NASA Budget For Earth Science To Be Heavily Defunded In Favor Of Space Exploration: Donald Trump’s Views On Climate Change Echoed By Bob Walker

Donald Trump is set to drastically slash funding to NASA’s division that conducts research about climate change and its impact on Earth. Trump has made it clear that NASA is meant for deep space exploration, and that’s what it should focus on. As expected, environmentalists and climate change advocates are concerned because of statements from one of the senior men in Trump’s NASA transition team.

Just when the environmentalists were about to applaud Republican president-elect Donald Trump for keeping an “open mind” about climate change; one of the men in charge of Trump’s NASA transition team confirmed what he had been hinting at in his pre-election speeches. The agency’s budget for Earth Science, a sub-department dedicated towards research into hazard monitoring and climate change, will be severely scaled-back, reported The Guardian. Trump intends to reserve the agency solely for space exploration, said Bob Walker who is in charge of NASA’s fiscal policy,

It may not come as a surprise that Walker, a senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency, had once referred to the issue of climate change as “politically correct environmental monitoring.” The president-elect is expected to set a lofty goal for NASA when he becomes the 45th president of the United States. He expects the agency to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.

Any and all “Earth-centric science” will be covered by “other agencies,” continued Walker,

Nearly proclaiming the science as baseless and fictional, he went on to add that the link between humanity and climate change “is a view shared by half the climatologists in the world.” In other words, he implied that only half the people from the scientific community agree than humans had any impact on the rapidly changing climate and global warming, while the other half refutes the same.

Needless to say, there has been overwhelming consensus about the impact of human activity on climate change. While no research is universally accepted, close to 97 percent of the scientists seem to agree there’s a strong link between human activity and climate change. It isn’t clear how Walker arrived at the figure, but he strongly maintains the science pertaining to climate change has been heavily “politicized.”

How does Donald Trump’s policy decision affect NASA and its climate change research division? NASA is set to lose funding for its research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. For many decades, scientific organizations, research facilities, and individual scientists have relied on the data gathered by NASA. Though the agency’s primary responsibility is space exploration, its robust network of satellites reliably provide a wealth of information, that helps facilities across the world keep an eye on the changing climate.

Fortunately, even if NASA might not be able to continue its research through its Earth Science division, organizations like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are actively involved in parallel research pertaining to global warming and climate change. NOAA has several experienced researchers, established methodologies, and reliable equipment scattered across the world to ensure that climate research doesn’t stop abruptly.

Unfortunately, NASA and NOAA have worked closely with each other for several decades, and have deeply entrenched research topics, which might suffer beacause of Trump’s impending decision. Incidentally, the soon to be defunct division’s budget was set to grow to $2 billion next year. Walker merely mentioned the Earth Science division will lose funding. He never mentioned NOAA’s budget will be increased.

NASA’s budget was supposed to be $2.8 billion. Though there has been no official word yet, Donald Trump could reallocate the funds from the Earth Science division towards deep space exploration.

During his numerous speeches, Trump had claimed that climate change is a “hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese. However, after being chosen as president-elect, he appears to have significantly mellowed down. He even admitted there is “some connectivity” between human actions and the climate. This caused several environmentalists to breathe a little easy. But now it appears they might have to remain apprehensive throughout Donald Trump’s four-year term as president of the United States.

[Featured Image by Scott Olson/Getty Images]

NASA Budget For Earth Science To Be Heavily Defunded In Favor Of Space Exploration: Donald Trump’s Views On Climate Change Echoed By Bob Walker is an article from: The Inquisitr News