White House proposes steep budget cut to leading climate science agency

This heart-shaped #cloud was captured by NOAA’s GOES-13 #satellite on June 1, 2011. (Image provided/NOAA)

 

Professor of meteorology and atmospheric science David Titley was recently quoted in The Washington Post about proposed Trump administration budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Here’s an excerpt:

David Titley

“David Titley, a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University who served as NOAA’s chief operating officer in the Obama administration, said that ‘oddly’ the White House budget office, despite the president’s commitment to building infrastructure, would cut NOAA’s budget for ships and satellites. ‘These cuts will impact good private-sector jobs in the U.S.,’ Titley said. ‘The loss of capability will make America weaker both in space and on the sea — a strange place to be for an administration that campaigned to “make America great again.”’ ”

Read the full article on WashingtonPost.com. Title was also quoted in a similar article on the Standard-Examiner.

I’m a scientist who has gotten death threats. I fear what may happen under Trump.

Michael Mann, a professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post. Here’s an excerpt:

“My Penn State colleagues looked with horror at the police tape across my office door.

Michael Mann

Michael Mann

“I had been opening mail at my desk that afternoon in August 2010 when a dusting of white powder fell from the folds of a letter. I dropped the letter, held my breath and slipped out the door as swiftly as I could, shutting it behind me. First I went to the bathroom to scrub my hands. Then I called the police.

“It turned out to be cornstarch, not anthrax. And it was just one in a long series of threats I’ve received since the late 1990s, when my research illustrated the unprecedented nature of global warming, producing an upward-trending temperature curve whose shape has been likened to a hockey stick.

“I’ve faced hostile investigations by politicians, demands for me to be fired from my job, threats against my life and even threats against my family. Those threats have diminished in recent years, as man-made climate change has become recognized as the overwhelming scientific consensus and as climate science has received the support of the federal government. But with the coming Trump administration, my colleagues and I are steeling ourselves for a renewed onslaught of intimidation, from inside and outside government. It would be bad for our work and bad for our planet.”

Read the full op-ed at WashingtonPost.com.

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