Trump to sack climate change scientists and slash EPA: Unskeptical scientists are terrified

No elected representative has done more to speed climate research up:

Myron Ebell, who led Mr Trump’s transition team at the agency, said that he expects the new President to sack at least half of the staff there. He also hopes that the organisation will have its budget cut significantly, he said.

Trump will save the state based EPA roles, but chop the federal monster which has 15,000 employees:

Ebell suggested it was reasonable to expect the president to seek a cut of about $1 billion from the EPA’s roughly $8 billion annual budget.

About half the EPA’s budget passes through to state and local governments for infrastructure projects and environmental cleanup efforts that Ebell said Trump supports.

We live in hope:

“President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA, or ‘leave a little bit,”‘ Ebell said.

Not surprisingly, climate scientists are reacting with their usual calm demeanor:

GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS AT U.S. CLIMATE CONFERENCE TERRIFIED TO SPEAK WITH THE PRESS

The mood was understandably gloomy at the National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy, and the Environment.

“It’s strange,” the woman said. “People keep walking up to me and giving me hugs.” Like several others I spoke to for this story, she declined to tell me her name out of fear that she might suffer retaliation, including being fired.

Imagine not being able to speak freely? Welcome to the world of skeptical scientists.

On the other half of the divide people aren’t just afraid of being sacked, they get exiled, sacked, evicted, blackballed, terminated, punished, vilified and general bullied.

I’m thinking right now of a friend at an Australian University who I can’t name, who isn’t even in the field of climate research but was specifically warned not to speak publicly about climate issues, even in his personal time, “or else”. We’ve had messages from people in Australian and US institutions which study the climate or meteorology and who tell us there are other quiet skeptics “in the office”. And there is at least one other story of what sounds like quite appalling treatment that I have yet to cover.

The thing about being a skeptic is that, it’s not just scientists, but all kinds of people who can face punishment — even skeptical farmers can get suddenly slapped with severe new license conditions, and bled cash til they lose their farm.

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