The Trump administration has appointed a critic of mainstream climate science to oversee the federal government’s flagship report on how climate change affects the United States.
Matthew M. Wielicki is a former geochemist at the University of Alabama with no formal training in climate science. On social media and podcasts, he frequently argues that the mainstream scientific view on climate change is too dire and overlooks the positive effects of a warming planet.
Now Dr. Wielicki is leading the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which compiles the National Climate Assessment, a sweeping report required by Congress that details the effects of rising temperatures in every region of the country. Policymakers, communities and industries use it to plan for the future.
The report is typically published every few years. But last spring, the administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts who had been working on the next update.
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President Trump has called climate change a “hoax,” and his administration has dismantled climate initiatives across the federal government.
