TROUBLE WITH SCIENCE

Trump Presidency Causing ‘Fear and Anxiety’ at NASA, Ex-Employee Says

“Nasa’s talking point is that it’s business as usual, but that’s not true,” Laura Tenenbaum said.

A former science communicator at NASA claims that the agency has been operating in a state of “fear and anxiety” because of the Trump administration’s positions on climate change, according to The Guardian. Laura Tenenbaum said that social-media posts were put through an “arduous review process,” and blog posts meant to educate the public about climate issues were halted or scrapped entirely. “I was told verbally by media relations it was because with Trump as president, climate change is now a sensitive subject,” she told the newspaper. “There was confusion about what to do now we have a president who doesn’t believe in climate change. Everyone was scrambling. It was chaos.” While NASA Communications said they have not received any directives from the administration about how to communicate climate-change research, the agency’s social-media pages and blogs dedicated to climate change have undergone a notable drop in content output and engagement. An agency spokesperson told the newspaper that the drop in climate change blog posts was simply due to “personnel availability and other factors including mission activities[.]”