Last month, Retelle joined Professor of Geology Beverly Johnson<\/a>, Associate Professor of History Joseph Hall<\/a>, and Professor of Physics John Smedley<\/a> for a current-events discussion in Pettengill Hall, and he described the travails of climate researchers such as Jim Hansen.<\/p>\n The former NASA scientist sounded the alarm about global warming in U.S. Senate testimony back in the 1980s, then faced intense backlash from politicians and the public. (Hansen has been arrested multiple times during environmental protests.) <\/span><\/p>\n At the Bates College Coastal Center in 2015, Professor of Geology Mike Retelle, Ian Hillenbrand ’17, and Nicole Cueli ’16 review time-lapse photography of erosion at Popham Beach. (Josh Kuckens\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Climatologists Michael Mann, Malcolm Hughes, and Raymond Bradley \u2014 the latter was Retelle\u2019s doctoral thesis adviser at the University of Massachusetts \u2014 faced similar opposition after publishing evidence for the \u201chockey stick,\u201d a charting of global average temperature that shows a dramatic rise after 1850. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey had their jobs threatened,\u201d said Retelle, whose research looks at climate-change records preserved in arctic lake sediments. \u201cThey had their lives threatened numerous times. That continues to this day, the harassment of these three.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n In a discussion moderated by Lynne Lewis<\/a>, Elmer Campbell Professor of Economics, Retelle and his colleagues offered a range of perspectives on federal government hostility to \u2014 or outright censorship of \u2014 the science that points to global warming and the people who study the phenomenon. <\/span><\/p>\n The recent spike in attempts to silence climate scientists has been well-reported.<\/span><\/p>\n In January, resources related to climate change started <\/span>disappearing<\/span><\/a> from the Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s website. <\/span><\/p>\n In late October, the EPA <\/span>canceled<\/a> the presentations<\/span> of three of its scientists, who were set to talk about climate change at a conference in Rhode Island. <\/span><\/p>\n An expert in how coastal wetlands capture and store carbon dioxide, Professor of Geology Beverly Johnson speaks with faculty colleagues Tom Tracy (right) and Jane Costlow (left) during a climate-change discussion on campus in October 2015. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n Johnson knows two of the three EPA scientists whose presentations were canceled. They\u2019d been slated to speak about the impacts of climate change on the Narragansett Bay and its watersheds, and the order stopping them came from the office of\u00a0Deputy Associate Administrator for Public Affairs John Konkus, a former Trump campaign staffer who now reviews all the grants the EPA awards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Johnson, an expert in how coastal wetlands capture and store carbon dioxide<\/a>, said the intervention amounted to silencing. Worse, it could erode trust in scientists.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere is definitely a feeling [among scientists] that there is quite a bit of censorship going on,\u201d she said. <\/span><\/p>\n Congress sometimes hears about climate change from non-specialists in climate science, Retelle said. In 2005, for example, novelist Michael Crichton, whose book <\/span>State of Fear <\/span><\/i>is about eco-terrorists\u2019 efforts to exaggerate the dangers of global warming, <\/span>testified<\/span><\/a> before the U.S. Senate. <\/span><\/p>\n The un- or under-qualified can make their way into the government, too, said John Smedley, who has taught courses on energy and the environment and has been active for years in campus sustainability issues.\u00a0<\/span>One example is Kyle Yunaska, the brother-in-law of Eric Trump, who, without a background in energy policy, is chief of staff of the <\/span>Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPeople are being appointed to important positions who don\u2019t have the strong scientific backgrounds that are normally associated with such positions,\u201d Smedley said. <\/span><\/p>\n One politician close to Bates\u2019 heart, Hall said, also lacked a background in science \u2014 but he made it his business to learn about the environment, to great public benefit. <\/span><\/p>\n Entering the U.S. Senate in 1959, Edmund Muskie \u201936 was placed on a subcommittee on air and water pollution. Though he wasn\u2019t an environmentalist at the time, he educated himself and the public about the dangers of pollution, leading to landmark environmental legislation in the 1960s and \u201970s.<\/p>\n Associate Professor of History Joseph Hall points out that politicians like U.S. Sen. Edmund Muskie ’36 worked to acquire scientific knowledge, not to suppress it. (Jay Burns\/Bates College)<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cHe was able to develop enough expertise in pollution control so that when industry advocates said, \u2018This is too complicated,\u2019 he had answers,\u201d Hall said. \u201cHis comments convinced his Senate colleagues that the solutions he proposed were legitimate.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n After the professors spoke, audience comments could be boiled down to a few central issues: how to convince, how to educate, and how to advocate for environmental protection and scientists\u2019 freedom of speech. <\/span><\/p>\n Peggy Rotundo, director of strategic and policy initiatives at the Harward Center and a former state legislator, told students to do something \u2014 write a letter to the editor, organize a district meeting, or get in touch with a congressperson. In fact, a representative of U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, attending with Rotundo, rose to offer strategies for contacting representatives.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere are all sorts of possibilities, and I think it\u2019s important for each of us to commit ourselves to taking some kind of action,\u201d Rotundo said. \u201cWe have to stay motivated. We can\u2019t just sit back and say this is beyond us. We all have to act in some way.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Because the reality of climate change, in the end, is irrefutable. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that\u2019s really important to recognize, in light of all that we\u2019re talking about today, is just how powerful knowledge is,\u201d Hall said. \u201cThe fact that the Trump administration is so diligently silencing experts suggests just that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2017\/11\/150813_BMMC_Short_Ridge_Retelle-0073-copy-900x600.jpg\")
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