GOP Senators Wanted to Stop Climate Change Training for Weathercasters. It Backfiredhttps://phys.org/news/2019-07-gop-senators-climate-weathercasters-backfired.htmlIn the long and fraught battle to persuade Americans that the Earth's climate is changing, scientists increasingly have relied on a stalwart ally—television weather forecasters.
TV weather people increasingly have been connecting hotter days and nights, extreme weather events, even increases in poison ivy and pollen, to the planet's slow and steady warming. Many of those reports have been informed and powered by a nonprofit educational organization, Climate Central.
While TV meteorologists have been gobbling up reports and camera-ready graphics on climate change, the work of the New Jersey-based group has alarmed those who seek to cast doubt on the science that defines global warming.
Last year, four climate skeptics in the U.S. Senate demanded an investigation of the $4 million in federal funding provided for the Climate Central program, saying it "is not science—it is propagandizing."After a nearly yearlong review, however, the National Science Foundation's inspector general has rejected the claim by the four Republicans—Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and James M. Inhofe and James Lankford, both of Oklahoma. The inspector general's review "did not reveal any evidence that limitations on political activity ... were violated," a memorandum summarizing the investigation said.... The four GOP senators wrote their letter of protest to the National Science Foundation in June 2018. It charged that the agency had "issued several grants which seek to influence political and social debate rather than conduct scientific research." Addressed to NSF Inspector General Allison Lerner, the letter suggested the agency had strayed from its mission to support science and possibly violated the Hatch Act, the federal law that prohibits federal employees from taking public political positions.
The senators said they found it suspicious that Climate Central targeted TV meteorologists, a group once shown in some surveys to have mixed views on the reality of human-caused climate change. The science foundation's oversight of Climate Central was "egregious," the senators said, because it supported work "designed to 'recruit' experts to a position they did not come to of their own accord as meteorologists."
Steve LaPointe, a weatherman in upstate New York, said it was the Republican senators who were engaging in politics, not Climate Central."Climate Central provides high-quality information. It's all scientifically based, extremely well researched and well vetted," said LaPointe of WRGB in Albany. "This is a group of senators that deny science, for whatever reason. I am gratified to know that the National Science Foundation defined this as science and supported it."
The senators did not respond to the findings from inspector general. They also did not answer inquiries from the Los Angeles Times.
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I'm a scientist. Under Trump I lost my job for refusing to hide climate crisis factshttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/25/trump-administration-climate-crisis-denying-scientistThe Trump administration’s hostility towards climate science is not new. Interior climate staffer Joel Clement’s reassignment and the blocking of intelligence aide Rod Schoonover’s climate testimony, which forced both federal employees to resign in protest, are just two of the innumerable examples. These attempts to suppress climate science can manifest themselves in many ways. It starts with burying important climate reports and becomes something more insidious like stopping climate scientists from doing their jobs. In February 2019, I lost my job because I was a climate scientist in a climate-denying administration. ...
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/24/trump-presidential-seal-doctored-russia-golf-turning-pointhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/07/25/trump-appears-altered-presidential-seal-turning-point-usa-event/1824386001/WASHINGTON – Speaking on Tuesday at a student activist conference hosted by the conservative advocacy organization Turning Point USA, President Donald Trump walked onstage in front of a presidential seal that, upon closer examination, appears to have been altered to include symbols representing Russia and golf.
The seal on Trump's right includes a double-headed eagle, unlike the single head of the traditional presidential seal, and seems to resemble the Russian coat of arms.
The eagle also appears to be holding several golf clubs instead of arrows in its claws, perhaps a reference to Trump's affinity for golf.
Additionally, instead of "e pluribus unum," the scroll above the eagle appears to say "
45 es un titere," which appears to translate from Spanish to mean "45 is a puppet."