Scientists debate fleeing America because of Trump — or risk their research being censored
It was not easy for Dr. Kevin Trenberth to leave the United States. An esteemed climate scientist who has published more than 600 articles on climatology, Trenberth spent more than four decades of his life in America, first teaching at the University of Illinois before joining the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where he eventually became a distinguished scholar.
Yet by September 2019, the New Zealand native decided to return home because he’d had enough of America under President Donald Trump. Trenberth has long been a fierce critic of Trump, but now things were impacting him personally.
“I cannot go to NSF [the National Science Foundation] for research funds because NCAR is base funded that way,” Trenberth wrote in a note to himself at the time. “Nor has it been fruitful to garner funds internally, and the external grants, especially with NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] dried up after 2012 when NOAA put forward a proposal for a climate service but thoroughly messed it up, and Lamar Smith [R-Texas, then-chair of the Science Committee in the House] not only killed it but cut research funds for climate by 30%.”
America’s lack of support for climate science poses a serious problem for the survival of our species, according to Trenberth. Because the United States is both a leading world power and major contributor to climate change (along with China, the European Union and the United Kingdom), Trenberth says it must do its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As human activity dumps carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases and water vapor into the atmosphere, the overheating planet will cause sea levels to rise, hurricanes to become more extreme and droughts and heatwaves to become more frequent and more intense.
It was not easy for Dr. Kevin Trenberth to leave the United States. An esteemed climate scientist who has published more than 600 articles on climatology, Trenberth spent more than four decades of his life in America, first teaching at the University of Illinois before joining the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where he eventually became a distinguished scholar.
Yet by September 2019, the New Zealand native decided to return home because he’d had enough of America under President Donald Trump. Trenberth has long been a fierce critic of Trump, but now things were impacting him personally.
“I cannot go to NSF [the National Science Foundation] for research funds because NCAR is base funded that way,” Trenberth wrote in a note to himself at the time. “Nor has it been fruitful to garner funds internally, and the external grants, especially with NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] dried up after 2012 when NOAA put forward a proposal for a climate service but thoroughly messed it up, and Lamar Smith [R-Texas, then-chair of the Science Committee in the House] not only killed it but cut research funds for climate by 30%.”
America’s lack of support for climate science poses a serious problem for the survival of our species, according to Trenberth. Because the United States is both a leading world power and major contributor to climate change (along with China, the European Union and the United Kingdom), Trenberth says it must do its part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As human activity dumps carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases and water vapor into the atmosphere, the overheating planet will cause sea levels to rise, hurricanes to become more extreme and droughts and heatwaves to become more frequent and more intense.
What a dumbass! The only practical advantage of c-birth is you can defeat Macbeth!
