Alarmed by Trump Cuts, Scientists Are Talking Science. For 100 Hours.
Before he started livestreaming a presentation on the history of climate research at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies from its New York City office, David Rind gave viewers a small heads-up.
'If you hear any noise in the background, this place is literally being torn apart with us still in it,' he said.
Researchers were told to vacate the office and transition to remote work after NASA said it had ended the lease, as a result of vast federal cuts in recent months by the Trump administration.
Dr. Rind's presentation was the first of many in a planned, 100-hour-long livestream organized by a group of climate scientists and meteorologists from across the United States designed to protest cuts to weather and climate science and call out potential risks to weather forecasts. The livestream started on Wednesday and is scheduled to run continuously through June 1, the first day of the Atlantic hurricane season.
Since January, the Trump administration has made sweeping cuts to climate and weather research, including firing hundreds of scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, ending federal monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions and dismissing authors of the National Climate Assessment, the United States' flagship climate report.
'Having reliable weather forecasts and climate projections is something that I think the American public has been able to take for granted for a very long time,' said Margaret Duffy, a climate scientist and an event organizer. 'These funding cuts directly affect the research that underlies those forecasts.'
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