Trump Promised to Hire the Best People. He Keeps Hiring the Worst

Trump Promised to Hire the Best People. He Keeps Hiring the Worst

Trump’s NASA nominee Jim Bridenstine is a climate denier who wants to end the agency’s climate research

By Dana Nuccitelli

The Guardian

September 12, 2017, 1:23 PM GMT

According to2016 election exit polls, only 38% of voters considered Donald Trump qualified to be president. 17% of those who thought him unqualified voted for Trump anyway, perhaps because he promised that as a wealthy businessman, he would be able tohire the best peopleto advise him. That was a claim his daughter Ivanka explicitly made in her speech at the Republican National Convention:

Unfortunately, Trump has not lived up to this promise. In many cases he’s hired some of the worst people imaginable.

Who worse to lead the EPA than a man whose primary qualification is havingsued the agency 14 timeson behalf of polluting industries? Who worse to lead the Midwestern states EPA than a woman who theEPA cited for failure to control air pollutionin Wisconsin and whodeleted all mention of human-caused climate changefrom her department website? Who worse to lead the Department of Energy than a man who wanted to eliminate the department (until he forgot -oops)? Who worse to be the Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist than aright-wing birther radio hostwithno scientific background? And these are only the administration officials in positions related to energy and the environment.

There are of course exceptions where Trump nominated people who are at least qualified for the job, but in many cases it’s hard to imagine worse choices.

And now we can add Trump’s selection to lead NASA to the list -Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma.

Bridenstine is a climate denier

Scientists and astronauts are usually chosen to lead NASA, for obvious reasons. Bridenstine is neither – he’s a member of Congress (and would be the first politician ever to lead NASA, formerly executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum and Planetarium and a Navy Reserve pilot.He reeled off this string of climate denial myths on the House floor in 2013:global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago. Global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with Sun output and ocean cycles. During the Medieval Warm Period from 800 to 1300 A.D.—long before cars, power plants, or the Industrial Revolution—temperatures were warmer than today.

The first myth looks particularly bad in retrospect, with2014,2015, and2016each breaking the record for hottest global temperatures. But even at the time it was a baseless claim. While the rise in global surface temperatures did temporarily slow up to around 2013,global warming never stopped. More heat was stored in the oceans and other factors also acted to temporarily slow the rise in surface temperatures, but as long as we keep pumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere, the long-term global warming trend will continue.

Over the past 50 years, global surface temperatures and solar output arenegativelycorrelated, meaning they’re going in opposite directions. While global temperatures have risen rapidly, solar activity has slightly declined

Global average surface temperature (blue - data from Nasa Goddard) versus total solar irradiance reaching Earth (orange - data from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics Solar Irradiance Data Center at the University of Colorado). Illustration: Dana Nuccitelli

Ocean cycles are just that –cycles. They go up and down and have no long-term trend, unlike global temperatures. Andglobal temperatures are now significantly hotterthan during the Medieval Warm Period, and rising fast.

As is the case for most politicians who mangle climate science to this degree, Bridenstein’s denial appears rooted in opposition to policy solutions. In a2016 interview, he argued that climate policies will damage the American economy, and in 2013 hecriticized the Obama administration for spending too much on climate science research. Those comments, and Bridenstine’s beliefs about Nasa’s mission, may very well be the reason Trump nominated Bridenstein to lead the agency.

Bridenstine and GOP don’t want NASA doing climate research

NASA does some of the best climate research in the world. For example, Nasa scientists published a2010 paper in Scienceshowing that carbon dioxide is the principle control knob governing Earth’s temperatures, which directlycontradicts recent assertions by members Trump administrationwho have claimed otherwise.

But Republicans have decided that they don’t want Nasa doing climate research. For exampleTrump’s proposed budgetwould terminate four Nasa Earth science missions as part of a $102 million cut to the agency’s Earth science program. His space policy advisorsuggested eliminating Nasa’s climate and Earth science researchaltogether.Republicans in Congress have been trying to slash Nasa’s Earth science budget for years.

Some Republican policymakers have suggested that the agency’s climate resesarch could be absorbed into NOAA, because they wantNasafocused on space. The problem is that aside from the needless difficulty of shifting scientists and their research from one government agency to another, these policymakers aren’t proposing to increase Noaa’s budget to pay for that climate research. Quite the opposite – Trump’s proposed budget would also cut hundreds of millions of dollars from Noaa’s research funding.

Currently,Nasa’s institutional objectivesinclude “The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.” In Congress,Bridenstine introduced legislationthat would change that objective to “The expansion of the human sphere of influence throughout the Solar System.” Like his fellow Republicans, Bridenstine wants to shift NASA away from its world-class scientific research toward space exploration.

Who needs science when you can just use NASA to send up your big shiny rockets carrying American flags & feel like a big powerful space man?

“Best” is subjective, but Trump’s picks are terrible for science

Of course, what’s “best” is a subjective determination. If your goal is to eliminate government regulations – particularly those that protect public and environmental health and scientific research – then theTrump administrationmight indeed be considered the best. If you care more about industry profits than our health and the well-being of our children and grandchildren, then you might think Trump has hired some excellent people.

But if you care about our health and future welfare, or about the scientific community’s ability to keep studying the dangers posed by human-caused climate change, then it’s hard to imagine worse choices than Trump’s (anti-)environmental team. To a man and woman they seem interested in little more than maximizing short-term profits of polluting industries to society’s long-term detriment.

For those who think Nasa should continue its excellent climate science research, there’s still hope. The Senate must confirm Bridenstine, and there’s already somebipartisan opposition to his nomination. Americans who oppose his nomination – and the nomination of Sam Clovis as Department of Agriculture chief scientist – should contact their senators to voice their objections.

Dana Nuccitelli is a blogger at The Guardian Environment. He is an environmental scientist and risk assessor, and also contributes to SkepticalScience.com.