Australian scientists slam Trump plan to scrap NASA climate research

Desdemona Despair

By Sophie Vorrath
24 November 2016

(RenewEconomy) – Australia’s top climate scientists have come out in support of their American counterparts, in response to news that the incoming Trump Administration will scrap climate research at the country’s top research facility, NASA. […]

Here’s what Australia’s scientists are saying about Trump and NASA:

“Just as we have seen in Australia the attack on CSIRO climate science under the Coalition government, we now see the incoming Trump administration attacking NASA,” said Professor Ian Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Griffith University and a former President of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

“They obviously hope that pressure for action will be eased if the science is muffled.

“But with temperatures in the Arctic this week a startling 20 degrees above normal, no amount of waffle can disguise the need for urgent action to decarbonise our energy supply and immediately withdraw support for new coal mines,” Prof Lowe said.

“Why a world leader in Earth observation should do this is beyond rational explanation,” said David Bowman, a “fire scientist” and Professor of Environmental Change Biology at The University of Tasmania.

“Earth observation is a non-negotiable requirement for effective, sustainable fire management, and it will be provided by other sources if the US proceeds with this path, such as Europe, Japan and China,” Prof Bowman said.

“So, effectively the US would be ceding intellectual ‘real estate’ to other nations that could quickly become dominant providers of essential information on fire activity.” […]

“My advice to president-elect Trump is to look beyond his advisor Bob Walker’s comments and see exactly the important work done by the NASA Earth science division,” said Dr Helen McGregor, an ARC Future Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences and Environmental Sciences at the University of Wollongong.

“This is not ‘politically correct environmental monitoring’ as Walker asserts but is essential data to ensure society’s health and wellbeing.

“As for climate change science, the division’s reports on global temperatures are solely based on robust data. What’s being politicised here is not the science but the story that the science tells: that the planet is warming. Let’s not shoot the messenger,” Dr McGregor said. [more]

Australian scientists slam Trump’s plans to scrap NASA climate research