[Yahoo.com/finance] Good news: NASA's administrator nominee is fine with studying climate change! Just not Earth's climate change. In answers to a Senate questionnaire, Rep. Jim Bridenstine says it's important to understand why Mars changed so dramatically, losing its magnetic field and oceans to become the barren world it is today. If we know more about the Red Planet, he argues, we could "inform our understanding of Earth." There's a degree of truth to this, but history and Bridenstine's actions suggest it could be about diverting attention away from climate change issues on our homeworld.As Scientific American
| ...when I was a child, SA was a reputable general science journal, suitable for scientists wanting to keep track of major developments in fields other than their own. But it's been a long time since I was a child... |
That's not helped by Bridenstine's own history. When he was a new politician, he asked President Obama to apologize for allegedly wasting money on climate research. He blamed the Sun for climate shifts and falsely claimed that temperatures had stopped rising. As recently as the start of 2017, Bridenstine had floated the idea of removing Earth science from NASA's scope and assigning it to another agency -- as if Earth science isn't inherently connected to NASA's studies.
There are signs that he may be changing his mind, if slightly. He writes in the questionnaire that NASA should still "advance both Earth science and planetary science," and that it's not right when these camps have to battle each other to get funding. The question is whether or not Bridenstine will let NASA study the full range of Earth science if he's approved in the coming weeks. Given his past and a White House that bristles at the mere mention of climate change, it won't be surprising if he's hesitant to support any science that contradicts the administration's agenda.