Climate change continues to dramatically alter our world – and its weather patterns.
Yet President Donald Trump’s administration continues to gut efforts to understand and curb those effects. This May, nearly $1 trillion in research grants was put on the chopping block following a proposal from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget to overhaul the grant-making process. Trump’s second term has brought about other significant budgeting cuts, as well as the elimination of online resources and more.
Women aren’t meeting the moment quietly.
“President Trump and [OMB director] Russell Vought are not only breaking the law, but they are also once again endangering the health and safety of Americans,” Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin recently told the Guardian.
She continued: “Americans expect their taxpayer dollars to be put to research that has the best chance at delivering a breakthrough or cure for a disease, not wielded like a cudgel to punish the president’s perceived enemies and score political points.”
Professor Nancy Krieger of the Harvard School of Public Health is one of a growing contingent of women scientists who are also speaking out against the loss of funding and the limiting of information. She knows the pain personally – last year, her research into the ways in which discrimination impacts population health was unceremoniously canceled.
She describes these moves as “censorship,” adding that she and her cohorts are experiencing “blunt use of power to put forward the ideological agenda.” Vought responded by dismissing their ire as a “freakout by those on the left.”
As some scientists come together to loudly decry the government’s interference into scientific research, others – like climate scientists Rebecca Lindsey, Anna Eshelman and Mary Lindsey – are doing what they can to keep the general public informed, despite Trump’s efforts.
The trio worked for Climate.gov, a now-defunct website which redirects to the website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration when you try to access it. Prior to its shuttering via executive order, the site hosted heaps of research and resources. The trio didn’t want to see that information lost in bureaucracy – and launched Climate.us to preserve it all.
There, curious parties can find climate maps, climate change research and more to stay abreast of the latest climate-change developments. “Americans need to understand climate because the very best solutions to our country’s climate-related challenges will emerge from the collective action and creativity of a climate-literate public,” they explained on the new website.
Lindsey added, while speaking about the project with The 19th: “Who we are now and what we’re doing is not the full Climate.gov, but we feel like it’s worth it. It’s something.”
