Canadians To The Rescue Again: Montreal University To Preserve Endangered U.S. Climate Data

Since the United States has apparently given up
on science, Canada is stepping up, as usual. 

Seems like lately, it's always Canada to the rescue. 

Unlike some in the United States, Canadians are really in the habit of making sound decisions, based on you know, facts, And reality. 

Sure, every nation has its nutcases. I'm sure Canada does. But overall, if we want an example of an adult in the room, we look to Canada.  

The latest example - at least in terms of climate and weather,  -is what's going on at McGill University in Montreal.

The Trump people are destroying - or at least are threatening to destroy -  years of climate and environment research. Mostly because the facts arising from the research conflict with the world they want.   

So, a group at McGill University is working to preserve that research. 

This actually started about six months ago, when researchers at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management launched the Sustainability Academic Network (SUSANHub.com). It's a database that centralizes climate research and data.

At first, this wasn't necessarily an effort to preserve scientific research. 

The whole idea was to connect researchers and other professionals involved in climate change and sustainable developing, kind of a LinkedIn for that field of study, said Juan Serpa, a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management.

Then Donald Trump came on the scene.

Already unimpressed by Trump's desire to make Canada the 51st state in the United States, they also knew that America's wealth of climate research was under threat. 

So, once again, the Canadians did the right thing. 

As the Canadian Press News reports:

"...at a time when the administration of United States President Donald Trump is firing climate researchers, banning certain words from scientific article, cutting funding for environmental research, threatening to withdraw financial support from universities and deleting scientific reports from government websites, the McGill platform has taken on a different significance.

'The goals is to protect scientific data against threats from the U.S. government,' Serpa said".

Just a couple years ago, I would have never thought academic freedom would be under siege in the U.S. like it is now.  Once again, thank gawd for the Canadians.

Canadian Press News continues:

"Scientific data that is on the chopping block south of the border is download and uploaded to the platform. 

Scientific data on wildfires, protecting forest from insects and diseases the impact of climate change on agriculture, flood risks, ocean plastic pollution, and the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases are just a few examples of the data that can be accesses on SUSANHub.com that would otherwise be at risk for being lost."

The Trump administration has launched a war on science, and that obviously includes climate and sustainability research. Information on climate has been removed from more than 200 U.S. government web sites. 

We know about the layoffs and funding cuts at NOAA and other U.S. agencies that deal with climate change and related issues. NOAA is one example of how science is dead in the U.S. thanks to Trump. 

BRAIN DRAIN

As a result of Trump, there's now an alarming brain drain from the U.S.  As grateful as I am for McGill University and their efforts to save climate and environmental data, it's just one of many shifts that are drawing the best minds in science away from the United States toward much more receptive nations.

As Le Monde reports, the European Union is encouraging U.S. researchers to relocate to Europe. They've announced an incentive package worth about 500 million Euros to make the bloc a "magnet for researchers." That equals about $566 million. 

The European Union isn't doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They know that Trump is ruining one of the United States' most important economic engines: Scientific research that improves the lives of people, and increases markets for new and innovative products and ideas. And protects the public from expensive crises ranging from disease to climate change. 

It's a business decision on the part of the European Union, and who can blame them?

 It's not just Europe.  China and Russia are also trying to recruit U.S. scientists, and that's a whole other threat.   At least traditionally, Europe has been our friend. China and Russia, not so much, despite Trump's fondness for Vladimir Putin. 

As Fast Company and other outlets report, China seems to have embarked on an effort to recruit recently laid of U.S. scientists to relocate or contribute remotely to research operations based in Shenzhen.

China's goal, of course, is to gain technological knowledge and trade secrets to put them at an advantage over the United States.  So much for Trump's America First rhetoric. 

Per Fast Company:

"Laid off federal employees with security clearances or institutional knowledge are considered particularly vulnerable. Analysts suggest that financial strain and professional uncertainty may make these individual more susceptible to overtures from foreign entities."

So great, on top of everything else, Trump is creating a potential industrial espionage or spy crisis.  

NOAA Weather, Research Canceled By Trump Goons, U.S. No Longer A Place For Science Education.

The Trump administration keeps finding ways to endanger
American lives. They're now working to sharply cut
back NOAA research on weather, and climate,
along with satellite technology that provides crucial
information to business, agriculture and the 
general public. 

 If you're relying on scientists to inform us and help humanity learn the risks of climate change, don't count on the United States, thanks to our "Glorious Leader" Donald Trump. 

As Science.org reports:

"President Donald Trump's administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S.  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country's premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science. 

The document indicates the White House is ready to ask Congress to eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming."

As at least one scientists quoted in the article says. all this is happening because "the Trump administration doesn't like the answers to scientific questions NOAA has been studying for a half-century."

Because, as we all know, if we say climate change doesn't exist then, POOF! It goes away, right?

Uh, yeah. Until the next big climate-driven wildfire, storm or heat wave.  

CNN puts the effects of these cuts pretty starkly:

"The cuts would devastate weather and climate research as weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly. It would cripple the U.S. industries - including agriculture - that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes."

 I would add that this would add to a developing brain drain in the United States. Since Trump and the government are now openly hostile to scientists, those scientists probably flee to other nations where they can actually conduct research.

Make America Stupid Again! 

There are quite a few gems in the internal budget document Science reviewed.

The plan would "eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes."

The White House wants to "eliminate NOAA's climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming," as Science writes. 

Also says Science:

"The proposal would cut NOAA's competitive climate research grants program, which awards roughly $70 million a year to academic scientists. It would end support for collecting regional climate data and information often used by farmers and other industries."

Wait, I thought the Trump people loved  who they call real Americans, you know, farmers. But the tariffs, and now the withholding of critical weather and climate information from said farmers, I'm not so sure. 

Important satellite technology looks like it will go by the wayside, too. 

The Trump administration would also cut back drastically on its satellite technology, which provides a lot of data critical for weather forecasts, and for weather and climate research. Not to mention coastal security.  NOAA had been working on several new satellites that would have gone into orbit around 2032, and would have greatly advanced skill in weather forecasting. 

But I guess that's not important anymore.  

These NOAA cuts come as the National Weather Service is already increasingly hamstrung by staffing and other cuts that are creating gaps in weather data that are making forecasts less accurate - including predictions for dangerous storms. 

National Weather Service offices across the nation are understaffed, heightening the risk that overworked meteorologists would miss clues that life threatening weather might be about to break out. 

But that's OK.  No great loss if more than a few die in weather disasters as long as those added tax breaks go straight to the billionaires, right?