American Scientists Eagerly Awaiting The End Of The Age Of Orange Stupid

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (Reuters) - From his lab in Toulouse, France, Benjamin Sanderson models the range of extreme risks to humans from climate change, research he hopes can inform policymakers planning for worsening wildfires and floods. It is the kind of work he once performed in the United States - and hopes to again soon.

Sanderson is among dozens of U.S.-based climate scientists who shifted their research to France, or sought refuge in academia or in left-leaning states like California after Republican Donald Trump was elected in 2016. They worried his administration’s distrust of science would impact their ability to finance and advance their work. Now, with the presidential election looming - and Democrat Joe Biden ahead in the polls and promising to prioritize the role of science in policymaking - some of these researchers hope for a return to the days when the United States was viewed as the best place on earth to do their jobs.

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In December 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron offered alarmed U.S. climate scientists multi-year grants to relocate and conduct climate research in France under his “Make Our Planet Great Again” program - a jab at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. The program came in response to Trump’s decision to begin withdrawing the United States from the Paris climate agreement. At least 32 scientists from across the globe took Macron’s offer, according to the French government. About 18 of them had been working at U.S.-based institutions before they moved some or all of their research to France.

Sanderson had previously worked on projections for extreme weather related to climate change at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. He moved to the French city of Toulouse, he said, to escape the politics that has engulfed U.S. climate science. He works primarily in the hope of informing policy, an endeavor that “was no longer relevant under the Trump administration,” he said.

Another scientist who went to France is Philip Schulz, a former post-doctoral researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado. Now he studies organic electronics and solar energy in Paris under the French program. He cited the Trump administration’s climate skepticism as driving his change of job and country. “I work in a field that is trying to combat climate change and enable an energy transition,” Schulz said.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-science-insight/make-science-great-again-u-s-researchers-dream-of-life-after-trump-idUSKBN27E1U8

[Sherman A1]

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