The massive changes in US research brought about by the new administration of President Donald Trump are causing many scientists in the country to rethink their lives and careers. More than 1,200 scientists who responded to a Nature poll — three-quarters of the total respondents — are considering leaving the United States following the disruptions prompted by Trump. Europe and Canada were among the top choices for relocation.
The trend was particularly pronounced among early-career researchers. Of the 690 postgraduate researchers who responded, 548 were considering leaving; 255 of 340 PhD students said the same.
I have answered this poll myself; this is meant for scientists of all career-stages, so a lot of PhD students and postdocs along with faculty members.
I don’t think the article is paywalled, but let me know if it is.
The article was not paywalled, also I think the term we like to use for this phenomenon is “brain drain.”
The climate research community has been gutted by what’s happening with the US government. NOAA and NWS collected some of the most important and valuable data in the world for this and now that’s pretty much over. It will take decades to undo what has been done in only a few months and I’m being hopeful.
We dont have decades left to act on climate. Unfortunately, this could be our nail in the coffin on this iteration of society.
The science doesn’t matter anyway, if it did, and this wasn’t just about money and politics, countries like Canada wouldn’t be charging a carbon tax, driving up prices for Canadians making them more poor which science says makes them worse polluters. Instead we would be shipping natural gas to India and China to phase out their coal consumption. We’d be using pipelines to cut carbons emissions from transportation vehicles. We would be using tax dollars to install solar on people’s homes for them, reducing infrastructure maintenance and upgrade requirements for line and roads.
It’s not about the science. It never was. That’s why we are all doomed.
I wish we lived in a world where you weren’t right about this. But you are, it was never about science.
That ship may have already sailed before this administration took over, but my hope was that society could restructure itself in a way that would still sustain human life. At this point we may even be on an extinction track if nothing changes. The world is chaotic enough at 1.5C. I shutter to imagine a world at 4C.
We’ve already avoided 4C based on current trends.
This is because the world is rapidly pivoting to renewables, simply because they’re so much cheaper and better than the alternatives. It will be almost impossible to reverse that trend even with the damage the Trump admin will do.
Don’t get me wrong, we still have a LOT of work to do, but the situation is not hopeless. The number one spreaders of climate doomerism right now are oil and gas companies. They want you to despair, so that you’ll give up on trying to change things. In reality a lot of climate trends are already swinging in positive directions simply because of the economics. That on its own is not enough, and we’ll never solve a market driven problem with market solutions, but it’s a start.
But poor brown people suffer those consequences, so who cares? /s
Geriatric fucks really think the rich countries will magically be fine …
At 4C we aren’t getting out of this hellhole. The resource wars already seem to be drawing their lines now.
This is not how climate science works.
Everything we’re doing is “later than we should have done it”, but nothing is ever “too late to make a difference.”
The climate isn’t a lightswitch, and it’s not a bomb with a count down timer. Everything we do to improve the situation reduces the amount of total suffering that will result from anthropogenic climate change.
The notion that there is a point of no return beyond which our efforts are useless is very popular… With oil and gas executives. The “It’s too late” message is being pushed heavily by people who want to keep polluting.
In reality, it’s like getting into a car crash. Even if you brake too late to avoid the impact, braking still reduces the severity of the impact. Everything we do to reduce our carbon impact (as a species) will save lives. We are past the point of avoiding any harm at all, but we can still reduce the harm that occurs and hasten the point where we begin to restore our climate to a healthy state.
Yeah my point is we have 4 years of an EPA thats gonna let everything be dumped into the environment. We can’t afford to go backwards right now. We aren’t getting into a crashing car and just not braking, we’re smashing the accelerator is the problem. Trump is gonna fuck the environment by repealing any and all regulation with that “special help line”. And yeah, it will probably just be US that turns into a toxic dump. But it will still suck.
Yes, it will suck, and people will die as a result. A lot of people. We’re still not remotely prepared for the scale of human misery climate change is going to inflict.
But it’s important to be clear about the distinction between “This will make things much, much worse” and “This will destroy any chance of things getting better.”
The latter is the message oil and gas execs want you to be spreading. Don’t do their dirty work for them.
We needed to be prosecuting the biggest polluters 30 years ago. Now they are prosecuting climate supporters, literally the opposite of what we need. Countries are turning to autocracy. The UK is arresting climate protestors. Its just not looking like its going to get better. And its definitely not getting better in the US where I reside.
I hope things improve here in the US, but at some point there’s really nothing else to do but leave. There’s a point where the US simply becomes a lost cause. I don’t know if we’re there yet, but I don’t feel like things are heading in the right direction.
Thanks.
~ Europe
Thank you, Trump!
Your brain drain is Europe’s gain.
Not your personal brain drain… that one happened during gestation.
Are Canada and EU countries opening their arms welcomely to science refugees?
Canada sucks ass for science funding unfortunately.
Domestic grad students have the privilege of living off a ~24k/year stipend throughout their programs which is literally below the poverty line. Keep in mind science grad students are putting in >40h weeks in the lab while also trying to have a semblance of a normal life outside of that
Sadly, not quite: several countries want to, but they all have their own funding difficulties. They are trying to though, since these days American scientists might be seen as being offered at a steep discount
Will science for food and, if you can spare it, shelter.
It’s gonna be rough but I for one welcome EU to make use of USA’s mistakes. Just need to make sure that populism doesn’t gain any more foothold here.
One of the frustrating things is the people responsible for this brain drain, the conservative idiots, will never really suffer for this. Not in a way they understand.
If we get through this, every conservative needs to go up against the wall.
And what would keep conservatism from sprouting once again in this scenario?
Conservatism is not the issue; the issue is capitalism. Put the capitalists against the wall.
I don’t know if that’s exactly a Venn diagram that’s a circle, but I think if you lose all the conservatives you also lose the capitalists. Whoever you’d have left would be amenable to change.
“I’m leaving America!”
To go where? And do what? Even if things somehow go south it’s going to be way better in America than basically any other western country for a long time. Europe is an ineffectual footstool of the US. They should unironically take Trump’s advice and learn to take care of themselves. I would vote to give each of these people $50k if they forfeited their citizenship when they left.
