Trump’s Budget Slashes Climate Change Funding

Over at NASA, the Trump administration wants the space agency to push funds away from researching climate, while the Trump budget also calls for zeroing out funding for climate change programs through the United Nations.

Under the proposal, the Earth science division would take a $102 million cut compared to what it received in 2017.

A couple of days before the president unveiled his budget outline, the Planetary Society, a foundation dedicated to promoting space exploration, released a video letter from CEO and “Science Guy” Bill Nye with five recommendations on space for the president.

The Trump budget also targets environmental science and climate change research.

The budget proposal states that the cuts to foreign aid “free up funding for critical priorities here at home”.

Trump previously stated in speeches he wants to push human exploration, but this budget is largely in line with past levels of spending on manned programs. ‘We consider that to be a waste of your money’.

The White House announced this Thursday its annual fiscal budget proposal and some of NASA’s projects might be at risk if Congress finally approves it.

In keeping with Trump’s pledge to defund U.N. climate change programs, also in the crosshairs is the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), whose Paris climate agreement in 2015 was touted as a major policy success by the Obama administration and especially then-Secretary of State John Kerry.

The budget cut for NASA is not that bad, considering that other non-defense programs were propsed to have larger cuts.

And most importantly, remember: This all is going to have to pass through Congress.

It’s a relatively small budget cut – though it’s unclear how much would be saved – in a proposal to trim billions of dollars from many agencies, but Trump’s desire to cancel this one specific part of a mission speaks volumes. Two have at least some implications for Goddard, a 58-year-old Greenbelt, Md., institution that employs some 10,000 civil servants and contractors. In fact, it was the space agency’s second cheapest ongoing earth sciences program. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW) saying the payment to what he called a “slush fund” was “an insult to American taxpayers”.

Trump’s full 2018 budget is expected to be released next month, and it will include more details, such as NSF funding.

Monitoring the state of Earth’s oceans is crucial for understanding how the planet responds to climate change.

The satellite works by tracking the brightness of sunlight reflected off Earth’s surface, looking specifically at infrared wavelengths that oxygen and carbon dioxide absorb.

To accomplish that goal, the administration proposes slashing the appropriation for the State Department and USAID by $10 billion or roughly 28 percent and cutting Treasury International Programs by nearly a billion dollars, almost a 35 percent drop from previous year.

Congress would be wise to build on what Trump has proposed, and make sure the space program is part of any infrastructure plan they might pass at the president’s initiative.

DSCOVR’s cameras are meant to monitor changes in earth’s climate and weather patterns, from ozone and aerosols to temperature and deforestation.

Here are the four missions that the proposed budget eliminates, and why they matter.

NASA performs analysis and processing of data coming down from the earth instruments.

The 62-page document covers fiscal year 2018, which begins on October 1.

It is not clear how many jobs are associated with either project. The change in funding priorities would include a cut in Earth science programs, but support for a mission to study Jupiter’s icy moon Europa, elimination of education programs, but more resources to improve cybersecurity of the space program.

PACE, OCO-3 and CLARREO are all scheduled to launch in the next few years.

“Overall science funding is stable, although some missions in development will not go forward and others will see increases”, NASA acting Administrator Robert Lightfoot said in a statement.