A War Against Climate Science, Waged by Washington's Rank and File

[Zorro]

Efforts to block research on climate change don’t just come from the Trump political appointees on top. Lower managers in government are taking their cues, and running with them.

Efforts to undermine climate change science in the federal government, once orchestrated largely by President Trump’s political appointees, are now increasingly driven by midlevel managers trying to protect their jobs and budgets and wary of the scrutiny of senior officials, according to interviews and newly revealed reports and surveys.

A case in point: When John Crusius, a research chemist at the United States Geological Survey, published an academic paper on natural solutions to climate change in April, his government affiliation never appeared on it. It couldn’t.

Publication of his study, after a month’s delay, was conditioned by his employer on Dr. Crusius not associating his research with the federal government.

“There is no doubt in my mind that my paper was denied government approval because it had to do with efforts to mitigate climate change,” Dr. Crusius said, making clear he also was speaking in his personal capacity because the agency required him to so. “If I were a seismologist and had written an analogous paper about reducing seismic risk, I’m sure the paper would have sailed through.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/climate/climate-science-trump.html

[Miguelito Loveless]

1. The are efforst not only to block research

but threaten, attack, and discredit researchers and green energy advocates.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/11/exxon-hack-for-hire-climate-activists-campaign

Hack-for-hire group targeted climate activists behind #ExxonKnew campaign
The Guardian

A global hack-for-hire group extensively targeted American activists campaigning against ExxonMobil for withholding information about the climate crisis, according to a new report.

The hackers, dubbed “Dark Basin”, went after thousands of individuals and hundreds of institutions on six continents, including advocacy organizations, journalists, elected officials and businesses, said the Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based digital espionage research group.