We have to note that Donald Trump is again exercising his “terminate with extreme prejudice” agenda against climate science. Nobody has suggested where this came from, other to secure funding from oil billionaires like the Koch brothers of Texas, and Harold Hamm of Oklahoma. Trump has nominated climate science denier Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma to become Administrator of NASA.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine graduated from Rice University with majors in Economics, Psychology, and Business. He also has an MBA from Cornell. He is a Naval Aviator in the US Naval Reserve, after serving 9 years on active duty, including Iraq. He was the executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium.
He won election in OK 1st District covering Tulsa in 2012, 2014, and 2016. He was a Trump campaign supporter, after backing Ted Cruz, Senator of Texas.
Ted Cruz has favored that NASA get out of earth observing systems that also contribute to climate science. With heavy cuts to other agencies that use the data from these satellites, there is nobody to pick up their programs. Instead, universities are trying to preserve government webpages and satellite data records, in case they are erased by the Administration. Most climate science webpages have already disappeared.
He is on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee. He is CHAIRMAN of the Subcommittee on Environment. A typical Republican placement for a climate science denier.
He is also on the Subcommittee on Space.
In a 2013 House speech, he recited the standard climate denier claims including of the temperature not rising since the 1998 once-only peak fluctuation caused by an El-Nino year.
He is funded by Northrup Grumman and other space industries in the $7,000 to $10,000 range because he favors farming out NASA activities to private industry, including weather satellites and visitor space flights. He is also funded by Koch Industries at $8,000.
While Rep. Bridenstine has stressed weather prediction satellites, since Oklahoma is a tornado target, Congress has shifted to long-range weather forecasting, which overlaps climate models.
NASA is charged with providing relevant data to the military. The navy needs sea level rise projections over a century to build its ports and naval stations. The military needs long range forcasts of climate to determine which countries or areas will be subject to climate stress, and what responses are needed. Hurricane Harvey is a case in point. The drought in Syria led to the protests that were met by the harsh Asad response and led to the present war there.
Even if you don’t require a rocket scientist or space flight or satellite expert to head NASA, you at least expect an aerospace manager from the government or private industry to head NASA. Rep. Jim Bridenstine is none of these.
In addition to Trump’s budget’s insults to most sciences and scientists, Trump now is insulting NASA’s scientists and engineers, and all space enthusiasts.
