{"id":67549,"date":"2017-05-30T20:03:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T02:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/meet-jane-a-climate-scientist-who-fled-the-government\/"},"modified":"2017-05-31T02:03:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T02:03:41","slug":"meet-jane-a-climate-scientist-who-fled-the-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/meet-jane-a-climate-scientist-who-fled-the-government\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Jane, a climate scientist who fled the government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Representatives
Representatives of a new activist group, created after President Donald Trump\u2019s election, participate in the March for Science in Washington, D.C., on Earth Day. The group, 500 Women Scientists, co-founded by Jane Zelikova (blue scarf in the center) has gathered nearly 20,000 signatures from women scientists, calling for scientific integrity in government policy as well as inclusivity and diversity in science.<\/span>Sophia Roberts<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The day after President Donald Trump\u2019s unexpected victory, Jane Zelikova was \u201ccrying her eyes out\u201d in her office at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. As a scientist researching how big fossil-fuel industries can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she feared that her work would be stymied because of the new president\u2019s skepticism about climate change. As a Jewish refugee who came to the United States as a teen, she felt threatened by Trump\u2019s anti-immigrant rhetoric during the campaign. The election also created a rift in her family: Her father voted for Trump; her mother sat out the election. \u201cEvery part of me that I identify with felt fear and anger combined into outrage,\u201d Zelikova said.<\/p>\n

She texted furiously with three close friends \u2014 other women scientists she had known since they went to graduate school at the University of Colorado, Boulder. At first, they simply shared their alarm. But by the second day, they wondered what they could do about it. \u201cWe moved into an email thread and added women scientists we knew,\u201d Zelikova recalled. \u201cIt grew very quickly \u2014 from five people to 20 to 50 to 100 \u2014 within a matter of a couple of days.\u201d<\/p>\n

They drafted an open letter from women scientists. \u201cWe fear that the scientific progress and momentum in tackling our biggest challenges, including staving off the worst impacts of climate change, will be severely hindered under this next U.S. administration,\u201d they wrote. The letter rejects the \u201chateful rhetoric\u201d of the campaign and commits to overcoming discrimination against women and minorities in science. Then they built a website and gathered signatures. Thousands signed on, and a new activist group was born: 500 Women Scientists.<\/p>\n

Zelikova\u2019s experience mirrors a broader phenomenon. Many scientists felt threatened enough by Trump\u2019s victory to abandon their usual detached objectivity. They wrote members of Congress to defend science funding and scientific advisory panels and used their knowledge of government research to protect data they feared could be erased from websites. They set up alternative Twitter sites for government agencies and planned and participated in protests. \u201cThe election mobilized scientists in a way we\u2019ve never seen before,\u201d said Gretchen Goldman, who leads research on science in public policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an activist group. \u201cI\u2019ve personally been blown away by the scientists who want to be engaged in a new way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously, Zelikova, a 39-year-old Ph. D. soil ecologist, had envisioned a future as a research scientist, working in academia or in government. But Trump\u2019s election, she said, is changing her in ways she never could have imagined. Her whirlwind metamorphosis provides a glimpse into just how disruptive the last six months have been for some in federal government. Zelikova \u2014 who is intense, articulate and has an engaging smile \u2014 doesn\u2019t have a permanent federal job. She took a leave from the University of Wyoming, where she\u2019s a research scientist, for a two-year fellowship at the Energy Department. She had less to lose than career civil servants with mortgages and government pensions, so she felt freer to speak out.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has proposed deep staff and budget cuts for the Energy Department, Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies whose mission involves safeguarding the environment. Many federal workers committed to protecting the environment share Zelikova\u2019s angst but won\u2019t say so publicly for fear of retribution.<\/p>\n

For weeks after the election, Zelikova barely slept, working late into the night on her new group. \u201cI am a Jewish, refugee, immigrant, woman scientist. At some level, this felt really personally offensive to me, and like an attack on all the parts of me that make me a complete human,\u201d Zelikova recalled. She had always been skeptical of political protests. She grew up in Eastern Ukraine, where Communist leaders used to orchestrate demonstrations in the 1980s. But Trump\u2019s election moved her to join protests. Her first was the Women\u2019s March the day after the Inauguration in Washington, D.C. After that, she frequently joined demonstrations, protesting Trump\u2019s travel ban and the Dakota Access Pipeline.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, things were changing in Zelikova\u2019s day job at the Department of Energy. In early December, Trump\u2019s transition team sent out a questionnaire that attempted to identify employees who worked on climate change. Staffers feared the new administration would target people who had worked on former President Barack Obama\u2019s climate change agenda. The day after the inauguration, with the Obama team gone, Zelikova attended a staff meeting at which, she said, only white men talked. \u201cThe backslide was immediate,\u201d she said. Trump\u2019s budget proposal, which came out in March, slashed funding for science and research. The morale at the agency was low and dropping.<\/p>\n

Still, Zelikova kept working on her research. She was part of a team responding to Montana Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock\u2019s request that the Energy Department analyze options for keeping the state\u2019s largest coal-fired power plant, Colstrip, in business. Zelikova\u2019s team came up with scenarios for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent or more by installing equipment to capture carbon dioxide emissions.<\/p>\n

Capturing carbon takes a lot of energy, however. So Zelikova went to Colstrip last fall to talk about using renewable energy \u2014 wind or solar \u2014 to power the carbon-capture process and thereby cut emissions even further. \u201cWouldn\u2019t it be cool if instead of sucking that parasitic load off the plant, you powered it with renewable energy?\u201d she said. She thinks the idea holds great promise for other fossil-fuel plants. \u201cWe went to national labs and universities, and we talked to people about how do we make this happen,\u201d Zelikova said. \u201cAnd then the election happened, and it felt like this isn\u2019t going to happen.\u201d Trump is determined to eliminate Obama\u2019s Clean Power Plan, removing a major incentive for plants like Colstrip to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. His budget proposal recommends slashing funding for the Energy Department\u2019s renewable energy and fossil fuel research programs. \u201cI\u2019m seeing all that work become really threatened,\u201d Zelikova said. \u201cIt feels like betrayal, because I got so personally invested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her boss at the time, David Mohler, recalls her reaction: \u201cShe was distraught clearly and for understandable reasons; the Trump team is really not appreciative of science, and certainly they don\u2019t believe in climate science.\u201d Before becoming deputy assistant secretary of the Office of Clean Coal and Carbon Management, Mohler was chief technology officer for the country\u2019s biggest electric utility, Duke Energy. Trump will probably slow reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Mohler says. But even Trump can\u2019t stop progress on climate change: Utilities won\u2019t reopen closed coal-fired power plants, and low-priced natural gas will keep replacing coal. And Mohler believes that wind and solar will continue to expand because of declining costs, state mandates and tax incentives, which have bipartisan support in Congress.<\/p>\n

Mohler, an Obama appointee, left government on Jan. 20, and moved back to South Carolina. Zelikova started thinking about leaving Washington, too. \u201cResistance as daily existence was starting to diminish my ability to function,\u201d Zelikova recalled. She talked her supervisor into letting her move to Colorado in February for the rest of her fellowship. She continued to work for the Energy Department at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden. In her spare time, she kept building 500 Women Scientists. The group grew quickly, spawning nearly 150 local branches around the globe in just a few months.<\/p>\n

One branch was founded in Seattle by Sarah Myhre, a 34-year-old climate change scientist at the University of Washington\u2019s Department of Atmospheric Sciences. The group gave Myhre the courage to stand up to a prominent professor, Cliff Mass, from her own department.<\/p>\n

In January, at a state legislative committee hearing, Myhre criticized Mass for stressing uncertainties about how much human-caused climate change is affecting wildfires and ocean acidification in the Pacific Northwest. Myhre described Mass as an \u201coutlier\u201d in the department whose views did not represent the broad scientific consensus. In online comments to a Seattle Times opinion piece Myhre wrote in February with Zelikova and another woman scientist, Mass called them \u201cthree idealistic young scientists (none of them really are climate scientists, by the way).\u201d When Myhre traveled to Washington, D.C., at the end of April for the People\u2019s Climate March, one of the women she marched with carried a sign that read: \u201cIdealistic Young Real Scientists.\u201d<\/p>\n

A week earlier, on Earth Day, Zelikova joined other members of 500 Women Scientists for the March for Science in Washington, D.C., waiting for hours in a chilly rain to get through security screening for the rally at the Washington National Monument. Shivering in her watermelon-red ski shell, Zelikova reflected on the ways her life would be different if Trump had not been elected. \u201cI would have never founded a big group \u2014 ever,\u201d she said. \u201cI would have never been a loud advocate for things. I would have never protested. These are now the hugest part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of May, Zelikova quit her fellowship at the Energy Department. In July, she will start a new job for a tiny nonprofit called the Center for Carbon Removal, based in Berkeley, California. She hopes to help states move forward on capturing carbon from fossil fuel plants. \u201cWestern states are perfectly poised to lead on climate action,\u201d she said. \u201cIn terms of federal action, there\u2019s going to be very little, so we need to work with states, so that when the political climate changes and there can be federal action, we can be ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article was first published on HCN.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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