"former Energy Department employees and presidential transition officials said that while it is normal for presidential transition teams to ask policy questions, it is highly unusual to send out questionnaires. The requests for lists of specific employees involved in shaping climate policy is irregular and alarming, they said, given that on the campaign trail Mr. Trump clearly showed his skepticism of climate change science and his hostility to climate change policy...
Max Stier, an expert on presidential transitions and the president of Partnership for Public Service, a research organization, said: “The new president will come in with new policies that he’ll pursue, but that’s different from identifying civil servants who are responsible for following through on policies set by the previous political leadership. And they’re not going to be effective without working well with the career team.”"
I'm trying to hold myself back and stay skeptical of anything that might just be alarmist, we're going to be SUPER sensitive to any of that and the to conspiracy theories, because we believe the worst at the outset.
I could see how maybe a few questions could have been taken out of context, how maybe this questionnaire would be a typical and useful thing. But evidently it is not typical, and in the context of the nascent Trump Administration's other actions, this concerns me.
There are many reasons why the Trump presidency should be a call to arms for scientists to be more present on the public stage, to brush away the old ideas of our purity in our ivory towers and recognize that we are as embedded in society as anyone else. And we have responsibilities to our work.
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