Stasi: After hurricane, Trump taps climate change denier for NASA

President Trump passes out food and meets people affected by Hurricane Harvey during a visit Saturday to the NRG Center in Houston, Texas. (SUSAN WALSH/AP)



Dear Donald,
Hurricane Harvey could be your defining moment; the moment that changes your presidency from the chaotic mess of threats, bitterness and bilious paranoia to one of rationality and reasonableness.
You, sir, could be the President that saves the planet.
There is no denying that our weather is getting more severe, that the oceans are rising, the Arctic ice is melting and hurricanes are wreaking ever-more havoc each time one pummels another part of the country.
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Harvey has officially brought the most destructive rainfall in our nation’s history — more than 51 inches in some areas of Houston. As many as 42,399 humans are in shelters. Sure they can rebuild, but we’ve seen the horror first hand before. Rebuilding takes decades and sometimes it never happens, despite the fancy talk.
Yet in the face of all this, you, Mr. President, have chosen to nominate a climate change-denying partisan politician, Republican Rep. Jim Bridenstine, to head NASA. How can you even think of such a man to head the most important nonpartisan science, space and aeronautical research and development agency in the country? No, make that the world.
As this planet heats up, we have to look to space. That won’t be done if the man heading NASA denies the science and looks down on the truth of what’s happening in our atmosphere. Scientists are in agreement that while climate change might not have caused Harvey, Katrina, Sandy, and other natural disasters, warmer air does hold more moisture and thus has a much greater capacity to make weather events much worse. Harvey, for example, is now being called an unprecedented natural disaster.
How then can you even think about nominating Bridenstine? Being a former Navy pilot doesn’t make him an astronaut anymore than having once served as director of Tulsa’s Air and Space Museum makes him an expert on space, no matter how many papers he’s written.
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This is a guy who demanded that President Obama apologize for funding climate change research! He doesn’t believe in climatic research yet he wants to head the agency that sent humans to the moon and will one day send us to Mars due to advances in technological and atmospheric research?