White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

I grew up in Colorado, and a visit to NCAR was part of my elementary school education. I think it is so critically important to not only employ working scientists, but also share that science with the public. The republican machine vehemently disagrees, I guess. I deeply wish the democrats had run a better campaign in 2024.

This fits a consistent trend:

Unless Congress explicitly mandates something by law, they should expect an administration to unilaterally dismantle it. Congress delegated authority assuming it’s used in good faith and courts+executive have called Congress’s bluff.

In this case it’s a facility created by NSF, but Congress doesn’t explicitly say this HAS to exist. Therefore it won’t exist any longer.

This is just an attempt by one political party to censor climate research. The hope is, if there is no research being done, then there will be no pressure to do anything about it. This is similar to the COVID mentality of, "stop the testing." If you don't test for COVID, the numbers don't get worse.

However, as someone who has worked at NCAR for many years, I can tell you that the place is a mess. The Table Mesa facility is mostly devoid of employees, with entire floors of offices left in a state of dark decay. Most of the vehicles in the parking lot are people hiking the trails, and days of yucky weather will reveal at most a couple dozen cars in the parking lot, mainly maintenance people. Elementary school groups continue to show up for tours, but the scientists and technical staff have moved to other buildings in town, specifically the Center Green and Foothills Lab clusters.

NCAR has become a mere shadow of its former self, with > 30% of its funding being absorbed by the Directorate and President's offices, with some executive salaries exceeding half a million dollars (not bad for a non-profit). The younger talent have fled, from the engineers up to the upper management, and what remains are aged-out scientists just waiting for retirement. Internal surveys, which seem to be sent out almost weekly, tend to show very low confidence in the leadership. It's a tanker running on inertia, and breaking it up and selling it off may be the best thing for it.

>A month earlier, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), had said the White House would “break up” NCAR, citing its role in “climate alarmism.”

This is absolutely the biggest pain of today's politics. You can't argue with their dogma even when it agains literally all the facts. Needless to say, both parties are doing it. Just a little bit differently.

> NCAR’s climate research may not be the only thing driving the White House attack. It is widely believed to also be part of a campaign of political retribution waged against Colorado for its conviction and imprisonment of Tina Peters, a former county clerk who breached election security systems in a scheme to find proof of fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The state has included the attack on NCAR in a lawsuit against the Trump administration.

Federal policy by wounded ego is still wounded ego.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again

--

It's going to take a lot of glue to try to put the United States together again. Breaking things is easy, and the Trump administration absolutely excels at it. The White House, some buildings (some occupied) in Iran, the economy, the cohesion in so far as there still was any left in the country, the scientific community and the reputation of the United States as a dependable ally.

But once broken they are not so easily restored.

Fascism, plain and simple. This is caving to corporate interests at the expense of the public.

What beloved right wing institutions can be destroyed once democracy is restored?

A NASCAR track somewhere? A ban on country music? Wearing the red cap? Wife-beater shirts? Diesel pickups with emission controls removed?

For some it's more iconic than for others.

Boulder is not a town you generally want to upset, I would expect this to have an outsized inverse impact compared to what the White House expects over the long term.