The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was established in 1970 as a source of objective scientific information in four specific areas: ecosystems, climate, weather and water, and commerce and transportation. It also conducts applied research and oversees the National Weather Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
But objective climate science is the last thing the Trump regime wants in the public’s hands as shown by the climate science deniers already appointed, though not yet confirmed. And then there are the teams assigned to fill other key posts with people exhibiting a mindset meshing with the regime’s denialist agenda.
One team member hunting for people to appoint is Kenneth Haapala, a policy expert and economic modeler at the Heartland Institute, which is a leading denier and libertarian “think tank.” The Union of Concerned Scientists found 10 years ago that 40 percent of the funding Heartland received from Exxon-Mobil was designated specifically for climate change projects.
Some NOAA employees are alarmed by the prospect of who Haapala and others on the team will pick to head their agency and what will happen to its mission of providing objective information about climate. They have good reason to worry. Stuart Leavenworth at McClatchy writes:
“NOAA doesn’t get as much attention as EPA, but it is a pretty big target for people that want to shut down climate change science and findings they find objectionable,” said the employee, who didn’t want his name used for fear of retribution. [...]
[In 2012] Heartland gained notoriety by buying billboards that showed images of Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, along with headlines such as, “I still believe in Global Warming. Do you?”
Critics accused the group of equating believers of prevailing climate change science with terrorists. Heartland responded with a press release that stated: “What these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the ‘mainstream’ media, and liberal politicians say about global warming.”
The greatest fear so far is not just whether NOAA’s researchers will be able to disseminate their findings to the public but whether they will even be able to gather the crucial data to come up with those findings. That could, of course, have a devastating impact:
When Tom Karl, director of the National Centers for Environmental Information, and his colleagues published a study in 2015 seeking to challenge the idea that there had been a global warming “slowdown” or “pause” during the 2000s, they relied, in significant part, on updates to NOAA’s ocean temperature data set, saying the data “do not support the notion of a global warming ‘hiatus.’”
Heartland in the 1990s teamed up with tobacco giant Philip Morris to question the impact of second-hand smoke and push the idea that moderate smoking has “few, if any, adverse health effects.” These days they are better known for pushing the idea that climate change is a scam. On March 23-24, Heartland will host its 12th International Conference on Climate Change. Heartland President Joe Bast, the same guy who claimed smoking is harmless and later denied he had said it, states on the organization’s website:
“The purpose of this conference is to introduce members of the Trump administration and newly elected members of Congress and their staff to leading scientists and economists who hold a data-based, non-alarmist view of the climate. ... It’s time to reset U.S. climate and energy policy away from the alarmism and fake science that dominated policymaking during the Obama era, and plot a new course based on real scientific data and economic analysis. The American people deserve a huge ‘peace dividend’ that can be brought about by ending the unnecessary and futile war on fossil fuels.”
Assuming the Senate has confirmed Wilbur Ross as secretary of commerce by the time of the conference, one member of the Trump regime Heartland introduces might be a new head of NOAA—whose stand on climate research is likely to have a lot in common with Philip Morris’ stance on tobacco research.
Brave, but stupid, new world.