured in human lives lost to COVID-19 — lives that could have been saved by earlier, more decisive action. It is measured in the human lives that will be lost by the failure of the 45th President to address the reality and seriousness of climate change. And it is measured in the lives lost in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. Lies have real-world consequences.
It is expensive but technologically feasible to replace a city’s aging water supply infrastructure. It is far more challenging to rebuild the eroded public trust in our democratic norms and institutions. This rebuilding is the collective responsibility of all U.S. citizens.
I’d like to briefly explain why I wrote this essay.
When I was 11 years old, our family moved from Maryland to Dortmund in Germany. Our first home in Dortmund was in the Bittermark, a suburb of Dortmund. We lived close to a forest — the Bittermarker Wald. In exploring the forest, I discovered the Mahnmal. Literally translated, Mahnmal means “warning monument”. The Mahnmal was a concrete structure in the middle of a clearing in the forest. It commemorated the execution by the Gestapo, at the very end of the Second World War, of nearly 300 forced laborers, resistance fighters, and ordinary citizens.
The sculptures on the outside of the Mahnmal were terrifying. Nothing in my sheltered childhood in Maryland had prepared me for the haunting transformation of pain, suffering, and death into cold stone. The message of the Mahnmal was clear: This must never happen again.
I thought about the Mahnmal when I saw images of the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, 2021. I saw images of violence, pain, and death. Images of a makeshift gallows erected outside the Capitol. Images of a man with a “Camp Auschwitz” t-shirt. Images of police officers being beaten with an American flag. As in the case of the Mahnmal, the message from these terrifying images was clear: This must never happen again.
