Trump administration’s censorship of climate change should ‘send chill down your spine’, top scientist warns
Energy Department official asks scientists to remove references to global warming from research proposals to confirm with the President's views on the subject
Donald Trump appearing at a rally in December
(
Drew Angerer/Getty
)
The US Energy Department has been asking scientists to remove the words “climate change” and “global warming” from research proposals in a censorship row that one leading climatologist said should “send a chill down your spine”.
Professor Jennifer Bowen, of Northeastern University in Boston, was told in July that she and a colleague had been awarded funding to study whether the degradation of salt marshes would cause the release of large amounts of carbon dioxide.
However she revealed on social media that she was then sent a message by an Energy Department official asking for a reference to climate change in their proposal to be removed.
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“I am writing regarding your recently approved FICUS proposal … I have been asked to contact you to update the wording in your proposal abstract to remove words such as ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’,” the official wrote.
“This is being asked as we have to meet the President’s budget language restrictions and don’t want to make any changes without your knowledge or consent.
“Below is the current wording for your abstract – at your next convenience, will you kindly revise the wording and send back to me as soon as you can? That way we can update our website.”
The abstract described how salt marshes absorb much larger amounts of carbon from the atmosphere than their “terrestrial counterparts” because organic material does not decompose as easily in salt water.
However the addition of nitrate, a form of fertiliser, to salt marshes stimulates decomposition. The resulting degradation reduces salt marshes’ ability to store carbon and “may also release this carbon as carbon dioxide, contributing to greenhouse gas release and climate change in unknown ways…” the proposal said.
“The question that remains is, can the addition of nitrate in deep salt marsh sediments that capture 3,000 years of stored carbon, also stimulate decomposition, or is the organic matter simply too recalcitrant for microbes to use?” it added.
Professor Bowen agreed to make the change, telling the official she had understood she was “just doing your job, so I will refrain from comment”.
“I redacted the offensive clause,” she added.
The revised abstract said “may also release this carbon as carbon dioxide, contributing to greenhouse gas release in unknown ways”.
10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change
Show all 10
10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change
1/10
A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica
Kira Morris
2/10
Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050.
Probal Rashid
3/10
Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent.
Tom Schifanella
4/10
Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others.
Hira Ali
5/10
Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia.
Sandra Rondon
6/10
A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures.
Abrar Hossain
7/10
Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change.
“Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.”
Rizwan Dharejo
8/10
A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India.
The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature.
Riddhima Singh Bhati
9/10
A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”.
Leung Ka Wa
10/10
Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions.
Mahtuf Ikhsan
1/10
A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica
Kira Morris
2/10
Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050.
Probal Rashid
3/10
Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent.
Tom Schifanella
4/10
Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break. Climate change can also increase rainfall in some areas, while bringing drought to others.
Hira Ali
5/10
Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia.
Sandra Rondon
6/10
A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures.
Abrar Hossain
7/10
Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change.
“Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. “Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. Crops are very difficult to grow.”
Rizwan Dharejo
8/10
A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India.
The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature.
Riddhima Singh Bhati
9/10
A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organisation has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”.
Leung Ka Wa
10/10
Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions.
Mahtuf Ikhsan
Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes told the journal Naturethat “there is no departmental-wide policy banning the term ‘climate change’ from being used in Department of Energy materials”, but declined to answer other more specific questions.
A leading climatologist, Professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, tweeted about the controversy: “Hey American Scientists. This should send a chill down your spine.”
And Dr Yana Weinstein, co-founder of education research group The Learning Scientists, tweeted: “This is what censorship looks like.”
Nature reported that another researcher, Scott Saleska, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, had also been asked to remove references to climate change from a research proposal about the effects of decomposing plant material on permafrost.
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