Former CBS news anchor Dan Rather said President-elect Donald Trump's response to climate change was alarming and scientists should make it a top priority to engage the incoming administration on the issue.
"Make no mistake; science was on the ballot this fall," Rather wrote in a Scientific American essay published Monday. "And almost nobody took notice. But they should now, because the Trump Administration is outlining an aggressive policy portfolio that not only puts our global response to climate change in deep jeopardy but that also threatens to radically change the fundamental direction of science in the United States."
Trump has said a number of times he does not believe climate change is real, and one time during the election cycle called it an "expensive hoax."
Science was not a topic discussed much during a divisive and nasty campaign between Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Rather, in his essay, said he was disappointed with press members and politicians for not making it a bigger talking point.
"This is why we need to radically rethink how the press, scientists and politicians place science in the national discourse," he said. "And we can't afford to wait. The top priority must be for scientists to try to engage the incoming administration."
Trump picked up some heat this weekend for wanting to exit the Paris Agreement, an accord reached by 200 nations to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels. The move would, according to reports, limit rising temperatures linked to increasing economic damage from rising sea levels, animal and plant extinctions, desertification and heat waves.
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