WILL TRUMP’S USA NOW BECOME A CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER?

….A demonstration in support of climate change science and anti-fossil fuels

 

In the 1930’s. Hitler wanted all the German Jews identified…..and Trump is now asking who in the Energy Dept. believes in climate change….hmmmm?

 

The Trump transition team isn’t wasting any time as they start acting like the German Gestapo in asking for Energy Department’s list of names of employees involved in climate change projects.  The department was quick to state that they are not in the habit of putting an “X” on the foreheads of their climate change personnel.

 

The election of a president that declared that “climate change was a Chinese hoax”, has seriously alarmed those that are concerned that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration.  Due to that fear, climate scientists have begun an accelerated attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.

 

They have become so concerned about a Trump administration, that it has brought on a virtual “guerrilla archiving”.  This is where experts agreed to copy irreplaceable public data in meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible over the coming weeks.  There are also collaborations of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor such scientific information.

 

“Something that seemed a little paranoid to me before, but now it seems potentially realistic, or at least something you’d want to hedge a bet against,” said Nick Santos, an environmental researcher at the University of California at Davis.  Santos, over one weekend, began copying government climate data onto a non-government server, where it will remain available to the public. “Doing this can only be a good thing. Hopefully they will leave everything in place. But if not, we’re planning for that.”

 

The climate scientists are also concerned because Trump has tapped a Montana congressman, Ryan Zinke, for US Interior Secretary.  Zinke frequently voted against the environmentalists.

 

On top of all this, President Obama had said that climate change should be at the top of our national priorities, however the President-elect Trump has already nominated a growing list of Cabinet members who have questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus around climate change and global warming.

 

With all of this going on, it seems pretty obvious why the Trump transition team asked agency officials for names of employees and contractors who have participated in international climate talks.  They also wanted to know who has worked on the scientific basis for the Obama administration’s regulations of carbon emissions. One Trump adviser has suggested that NASA should no longer conduct climate research and instead should focus only on space exploration.

 

Those moves have obviously stoked fears among the scientific community that Trump, who has called any notion of man-made climate change “a hoax” and who has  vowed to reverse environmental policies put in place by President Obama.  This has brought on the latest fear that the transition team could try to alter or dismantle parts of the federal government’s repository of data on everything from rising sea levels to the number of wildfires in the country.

 

It is unknown exactly why these individuals want to take America back to the Neanderthal era of learning about the why’s and wherefores of climate science.

 

Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the advocacy group Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that Trump has appointed a “band of climate conspiracy theorists” to run transition efforts at various agencies.

 

“They have been salivating at the possibility of dismantling federal climate research programs for years. It’s not unreasonable to think they would want to take down the very data that they dispute,” Halpern said in an email. “There is a fine line between being paranoid and being prepared, and scientists are doing their best to be prepared. . . . Scientists are right to preserve data and archive websites before those who want to dismantle federal climate change research programs storm the castle.”

 

Trump has now tapped the former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head US Department of Energy, the same department that when running for the GOP nomination, Gov. Perry had vowed to abolish.

 

But to be clear, neither Trump nor his transition team have said the new administration plans to manipulate or curtail publicly available data. But then, the transition team also did not respond to a request for comment.  In any case, some scientists aren’t taking any chances.

 

Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist has tweeted from his Arizona home: “Scientists: “Do you have a US .gov climate database that you don’t want to see disappear?”  Within hours, responses flooded in from around the country.

 

The whole issue has gone viral.  Scientists have since added links to dozens of government databases to a Google spreadsheet. Investors are offering to help fund efforts to copy and safeguard key climate data. Climate lawyers are offering pro bono legal help. Database experts are offering server space and help organizing mountains of data.

 

In California, Nick Santos began building an online repository to “make sure these data sets remain freely and broadly accessible.”

 

In Philadelphia, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, along with members of groups such as Open Data Philly and the software company Azavea, have been meeting to figure out ways to harvest and store important data sets.

At the American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting in San Francisco, where more than 20,000 earth and climate scientists attended the city’s biggest conference center.  There was an air of gallows humor that marked many of the conversations. Some scientists said their biggest personal concern is funding for their research, much of which relies on support from NASA and other agencies.

 

“You just don’t know what’s coming,” said Adam Campbell, who studies the imperiled Ross Ice Shelf of Antarctica.

 

Lawyers with the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal assistance to researchers facing lawsuits over their work on climate change, will be holding one-on-one consultations with researchers who think they might need help from a lawyer. And the organization’s table in the AGU exhibition hall was piled high with booklets titled “Handling Political Harassment and Legal Intimidation: A Pocket Guide for Scientists.”

 

“We literally thought about it the day after the election,” said Lauren Kurtz, the legal defense fund’s executive director. “I have gotten a lot of calls from scientists who are really concerned. . . . So it’s intended in some ways to be reassuring, to say, ‘There is a game plan; we’re here to help you.’”

 

The 16-page guide contains advice for government researchers who believe their work is being suppressed, as well as how scientists should react if they receive hate mail or death threats.

 

Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said he doubts that even the most hostile administration would try to do away with existing climate data.

 

But according to our new President-elect, he says “nobody really knows’ if climate change is real”, and it is very clear that he will be caling all the shots for at least the next 4 years.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016