Climate scientist who got death threats says he fears more attacks under Trump
AP, Washington :
U.S. climate scientists say they worry the incoming Trump administration might do more than cut off their research funding. Some also fear they could receive personal attacks and death threats simply for doing their jobs.
Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Penn State University, said he knows exactly what that’s like.
Over the last decade, Mann has been singled out by Republican senators and Pennsylvania and Virginia officials, who falsely accused the scientist of distorting his data and perpetuating the “hoax” that human activities are causing climate change.
“I’ve faced hostile investigations by politicians, demands for me to be fired from my job, threats against my life and even threats against my family,” Mann said in a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post.
Mann said those threats have diminished in recent years as more Americans have come to understand and accept the global scientific consensus on human-caused climate change – and as President Barack Obama accelerated efforts to fight greenhouse gas emissions and develop renewable energy.
But President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to undo many of Obama’s gains on climate change.
Trump himself is a climate-denier who recently claimed, falsely, that “nobody really knows” what’s happening to the planet. Many of his cabinet picks, including for Environmental Protection Agency administrator and Secretary of Energy, similarly reject the scientific conclusions shared by 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s most authoritative group of climate experts, has said it is “extremely likely” that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have been the “dominant cause” of observed global warming trends since the mid-20th century.
Mann said that he and his colleagues are now “bracing for a renewed onslaught of intimidation, from inside and outside government,” given the coming changes in Washington.
“I fear the chill that could descend,” he wrote in the op-ed.
U.S. climate scientists say they worry the incoming Trump administration might do more than cut off their research funding. Some also fear they could receive personal attacks and death threats simply for doing their jobs.
Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Penn State University, said he knows exactly what that’s like.
Over the last decade, Mann has been singled out by Republican senators and Pennsylvania and Virginia officials, who falsely accused the scientist of distorting his data and perpetuating the “hoax” that human activities are causing climate change.
“I’ve faced hostile investigations by politicians, demands for me to be fired from my job, threats against my life and even threats against my family,” Mann said in a Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post.
Mann said those threats have diminished in recent years as more Americans have come to understand and accept the global scientific consensus on human-caused climate change – and as President Barack Obama accelerated efforts to fight greenhouse gas emissions and develop renewable energy.
But President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to undo many of Obama’s gains on climate change.
Trump himself is a climate-denier who recently claimed, falsely, that “nobody really knows” what’s happening to the planet. Many of his cabinet picks, including for Environmental Protection Agency administrator and Secretary of Energy, similarly reject the scientific conclusions shared by 97 percent of the world’s climate scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s most authoritative group of climate experts, has said it is “extremely likely” that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions have been the “dominant cause” of observed global warming trends since the mid-20th century.
Mann said that he and his colleagues are now “bracing for a renewed onslaught of intimidation, from inside and outside government,” given the coming changes in Washington.
“I fear the chill that could descend,” he wrote in the op-ed.
