Trump Administration Breaking Up Renowned Climate Center; Retribution Against Colorado Governor Suspected

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in
Boulder, Colorado. The Trump administration
wants to break it up saying the scientists there
are "climate alarmists" with no evidence to back
that up. It appears the announcement might
be related to Colorado refusing to release
from jail a 2020 election conspiracy theorist.

One of the world's leading climate research centers, in Boulder, Colorado, is targeted for closing because Donald Trump has his head in the sand. 

And also probably because he's still butthurt that Colorado won't release a 2020 election conspiracy theorist from jail.

At issue is the National Center For Atmospheric Research, or NCAR. It was founded in 1960 and has resources like supercomputers, data sets and high-tech research planes that conduct meteorological and climate research. It's also an educational center for future scientists. 

As you'd expect, scientists are almost uniformly outraged by the plan to dismantle NCAR. 

Katharine Hayhoe, a Texas Tech University professor and chief scientist at the Nature Conservancy, called the center "quite literally our global mothership," and said "Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet."

Hayhoe also said on her post on the social media platform X: 

"(NCAR) supports the scientists who fly into hurricanes, the meteorologists who developed new radar technology, the physicists who envision and code new weather models and yes, the largest community climate model in the world" 

Casper Amman, a former research scientist at NCAR, told the Washington Post the center plays a unique role by bringing together soiled specialists to collaborate on some of the biggest climate and weather questions of our time. 

"Without NCAR, a lot could not happen....A lot of research at U.S. Universities would immediately get hampered, industry would lose access to reliable base data."

Weather and climate services around the world use NCAR modeling and forecasting tools. It also supplies real time data to people dealing with events like big wildfires and floods. 

Of course, the Trump camp has a completely different view about their plans to dismantle NCAR.

 Here's a Trump minion on X:

"The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado......This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country."

One of Trump's favorite whines is climate change. Every chance he gets, he says climate change is a hoax and a con job, his words. He apparently thinks that he's smarter than the vast majority of scientists who tell us climate change is real. Those scientists are growing increasingly alarmed about that warming. 

 USA Today, which first reported this development, reported:

"The administration plans to identify and eliminate what it calls 'green new scam research activities' during an upcoming review of the center, according to the White House while 'vital functions' such as weather modeling and supercomputing will be moved to another entity or location. 

Efforts to dissolve the National Center for Atmospheric Research will begin immediately, the official said, with the plan being to fully close the center's Mesa Laboratory in Boulder."

NCAR's staff consists of 830 employees who are part of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities. Those universities focus on earth system sciences. We don't yet know how many jobs or programs this dismantling would affect.

THE REAL REASON

There's almost certainly more to all this than just Trump's aversion to any true information about climate change. Trump's focus seems to be suddenly all about Colorado 

 As USA Today reports:

"The move to break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research comes after the Trump administration earlier in the day announced the cancellation of $109 million environmentally focused transportation grants in Colorado that sought to boost electric vehicles, rail improvement and research into hydrogen and natural gas-powered trains."

Amid these announcements, and on the same day the NCAR breakup was announced, Trump called Polis "weak and pathetic" and "incompetent" because he refused to release former Colorado County Clerk Tina Peters from prison.

And there it is: Revenge. 

Peters was once the top election official in Mesa County. She's part of the election 2020 conspiracy gang, convinced the election that year was "stolen" by the Joe Biden campaign. There's no evidence that ever happened. 

Eventually, in 2024,  a Colorado jury convicted Peters of giving Trump supporters unauthorized access to a voting machine after the 2020 election. She's serving a nine-year sentence on those state charges. 

Recently, Trump said he is pardoning Peters. There's one teeny, tiny problem with that. The president can only pardon people who were convicted on federal charges and are in federal prisons.

Peters was convicted on charges brought by the State of Colorado and is in a state prison. 

"Tina Peters was convicted guy a jury of her peers, prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney and found guilty of violating Colorado state laws, including criminal impersonation. No President has jurisdiction over state law more the power to parse a person for state convictions," said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. 

How dare Polis stand up to Glorious Leader Trump!  So the Trump people brought out their usual mob boss schtick. "Nice state ya got there. Would be a shame to see anything happen to it."

Here's the quote to prove it:

"'Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump his constituent would be better served,' a senior White House official told NOTUS in an email on Wednesday."

NOTUS.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan digital news outlet.

The Washington Post said an unnamed White House official declined to say how Polis is not cooperating with the administration, but denied the move was in response to Polis and his team not releasing Peters from prison.

Sure, Jan. 

Colorado is already fighting back 

According to Politico,  the U.S. Senate adjourned for the holidays this past week without passing a government funding package that would prevent a partial government shutdown starting January 30. 

One big part of the holdup are Democratic Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, who said they would hold up the spending package because of the plan to dismantle NCAR.  

Trump appears to be in a weaker position politically than he was earlier this year. Stay tuned at this bat channel to see whether the plan to end NCAR really happens.

We should all hope not. 

Sharpiegate Comes Back, Like The Monster That Won't Die

"Sharpiegate" started six years ago over Donald
Trump's failed attempt at forecasting Hurricane
Dorian. It's still going on today with the firing
of two NOAA officials, in part because
 Trump. Just. Can't. Let. It. Go.

 Sharpiegate is back in the news, in a typically depressing way. 

Back in late July, two NOAA scientists who defied Trump in the name of accuracy and science in his first administration are being sacked.  It looks like because Trump has a long memory, at least in terms of loyalty.  

"Two top National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials who played a role in the high profile "Sharpiegate" investigation at the agency were placed on administration leave this week. 

Stephen Volz, the assistant administrator at NOAA's Satellite and Information Service, and Jeff Dillon, a deputy general counsel at NOAA, were placed on leave..."   Volz told NBC News."

You might remember Sharpiegate. Back in 2019 Trump incorrectly said Hurricane Dorian was threatening Alabama, but National Weather Service meteorologists in Alabama contradicted him, accurately saying the storm was no threat to Alabama. 

A normal president who might have been misinformed like that would say, "Oops, we have updated info that says Alabama doesn't have to worry, so we'll move on."

But this is Trump of course, who can never be wrong about the slightest thing. He  later produced a forecast map that had been amateurishly altered by a Sharpie to suggest Alabama had been threatened by the storm.   To make everything worse, top NOAA officials, appointed by Trump in his first administration, rebuked those professional and accurate Alabama meteorologists.  

Which of course looks like political pressure and not science to me and pretty much everybody else 

 Here's why we think Volz and Dillon are in trouble now.  Neil Jacobs was nominated by Trump as his pick to head NOAA. Jacobs got in trouble with Sharpiegate. Per NBC: 

"NOAA hired the National Academy of Public Administration to perform an independent assessment into allegations of scientific misconduct during the incident. The investigation found that Jacobs violated NOAA's ethics policies. 

Volz wrote the final decision about the report for NOAA, which agreed with NAPA's findings. He said Dillen worked on that document also. Volz said he did not know whether notices that they'd both been put on leave on the same day and their connection to the 'Sharpiegate' report were a coincidence."

CNN talked to former NOAA officials who smell a rat. One said: "It's an interesting coincidence that less than a week before Neil Jacobs sent committee vote, the two dedicated career civil servants who investigated him for scientific integrity violations around Sharpiegate were dismissed from service."

 NOAA confirmed the pair had been placed on leave, but are tightlipped on why. Dillen is out due to unspecified "performance issues." Volz is out for an "unrelated matter."

 They're not even telling Volz why he's out. 

 It's all for plausible deniability. It looks bad to admit they're getting rid of Volz and Dillon to soothe Trump's narcissistic ego. So they're denying it has anything to do with Sharpiegate. 

NOAA's communications director, Kim Foster, had this to say: "Neither action is related in any way to each other or the Sharpiegate investigation."

Sure, Jan. 

As for Jacobs, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on July 30 advanced his nomination, but we don't know yet when the full Senate will vote on the nomination.