Science creates knowledge about reality, that knowledge creates power, and that power is political because it either confirms or disrupts vested interests. Right now the vested interests in academia, religion, and industry are all being threatened in various ways by what science is telling us about the world, and they are fighting back by attacking science. 

Not great. The leading Republicans deny climate change and other science, and the media do little to hold them accountable. I spent hours negotiating with the Democratic campaigns, trying to get them to attend a primary debate dedicated to the science issues impacting everyone’s lives, to no avail. I had a network producer, but the campaigns said they would do it if the DNC pushed it, and the DNC said they would do it if the campaigns wanted, and it was the chicken and the egg. There’s something wrong when you have Leonardo DiCaprio using his Oscar speech to talk about climate change but journalists and presidential candidates are largely ignoring science. There were two debates following the Paris accord—a massive international accord involving nearly 200 countries discussing how to remake the world’s economy and get us off carbon—and not one of the journalists in either debate asked a single question about climate change. And that’s just one example.