The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has played a key role developing the science of climate modeling and the measurement of climate observations going back more than a half century. Like many climate scientists, I benefited directly from collaborations with NCAR scientists over the years, as well as from participation in NCAR-sponsored workshops at the iconic Mesa Lab in Boulder Colorado when I was a graduate student. The dismantling of NCAR very much undermines the United States’ standing when it comes to the advancement of climate science. Moreover, it reinforces the notion, as Peter Hotez and I detail in Science Under Siege, that the U.S., under its current Republican leadership represents a threat to science, the environment, and quite arguably the planet itself.
Climate science will go on, but increasingly in other countries, as the U.S. continues on its current trajectory toward second class status among industrial nations when it comes to science and technology. It is symbolic of the destruction of knowledge. Not since the ransacking of the Library of Alexandria (yes–that’s more of a metaphor; See this clip from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series) have we witnessed such a wanton, intentional assault on scientific knowledge. That places Trump and, more to the point, those who are actually behind this development—e.g. Russell Vought, chief architect of the infamous Koch-funded Project 2025, among history’s most notorious barbarians in promoting ignorance over enlightenment.
The de-funding of the famous Mauna Loa observatory where rising CO2 concentrations were first measured and charted, as well as the eviction of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies from their iconic home on the upper west side of New York City atop Tom’s Diner, and the breakup of the equally iconic NCAR climate modeling laboratory perched on the cliffs of the Flatirons in Boulder Colorado, are intended as malicious symbolism by the current administration. The intent is to break the spirit of the scientific community. Perhaps that’s why this latest assault coincided with the largest Earth science conference in the U.S. (my group and I are participating) the American Geophysical Union annual meeting this week in the city of New Orleans–an enduring symbol of climate risk and climate justice.
The polluters and plutocrats behind this latest assault on science understand that public sentiment is turning sharply against them. That’s why they are trying to jam through the Project 2025 agenda as quickly as possible. We must recognize their efforts as acts of desperation and fight back even harder. We must inform the public of the danger that their antiscience campaign poses to all of us, and massively mobilize voters for a mid-term election that could determine the future course of science, democracy and our planet. It’s not game over. It’s game on.
