American Geophysical Union

The ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency, the selection of his cabinet and senior advisers, and the actions of the GOP-dominated legislative branch have all raised new serious questions and concerns about the role of science, research, and analysis in national law and policy. These concerns have been worsened by elements of the new administration’s proposed budget that severely cut or eliminate core federal science efforts, Congressional hearings and actions that have been perceived to promote ideological viewpoints over scientific findings, presidential executive orders that attempt…
This afternoon, as I was busy working with graduate students and my daughter was napping at daycare, an email from AGU reminded me to renew my membership for next year. AGU is one of my two main societies and early renewal gives you a discount on electronic access to their articles, so I dutifully headed over to their site to pay up. Like all good organizations, before they'd let me pay their dues, AGU wanted to know if I would give a gift to one fund or another. Maybe I was feeling in a generous mood because I'd just come off good meetings with my grads, but I decided to browse the list of…