Trump Rolls Back Obama-era Environmental Rules

 

Penn State research experts were quoted in stories written about an executive order President Donald Trump signed Tuesday, March 28, 2017, on energy and climate. Here are a few news clips:

_________________________________________________

Michael Mann

Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center and a distinguished professor of metrology, was quoted in stories for Forbes Magazine, Voice of America and LiveScience about the order. Here’s an excerpt from the Forbes Magazine piece:

“On Monday, new research came out of Penn State that supports the notion that extreme weather events like floods, drought, heat waves and wildfires are happening more often and that there is a link between the increase and rising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

” ‘We are now able to connect the dots when it comes to human-caused global warming and an array of extreme recent weather events,’ said Michael Mann, a respected atmospheric scientist and and director of the university’s Earth System Science Center.

“Those heavy rains that stressed dams in California and threatened downstream communities, as well as the drought that the rains erased could be just the beginning of a prolonged extreme weather roller coaster ride if Mann’s research holds true and the new Trump trajectory produces its desired results.

“Essentially, the executive order is the administration’s first step in halting all federal action to address climate change, including President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, while at the same time easing restrictions on the extraction of fossil fuels — namely coal, gas and oil.”

_________________________________________________

David Titley

David W. Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, professor of practice in the department of meteorology, and professor in the School of International Affairs, was quoted in an article that appeared on The Conversation and the San Francisco Gate. Here’s an excerpt:

“Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor and retired Rear Admiral David Titley agrees with Mattis. ‘Here is how military planners see this issue: We know that the climate is changing, we know why it’s changing and we understand that change will have large impacts on our national security. Yet as a nation we still only begrudgingly take precautions,’ Titley writes.”

Op-ed: Credible climate scientists need to boycott biased congressional hearings

Global temperature difference from average during February. (Image credit/NASA)

David W. Titley, director of the Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, professor of practice in the department of meteorology, and professor in the School of International Affairs, authored an article on The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang blog about current congressional climate science hearings.  Here’s an excerpt:

David Titley

“Unless you’ve been living under a (melting) ice shelf recently, you know by now the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science Space and Technology is holding a climate science hearing Wednesday to probe the ‘assumptions, policy implications and scientific method.’

“This hearing, whose witnesses consist of one mainstream climate scientist and three other witnesses whose views are very much in the minority, is remarkably similar in structure and scope to the climate hearing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) conducted in December 2015 titled ‘Data or Dogma’? So similar that two of the five witnesses from the Cruz hearing will also testify on Wednesday.

“In the past, the science community has participated in these hearings, even though questioning the basics of climate change is akin to holding a hearing to examine whether Earth orbits the sun.

“Enough!

“For years, these hearings have been designed not to provide new information or different perspectives to members of Congress but, rather, to perpetuate the myth that there is a substantive and serious debate within the science community regarding the fundamental causes or existence of human-caused climate change.

“We should no longer be duped into playing along with this strategy.”

Read the full article at www.WashingtonPost.com.

 

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.

Skip to toolbar