The Trump Administration has quietly revived the U.S. Global Change Research Program, appointing Matthew Wielicki to lead the federal body, according to a Politico report. Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile,” routinely attacks climate science on social media.
In this new role, he will oversee the drafting of the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report detailing how climate change impacts U.S. infrastructure and the economy.
Dave White, ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation Director, joined us to discuss the program’s revival.
White detailed the program’s origin and how it’s designed to operate.
“The U.S. global change research program was created in 1990 by an act of Congress signed by President George H.W. Bush. And that program is responsible for coordinating across 15 federal agencies to ensure that those agencies cooperate to produce every four years an assessment of the effects of global change on the U.S., including on the U.S.’s economy and its environment,” White said.
White explained why he is upset Wielicki’s appointment.
“This is a really unfortunate appointment and one that reflects an ongoing trend in the Trump administration to attempt to undermine the credibility, the reliability and the validity of climate science produced and supported by the federal government. The new appointment of Professor Wielicki to lead the global change research program, unfortunately, is a continuation of a politicization of this agency,” White said.
White expressed doubt in Wielicki’s qualifications for the role.
“The new director of USGCRP has no significant publication or scientific credentials in climate science. He was an unsuccessful academic, was not able to earn tenure at the University of Alabama and has fashioned himself somewhat as a maverick outsider. Which, in my estimation, is actually a cover up for simply not having credentials that he would require to run such an important agency,” White said.
