'We have a target on our backs': Scientists dread new era of Donald Trump's climate denialism

The president-elect has called climate science a 'giant scam' and when last in office sought to gut US scientific funding and sidelined or even punished scientists deemed unfriendly to the interests of the chemical and fossil fuel industries

The prospect of an even more ideologically driven Trump administration slashing budgets and mass-firing federal staff has given America’s scientific community a sort of collective anxiety attack. Picture: AP/Evan Vucci

As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists swarmed a Washington venue last week, the packed halls have been permeated by an air of anxiety and even dread over a new Donald Trump presidency that might worsen what has been a bruising few years for science.

The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting drew a record 31,000 attendees this year for the unveiling of a slew of new research on everything from seismology to climate science to heliospheric physics, alongside a sprawling trade show and bouts of networking as scientists jostle to advance their work.