Agriculture Department Buries Studies Showing Dangers of Climate Change

The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department's acclaimed in-house scientists, POLITICO reports.

The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment—a potentially serious health concern for the 600 million people world-wide whose diet consists mostly of rice—to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons to a warning to farmers about the reduction in quality of grasses important for raising cattle, according to POLITICO.

"If you’re taking a certain block of research and not communicating it, it defeats the purpose of why USDA does the research in the first place," said Robert Bonnie, a Duke University Rubenstein fellow who served as undersecretary for natural resources and the environment at USDA during the Obama administration.