Pirate's Cove

I have a simple solution for these so-called scientists, but, we’ll get to that

‘Everyone’s demoralized.’ Trump’s climate threats rattle world’s biggest science meeting

Censorship. Funding cuts. Layoffs.

Those concerns loom over the world’s largest conference of climate scientists as they brace for whiplash at the White House when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in six weeks. Trump has recently said climate change isn’t happening, called it a hoax and joked that rising seas would create more coastal real estate — all in contradiction to the work of the 25,000 researchers attending the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in downtown Washington this week.

How many of these “researchers” took fossil fueled trips to D.C.? How many live in the D.C. area because that’s where they work the system for funding? Who yammer at politicians and their aids for funding and legislation to Do Something?

“Everybody at AGU is nervous,” Jill Brandenberger, climate security program manager at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said in an interview. “The unknown is what makes people nervous.”

Dozens of scientists who spoke with POLITICO and at the conference expressed worry that the second Trump administration could be more antagonistic toward research underpinning federal rules on climate and environmental health. Scientists across the government — from NOAA and NASA to the Energy Department’s network of national laboratories — may soon face political risks that undermine their work, hide their research or leave them unemployed, said people attending the conference.

You know what they can do? Get their own funding from private companies and individuals, rather than feeding at the taxpayer teet. Go live their lives in accordance with their cult beliefs, rather than using shoddy science and computer models to force Everyone Else to comply. Scientologists may be loons, but, they don’t attempt to force everyone to live according to L. Ron Hubbard. Even insane Jim Jones didn’t try and drag other people by government fiat to drink the kool aid.

NASA employees are already concerned about job security following two rounds of mass layoffs at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in February and November of this year. The announcement of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency has raised new concerns among federal scientists.

“Everyone’s demoralized,” the NASA scientist said, adding that Musk’s potential influence at the agency — particularly his dream of sending a crewed exploration team to Mars — might affect NASA’s Earth science programs or compete with climate programs for funding.

There would be no concern if they would do their job, ie, stuff in space, rather than being doomsday cultists pushing a doomsday cult via a taxpayer funded agency. Seriously, do we care if they are demoralized? Let them go and live under the cult rules they want for Other People.

Brandenberger of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory said her message to staff was to “stay calm and carry on.” But she noted that changes are likely. Certain words might be less jeopardized than others. The fate of more than 100 “climate translators” staffed by her office to help Defense Department engineers make sense of future-looking climate data is uncertain.

That’s a new one. I hadn’t heard of a “climate translator” before. The AI thingy on Google says

A “climate translator” is a specialist who bridges the gap between complex climate science and the general public by translating technical jargon into understandable language, ensuring that scientific findings about climate change can be readily accessed and acted upon by diverse audiences, particularly in non-expert communities; essentially, they act as interpreters of climate data to facilitate informed decision-making on climate issues.

Sounds like BS to me, and that every single one of these surely over-paid, made up jobs should be abolished.