Unease in Boulder’s scientific community over the implications of Donald Trump’s presidency and what his policies mean for future federal funding is so great that few are even willing to discuss it on the record.
” Another alarm for scientists: Trump’s pick to guide NOAA transition,” blared a headline out of Washington, D.C., at the start of the week, over a report that Trump had appointed Kenneth Haapala, a leading denier of climate change, to serve on the administration team handling appointments for the Department of Commerce.
By Tuesday, it was reported Haapala was no longer part of the transition team, but like many of the developments early in Trump’s presidency, reverberations from that sequence of events persisted.
NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is under the Department of Commerce, and supports more than 1,000 researchers, engineers, forecasters and others on its Boulder campus.
But a NOAA spokesman in Boulder referred questions on the topic to a colleague at NOAA’s office in Silver Spring, Md. That person, in turn, passed on inquiries to the communications department of the Department of Commerce in Washington, D.C. That office did not respond at all.
Officials have not remained silent, however, on some of the implications of the Trump administration’s early comments and actions.
Antonio Busalacchi, president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research — which manages Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research on behalf of the National Science Foundation — issued a statement Tuesday in response to the executive order Trump issued on Friday temporarily banning citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the United States.
“This ban is counter to our organization’s mission and values, and I would like to reaffirm, in the strongest possible terms, our commitment and support for members of our community who may be impacted by this executive order,” Busalacchi said.
“We understand that diverse perspectives are critical for finding solutions to the complex scientific problems we are tackling today,” he also said. “Further, the impact of our research is global in scale, stretching beyond the boundary of our own country and it is imperative that we are able to collaborate with our colleagues around the world.”
Some choose to fight back
Kevin Trenberth is a distinguished senior scientist at NCAR, and a leading voice in the international scientific community on the subject of climate change. On Wednesday, he was not hesitant to voice his viewpoints, making clear that he was speaking only for himself, not the agency where he works.
“Yes, there are major concerns,” Trenberth said. “The concerns stem from a number of statements that Trump himself has made, the appointments that he has nominated at several agencies that are very important to climate and related research, and the threats that have been bandied around in the process. sahabet There have also been threats to NASA, to do more space and planet research, instead of Earth-science research.”
Warming to his subject, Trenberth — who said he already sees a chilling effect on young scientists who would otherwise hope to enter the climate science field — continued.
“There have been threats to NOAA already, before Trump came along. And now one of the key people on their transition team is a man who is a major denier of climate change. And DOE (Department of Energy) also is vulnerable.
“(Former Texas Gov. Rick) Perry has been nominated there, but he was the one that said he wanted to eliminate DOE and is now back-stepping in order to get the nomination. I worry more about his competence. I just don’t think he is capable of running that agency.”
Trenberth, who said he is naturally a “shy” person, is nevertheless more outspoken than many of his peers. He said this is partly a by-product of his already being the subject of controversy in 2009 when his and a colleague’s emails were among those targeted by hackers who breached a computer server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England, and then published about 1,000 of them.
He said for some young climate researchers, the initial gratification that comes with professional publication of their work is sometimes countered by the ensuing wave of “nasty emails” they receive from climate change deniers.
“They don’t like it much, some of them,” Trenberth said. “Some of them choose to fight back, but I would guess about 70 percent of them go back into the ivory tower and say, ‘That wasn’t much fun,’ and so they do something different.”
Trenberth said many of his peers who aren’t being heard from are taking a “wait-and-see” attitude, publicly, and that also, “most of them are not the sort of people who would get up and march to Washington.”
While continued funding levels to the National Science Foundation — which supports NCAR — may not necessarily be imperiled, Trenberth said, “I’m less concerned about NSF, and more concerned NASA, NOAA, the EPA and DOE.”
‘Times ahead are uncertain’
Trenberth’s comments came on the day that all 10 Democrats on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee boycotted the meeting to vote on Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. The Democrats’ protest delayed the committee’s vote, leaving the EPA for now without a head.
Also on Wednesday, Environment Colorado issued a statement blasting the Pruitt nomination.
In part, the statement attributed to Environment Colorado’s climate organizer Emma Spett said, “Coloradans and all Americans deserve an EPA administrator who will fight to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the planet we love. Scott Pruitt fails on all these accounts. The Senate must stand with science.”
In a building crescendo of concern, Wednesday was a day for statements about the state of affairs, politically, in the scientific research community. Also lending his voice was Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Science at the University of Colorado, where some 800 scientists, in partnership with NOAA, pursue studies aimed at better understanding the dynamic Earth system.
Abdalati gave voice to the “wait-and-see” mantra Trenberth is hearing in some quarters.
“Many of you have expressed concern that the priorities of the new administration could adversely affect the funding that supports work we do,” Abdalati said in a statement that went to all CIRES staff. “While times ahead are uncertain, I would like to echo what I have heard from various science agency leaders: We should not react to things that have not yet happened.”
He also addressed the temporary travel ban affecting those from the seven specified predominantly Muslim nations, terming it contrary to the “practices and ideals” of CIRES, and offering help to those affected by working to mitigate the effects of the order in any way possible.
Charlie Brennan: 303-473-1327, brennanc@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/chasbrennan
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