Health Trotter

February 10, 2021 at 07:57PM Before former U.S. President Donald Trump incited a hostile insurrection against the Capitol, he’d already smashed wrecking balls through the ranks of government agencies. Among the many casualties was the truth about climate science, which NASA was routinely prevented from sharing with the public that supports it. I was the senior science editor for NASA’s Global Climate Change website and witnessed the impact of science suppression firsthand. I’d been at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), one of 10 NASA centers, for a decade when, three weeks into the Trump Administration, on Feb. 16, 2017, the Washington Post published an article noting that while the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Park Service were shutting down climate communication, NASA was still writing about climate change. The Post piece shared links to my most recent NASA blog post about the rapid increase of ice-mass loss in Greenland, plus my @NASAClim...

February 10, 2021 at 06:03AM Just because the United States has re-joined the Paris Agreement doesn’t mean that the world is on a path to a better climate future. The 2015 agreement, in which signatories pledged to collectively cap global warming at “well below” 2°C above pre-industrial levels, is only the first step. Member nations still have to adopt ambitious carbon emission reduction plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and with the current level of commitments the world is on track for a global temperature rise of more than 2.5°C . However, a study published in a special issue of The Lancet Planetary Health journal may prove to be just the carrot for encouraging reluctant governments to pick up the pace on reducing emissions. New research from The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change shows that millions of lives could be saved annually by 2040 if countries raise their climate ambitions to meet the Paris Agreement targets. By adopting Pa...