A NASA climate laboratory once vital perched above the Tom’s restaurant in Manhattan will stop at the end of May, moving scientists and reflecting the efforts of the Trump administration to dismantle federal climate research.
Oliver Milman reports for The goalkeeper.
In short:
- The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the best NASA climate monitoring laboratory located above the restaurant made famous by Seinfeldwill end after almost 60 years due to an executive decree examining the federal leases.
- About 130 scientists are forced to work remotely without a clear plan for resettlement, because the administration seeks to reduce the financing of the earth sciences of NASA by 50%.
- Despite the modest building lease of the building and the recent renovations of several million dollars, the closure seems more motivated by the ideology than the guarantee of costs and the concern causing the former scientists of the GISS.
Key quote:
“They try to kill the messenger with bad news, it’s crazy.”
– Dr. James Hansen, former director of Giss
Why this counts:
Climate science does not occur in a vacuum – it needs infrastructure, continuity and institutional support. Giss played an essential role in the formation of our understanding of global warming, of the construction of the first climate models to the documentation of the acceleration pace of planetary heating. Its closure threatens not only a symbolic center of climate research, but the very mechanisms by which we monitor and respond to environmental change. The closing this laboratory sends a message that scientific expertise, in particular in politically sensitive areas like the climate, can be sidelined. The closure of the laboratory does not occur in isolation – it echoes a wider diagram of devalue federal scienceFrom vaccines research to weather forecasts.