2016 Climate Letter …we need to send a 2024 version!

Background/Timeline

In 2016, when Trump became president-elect, my colleagues, Mark Battle and Madeleine Msall and I wrote a letter about the seriousness of climate change and on December 6, 2016, we began gathering signatures from physicists and astronomers in the United States. Here is the cover letter sent to Departments of Physics and Astronomy around the United States.

On January 18, 2017, we sent this letter to President Elect Trump along with a list of 706 Physicists and Astronomers who signed the letter. 

Not surprisingly, he did not even acknowledge receipt of the letter. 

More relevant than ever

Even though President Biden enacted many climate positive initiatives, global temperatures are still on the rise and we have, unfortunately broken the Paris Climate Accord’s goal of remaining below the 1.5C limit. Unfortunately, nature does not care in whether we believe that carbon dioxide and methane trap infrared radiation, and the incoming President Trump has continued to dispute the science—at the peril of our entire planet. 

2024: Physicists and Astonomers: add your name!

If you are a physicist or astronomer and did not sign the 2016 letter, then consider signing this year; you can see the original letter in the link above, and if you would like to sign, you can email me at physics dot climate at gmail dot com from your university email, and I will compile & verify signatures and send an updated version after President Elect Trump takes office.