Researcher says Americans have two choices: 'protect ourselves' or 'act stupid and risk death'

I worry about America — but for different reasons than many do.

I worry because at a time when we need more money spent on science, when we need, for example, more money for research into viruses, some in Washington want to cut the proposed budget for the National Science Foundation.

The foundation is a main source for funding university research in this nation. President Joe Biden proposed a National Science Foundation budget for next year of more than $10 billion – not nearly enough, but up from the $8.5 billion of the year before.

But the appropriations committees in both houses of Congress have slashed that, and there are those who would cut that to as little as $3 billion, which would come close to destroying scientific research in our nation.

This would be nearly the worst thing this country could do.

With more than 790,000 in this nation dead from the coronavirus, and the threat of other viruses very real, we need more, not less scientific research. It is true that until now, the thrust of that research has been devoted too much to weapons and not enough to medicine.

But our ability to meet these challenges is being threatened by some in Washington who have little understanding of science, and who owe their loyalty to a particular lobby, like U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and the coal industry.

More: Not even Joe Manchin wants to pay for this 'so darn expensive' coal bailout

Coal was once the fuel that powered the industrial revolution. But it is a dirty and dwindling resource and an environmental hazard. Nevertheless, the coal industry isn’t ready to die. Today, Manchin is the ultimate swing vote in the U.S. Senate – and also a man with millions in coal stock.

Is it any wonder he opposes President Biden’s clean energy program?

What is more baffling is that Ohio voters sent Mike Carey, a Republican coal industry lobbyist, to Congress in a special election this year. The district includes most of Columbus, where a forest of cranes has risen at Ohio State University, supposedly building innovation centers.

More: Republican Mike Carey wins 15th Congressional District race

Is their new congressman going to bring coal barons to town? How many people in Columbus want more coal?

Yesterday we reached the second anniversary of the emergence of the worst and most lethal virus in known world history.

But even though it is still raging, parents from Nantucket to Nevada are still complaining because their kids have to wear masks in school and refuse to be vaccinated against its potentially lethal consequences.

Many are the same folks who bellyached last year because their kids were home doing schoolwork, thanks to online technology.

“My little Tommy absolutely needs socialization,” they said. I might have thought keeping him alive should have been her greater priority. They may not believe in the virus, but the virus doesn’t care.

The world has changed, and we can either protect ourselves accordingly, or act stupid and risk death.

We scientists aren’t blameless either. Back in 2005, there were reports that indicated a serious future pandemic might be in the offing. But our viral disease experts spent almost all their time on HIV-AIDS.

Some praise today’s science community for producing multiple effective vaccines. But that took months. I think they got caught with their pants down.

Two years and millions of deaths later, we are just beginning to vaccinate children. While I am on a roll, let me add to my list of complaints the scarcity of funding for infectious disease research.

Why don’t we have a division of the National Institutes of Health devoted to viral diseases? Why aren’t those who run NIH out there fighting as vigorously for research on lethal diseases that are killing us as the military fight for more nuclear submarines?

Yes, I’m worried about America, and you should be, too. Those who have taken charge don’t seem very smart. When we need more systems using sunshine, they are bringing us more coal.

Common sense is a more important commodity.

But the United States seems have lost most of that, even as the effects of climate change are more and more obvious to us all. We need enough common sense to face the facts.

Otherwise, we may not be able to face our grandchildren.

Douglas C. Neckers is McMaster distinguished research professor (emeritus) and founder of the Center for Photochemical Sciences at Bowling Green State University. He is also former chair of the Board of the Robert H. Jackson Center in Jamestown, N.Y.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Douglas C. Neckers: Solar energy and science research more important than weapons and coal