Trump administration slashes away at science, but scientists are pushing back

My father had one good idea.

Okay, that is unfair. He had many good ideas. Marrying my mom, for starters. He also held patents in the design of compact nuclear reactors.

In fact, those two good ideas might be related — there was a shakedown cruise of an atomic-powered submarine that my father, a naval reservist, was keen to avoid. Married men were exempt. Perhaps it's cynical of me to connect them.

But he also had one really good idea that resonated around the world and has an impact today.

My father's really good idea occurred to him in the early 1970s. The 747 Jumbo Jet had been introduced, to endless publicity — the spiral staircase leading to the lounge in the bulging upper deck hump, the enormous capacity, 400 passengers, making long haul air travel economical for millions. And — what my father noticed — radar systems and other instruments that monitored atmospheric conditions around the plane. A constant stream of data.

You know ... Robert Steinberg thought ...what if that weather data wasn't just used to fly the plane? What if it was sent to a central location? And then used ... to predict the weather?

It would be a big improvement over weather stations — scattered mountaintop outposts, with thermometers and spinning anemometers and such. Plus weather balloons, instrument packages floated high into the upper atmosphere for expensive keyhole glimpses.

He wrote an article titled, "Role of Commercial Aircraft in Global Monitoring Systems," that ran in the April 27, 1973 issue of Science.

"The new family of wide-bodied jets such as the 747, DC-10, and L-1011 aircraft can be used to supply important global atmospheric and tropical meteorological data for which there is a pressing need," my father wrote. "In the final analysis, commercial aircraft may offer the most inexpensive way to monitor our atmosphere in the near future."

By summer, NASA loaned him out to NCAR — the National Center for Atmospheric Research — in Boulder, Colorado. NCAR was in a stunning, I.M. Pei-designed building of reddish concrete. Boulder was nice. Mountains. He traveled the world, signing up airlines. The idea took hold.

"Aircraft-based observations play a big role in the accuracy of weather forecasts — reducing forecast errors in numerical weather prediction systems by up to 10%" according to the World Meterological Association.

This is a long way of saying that, in an era of constant shocks to American science — 25,000 federal researchers and support staff left the government this past year, thousands of grants slashed, agencies shuttered, scientific data yanked off line, the U.S. scientific establishment being "systematically destroyed" in the words of the Union of Concerned Scientists, NCAR being scuttled stood out as personal.

And political. NCAR is being closed down by the Trump administration for the sin of "climate alarmism." Because atmospheric research points to uncomfortable facts that business and its handmaiden, government, don't want to think about anymore.

We should be clear why all of this is happening. Business makes money, but if it has to, oh, consider pollution, or worry about the purity of food or the efficacy of drugs, it makes less money. So watchdog agencies, and research facilities and university centers that would counterbalance the whims of business are being scrapped.

Scientists are not going quietly.

"Our group in Chicago has grown, hosting teach-ins, talks at public libraries, and community events around the city," said Anna Vlasits, a University of Illinois Chicago neurobiologist who last year helped organize the city's “Stand Up for Science” rally on Federal Plaza.

"Science is important." she said. "It brings us knowledge. We need government to be involved, to support scientific research and training in this country."

How has the past year been?

"It feels a little bit like playing Whac-a-Mole — so much is going on that's not good," she said. "Young scientists being turned away from the United States is profoundly bad and alarming. The U.S. is a powerhouse training scientists, globally, and now we're losing people who are concerned about being an immigrant, or worried about whether their work will be funded."

I wondered whether she knew about NCAR, or whether it was a private heartbreak. She did.

"The supercomputer at NCAR being privatized," said Vlasits. "They're generally taking the whole center apart. A lot of climate data is now owned by companies, so they can take advantage of knowing what's happening with global climate in a way individuals can't."

The next "Stand Up for Science" rally will be Saturday, March 7 at 1 p.m. on Federal Plaza. I was at last year's rally, a cold, blustery, wet day, and hoped the weather wouldn't be as bad this time.

"I hope not," she said. "It's hard to say. Maybe we won't know if we're not monitoring the weather anymore."