| #YEARSproject: Don’t miss the Years of Living Dangerously season finale, airing tonight at 10/9c on National Geographic Channel. |
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Perry Waltzes Into DOE Job As Agency Resists Transition Interrogation: It’s official: former Texas governor and Dancing with the Stars contestant Rick Perry will be Trump’s pick for Energy Secretary, the Trump team announced Wednesday. As Perry preps to run the DOE – a department he once targeted for elimination but famously couldn’t remember the name of during a debate – the agency announced that it would not respond to a questionnaire sent by the Trump transition team last week that appeared to target DOE employees working on climate policy. In an email to staff obtained by press, a DOE spokesperson said that the questionnaire had left many employees “unsettled” and stated DOE “will not be providing any individual names to the transition team.” For more on Perry, scroll down to today’s Denier Roundup. (Perry: New York Times $, Washington Post $, AP, NPR, NBC, BBC, Buzzfeed, InsideClimate News, Mother Jones. Questionnaire: Politico, Reuters, The Hill, CNBC, Bloomberg, Greenwire, New York Magazine, US News & World Report, Huffington Post, IFL Science. Commentary: Vox, Brad Plumer analysis, Mother Jones, Tim Murphy analysis)
Scientists, You’re Our Only Hope: In the face of the DOE questionnaire, multiple climate denier cabinet nominees, and hints that Trump plans to cut NASA earth sciences programs, scientists with access to decades of government data on climate are taking steps to protect it. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the scientific community is working furiously to archive federal data on independent servers to preserve it from possibly being tampered with by a science-hostile Trump administration. Meanwhile, dozens of prominent scientists and activists rallied outside of the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco Tuesday, vowing to “stand up for science” over the next four years. In her keynote address at AGU today, DOI Secretary Sally Jewell will tell scientists “if you see science being ignored or compromised, speak up,” Reuters reports. (Science: Washington Post $, Politico, Vice, The Verge, Rally: AP, Mashable, Vice, CBS, SFGate, Live Science. Commentary: Washington Post, Eric Holthaus op-ed $)
Big Sky Rep Will Take Over Interior: In a move that surprised many on the Hill, Trump tapped freshman Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-MT, for the top Interior position Tuesday, passing over previously reported favorite Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Zinke’s track record in Congress includes pushing pro-fossil fuel legislation – the lobby backed his campaigngenerously – and his positions on climate change aren’t clear. However, Zinke’s fierce defense of public lands and opposition to transferring federal land to the states has put him at opposition with his own party in the past. Zinke has not yet officially accepted the position. (New York Times $, Washington Post $, WSJ $, NPR, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Reuters, Politico, The Hill)
Arctic Gets New Dismal Report Card: The Arctic broke multiple climate records and saw its highest temperatures ever recorded this year, according to NOAA’s annual Arctic Report Card released Tuesday. The report shows surface air temperature in September at the highest level since 1900 “by far,” and the region set new monthly record highs in January, February, October, and November. “The Arctic as a whole is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet,” report author and NOAA climate scientist Jeremy Mathis told NPR. (Washington Post $, AP, NPR, WSJ video $, Time, USAToday, Gizmodo, New York Post, Foreign Policy, Mashable, InsideClimate News, CNBC.) |
