Research cuts would hurt everyone, sooner or later

Even those who support such cuts, largely due to their own fear of real intelligence and scientific knowledge, will pay a price.

Large cuts to government-funded research and development can endanger American innovation – and the vital productivity gains it supports.

The Trump administration has already canceled at least US$1.8 billion in research grants previously awarded by the National Institutes of Health, which supports biomedical and health research. Its preliminary budget request for the 2026 fiscal year proposed slashing federal funding for scientific and health research, cutting the NIH budget by another $18 billion – nearly a 40% reduction. The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the basic scientific research conducted at universities, would see its budget slashed by $5 billion – cutting it by more than half.

Research and development spending might strike you as an unnecessary expense for the government. Perhaps you see it as something universities or private companies should instead be paying for themselves. But as research I’ve conducted shows, if the government were to abandon its long-standing practice of investing in R&D, it would significantly slow the pace of U.S. innovation and economic growth. - The Conversation

Atmospheric CO2 just keeps on climbing

Another “milestone,” of a very problematic sort.

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked above 430 parts per million in 2025—the highest it has been in millions of years—according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego on Thursday…

The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations topped 430 ppm was most likely more than 30 million years ago, Ralph Keeling, who directs the Scripps CO2 Program, told NBC News.

"It's changing so fast," he said. "If humans had evolved in such a high-CO2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate." - Common Dreams

Trump tariffs worsen the "pink tax"

Certainly because of their general ideology this is about the last thing the pro-tariff crowd is likely to worry about.

The pink tax is the extra price women pay for products that are also marketed to men — think shampoo or clothing. Back in 2015, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that across five industries, women were paying more for everyday products than men:

- 7 percent more for toys and accessories

- 4 percent more for children’s clothing

- 8 percent more for adult clothing

- 13 percent more for personal care products

- 8 percent more for senior/home healthcare products

Although recent evidence suggests that the pink tax doesn’t apply to every product, it was already more expensive to import items for women than it was for men. Experts have dubbed this the “pink tariff.” As of 2022, US clothing tariff rates were more than three percentage points higher for women (16.7 percent) than they were for men (13.6 percent). When I heard the news that more tariffs were on their way, my immediate thought was the following: Being a woman in America is about to get a whole lot more expensive, especially because of the beauty industry. - Public Notice