National News
A Leading Climate Agency May Lose Its Climate Focus. “The Trump administration appears to be planning to shift the mission of one of the most important federal science agencies that works on climate change — away from climate change. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is part of the Department of Commerce, operates a constellation of earth-observing satellites. Because of its work on climate science data collection and analysis, it has become one of the most important American agencies for making sense of the warming planet. But that focus may shift, according to a slide presentation at a Department of Commerce meeting by Tim Gallaudet, the acting head of the agency. In the presentation, which included descriptions of the past and present missions for the agency, the past mission listed three items, starting with ‘to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, oceans and coasts.’ In contrast, for the present mission, the word ‘climate’ was gone, and the first line was replaced with ‘to observe, understand and predict atmospheric and ocean conditions.’” [New York Times, 6/24/18 (=)]