State department’s Daniel Kammen quits with note calling out Charlottesville and Paris accord – and a hidden message in the first letters of each paragraph

One of the US state department’s three science envoys resigned on Wednesday, the latest in a wave of defections over Donald Trump’s response to a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Daniel Kammen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a letter posted on his Twitter account that Trump had failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis, part of “a broader pattern of behavior that enables sexism and racism, and disregards the welfare of all Americans, the global community and the planet”.

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Daniel M Kammen (@dan_kammen) Mr. President, I am resigning as Science Envoy. Your response to Charlottesville enables racism, sexism, & harms our country and planet. pic.twitter.com/eWzDc5Yw6t

Trump told reporters last week that “both sides” were to blame for the violence between white supremacists and counter protesters in Virginia on 12 August, and said there were “very fine people” among those who participated in the white nationalist rally.

The science envoys serve as unpaid volunteers and engage with government and non-government science officials around the world. In his letter, Kammen also criticized Trump’s decision to leave the Paris climate accord. The first letters of each paragraph spell out the word “IMPEACH.”

Kammen and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. State department spokeswoman Julia Mason said Kammen “made a personal decision to resign”. “We appreciate his dedicated service to US scientific diplomacy,” Mason said. Science envoys typically serve for one year. According to his LinkedIn profile, Kammen had served as an envoy since August 2016.

Margaret Leinen, director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and Thomas Lovejoy, an ecologist at George Mason University in Virginia, still serve as state department science envoys, Mason said. They did not respond to requests for comment.

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor in Texas, served as envoy in 2015 and 2016 and said he has been in contact with the state department about possibly returning. He would be willing to do so even after Trump’s post-Charlottesville statements, he told Reuters on Wednesday.

Quick guide What happened at the Charlottesville protests? Show Hide What happened in Charlottesville on 12 August? White nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest against a plan to remove a statue of Robert E Lee, the Confederacy’s top general in the American civil war. Demonstrators chanted racist statements, carried antisemitic placards and held torches during the “Unite the Right” rally, which was organised by white nationalist Jason Kessler. The march was met by anti-fascist demonstrators, and some skirmishes broke out before James Fields, 20, allegedly ploughed a car into a group of counter-demonstrators. Civil rights activist Heather Heyer, 32, died and others were injured. Fields has been charged with murder.

“Despite those comments I think it’s important to be willing to serve the United States,” Hotez said.

Trump’s comments sparked a wave of defections of chief executives from White House advisory councils, leading to their disbanding, and earned condemnations from Republicans and Democrats alike.



Similar to Kammen, members of the President’s committee on the arts and the humanities who resigned en masse last week used the first letter of each paragraph in their resignation letter to spell out “RESIST,” a rallying cry for Trump’s opponents.





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