From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by host Steve Curwood with former NASA chief scientist Waleed Abdalati.
The federally funded National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, in Boulder, Colorado, has assessed the risks and possible responses to the changing climate for decades.
But in November, the Trump administration declared it was dismantling NCAR, citing its contribution to what the administration calls “climate alarmism.”
Now, NCAR’s parent organization is suing the Trump government, claiming it is “waging a campaign of retaliation against the State of Colorado” by trying to scuttle NCAR after Colorado’s governor refused to pardon an official convicted of election interference on President Donald Trump’s behalf.
With NCAR scientists muzzled, we spoke with Waleed Abdalati, a former NASA chief scientist who is now a professor and the director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, to discuss the potential implications of eliminating the center.
