Scientists Frantically Copying Critical Climate Data as Energy Dept. Refuses to Release Names

The Department of Energy has refused to respond to the Trump transition team's chilling 74-question document seeking the names of anyone who has worked on climate change in the department. Climate scientists are also acting feverishly to preserve data after a senior Trump campaign adviser suggested eliminating all funding for NASA's climate research programs.

Scientists are rushing to copy decades of critical climate information that could be altered or destroyed under a hostile Trump Administration.
Two university professors are calling for a hackathon in collaboration with the Internet Archive's End of Term 2016 project, which will archive federal online pages and data that they fear could disappear after Jan. 20, 2017. Separately, the ad-hoc Climate Mirror project seeks to store key datasets and keep them publicly available.
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"We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," Energy Department spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said in an email to The Washington Post.

"We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team."

The gravest danger to these federal employees may be that they will lose their jobs in an anti-climate purge. "Rather than keep people on the payroll under instructions not to fulfill their position descriptions, it's likely that such positions would be declared surplus," PEER's executive director, Jeff Ruch, told Sierra.

On Nov. 30, more than 2,300 scientists published an open letter to Trump urging him to allow them to "conduct their work without political or private-sector interference." And, a Dec. 6 letter from 800 Earth scientists, also to the president-elect, stated:

"You have the support of the majority of companies, military leaders, scientists, engineers, and citizens to respond to the threats posed by climate change by reducing carbon pollution and expanding clean energy. Many of America's largest cities and states are already committed to doing so. We urge you to decide if you want your Presidency to be defined by denial and disaster, or acceptance and action."
(From Dan Zukowski, ecowatch.com, 12/12/16)