Colorado scientists and advocates are nervously watching Donald Trump's proposed environmental policies, which they fear could slash federally funded research laboratories and worsen the effects of climate change.
Trump called climate change a "hoax" several times throughout his presidential campaign and promised to break free of global and national pacts to reduce pollution.
"Those kinds of utterances are really scary," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.
So far, Trump has promised to restructure the Environmental Protection Agency, cancel or renegotiate the Paris Agreement - a multination pledge to reduce climate change - and cut payments to unspecified United Nations climate change programs. At a September conference in Pittsburgh, he said: “America is sitting on an untapped trove of energy … on federal lands. I'm going to lift the restrictions on American energy and allow this wealth to pour into our communities.”
In January, his Cabinet will take control of federal agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has research labs in Boulder, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, both of which have been studying the planet's climate for decades. The Trump administration also will control other agencies, such as the Department of Defense, which under President Barack Obama had begun to study and prepare for the impact of a changing climate on the U.S. military infrastructure.
Climate change has diverse impacts on Colorado, including wildfires and drought. "It'll hurt our agriculture in our state. It'll hurt our water,” said Alexander McDonald, former director of NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory. "There's no scientific doubt about climate change."
Researchers say wildfires are burning hotter and longer due to climate change. They're also growing increasingly expensive. In 2015, the federal government spent over $2 billion fighting wildfires nationwide, which is about four times the amount spent in 1985. Climate scientists predict that powerful storms, like last month's Hurricane Matthew, will become more frequent. That storm caused an estimated $4 billion to $6 billion in damage, according to CoreLogic, a company that provides analysis of property information to businesses and government.
"Donald Trump has said so many things, I don't personally believe he can follow up on them," said Hillary Larson, the communications coordinator for the Colorado branch of the Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group. "We're concerned that someone who has denied climate change is in the highest office in the United States," she said.
Colorado's Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, who was re-elected Tuesday, has been a supporter of climate change research in the past, which Larson says will help push for more reform.
Despite uncertainty felt by other scientists, McDonald is confident in the future of climate change research in the United States.
"I feel hopeful about the U.S. in the long-term. It faced great problems before, and it has prevailed. It's not simple, but climate change is a great problem," he said. "The U.S. system is designed to move slowly and carefully, it has shown the ability to deal with large multigenerational problems. Whether it deals with this in this Cabinet or the next one, we'll have to see."