Karin Kirk, who lives in Bozeman, will speak at Montana State University Nov. 20 as part of Climate Week on campus. She said she first noticed the shift last year, right before the presidential election, which took her by surprise. She said editors changed the content of her ready-to-publish article on glacial melt, softening it and removing some references to human-caused climate change.
"We were always careful, but this, this was out of the blue," Kirk recounted. "To go in after it had been reviewed by scientists and the editors after it was ready to be published, to make a big change like that, that was, that was definitely new."
She noted things only got worse for her and her colleagues after the election. She worked as a NASA contractor and the agency let her go in August. She added NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory cut the rest of her team in October as part of larger layoffs. NASA said the cuts were due to budget constraints and downsizing. The agency said it is moving away from scientific research to focus on space exploration.
Kirk maintained the agency had always been careful not to advocate but instead present results supported by scientific evidence. She explained she decided to push back internally against the new approach, which she described as "uncomfortable."
"I realized that my main duty was to earth science and climate science," Kirk asserted. "If that put me at odds with some of my peers, then, so be it. And it took a lot of soul-searching to get to that point."
It is the first time Kirk is speaking publicly about her experiences at NASA, aside from a few guest lectures on college campuses. She acknowledged she is taking a professional risk but believes it is important for her and others in the scientific community to take a similar stance. She added her talk is not just about what happened to her.
"It's much more about, to some degree or another, many of us are in this kind of situation right now," Kirk underscored. "So, what do we do? And what are sensible risks, and what does it look like to lean in and lead, when is it better to just play it safe? That's the conversation I want to have."
Kirk's will speak from 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. at Montana State University.
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