I’m a Scientist Who Spoke Up About Climate Change. My Employer Fired Me.

The New York Times ^ | January 10, 2023 | Rose Abramoff

[KingofZion]

Shortly after the New Year, I was fired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory after urging fellow scientists to take action on climate change. At the American Geophysical Union meeting in December, just before speakers took the stage for a plenary session, my fellow climate scientist Peter Kalmus and I unfurled a banner that read “Out of the lab & into the streets.” In the few seconds before the banner was ripped from our hands, we implored our colleagues to use their leverage as scientists to wake the public up to the dying planet.

Soon after this brief action, the A.G.U., an organization with 60,000 members in the earth and space sciences, expelled us from the conference and withdrew the research that we had presented that week from the program. Eventually, it began a professional misconduct inquiry (it’s ongoing).

Then, on Jan. 3, Oak Ridge, the laboratory outside Knoxville where I had worked as an associate scientist for one year, terminated my employment. I am the first earth scientist I know of to be fired for climate activism. I fear I will not be the last.

Oak Ridge said it was forced to fire me because I misused government resources by engaging in a personal activity on a work trip and because I did not adhere to its Code of Business Ethics and Conduct. The code has points on scientific integrity, maintaining the institution’s reputation and using government resources “only as authorized and appropriate and with integrity, responsibility, and care.”

*** I used to be a well-behaved scientist. I stood quietly on melting permafrost in Utqiagvik, Alaska, and measured how much greenhouse gas was released into the atmosphere. I filled spreadsheets and ran simulations about how warming temperatures would increase the carbon emissions from soil.

***MORE

[dljordan]

“twitter was full of SJW dead weight.”

Twitter can’t hold a candle to Fedzilla.

[lepton]

I’m delighted (and shocked) that the feds would actually fire scientists who spew climate change nonsense.

---

They don’t. He had to be coloring far outside the lines to be fired despite his views, and further for the AGU to be bothered.

[Leep]

“wake the public up to the dying planet”

The only thing that died was your job ..mr scientist.

[KEVLAR]

Good. Now what can the public do to discourage further jackassery from this activist?