Top climate scientist Kate Marvel just resigned from NASA. Here's why

> “I thought I’d spend my entire career working at this wonderful place,” her letter stated. But she “never expected that science itself would come under attack, simply because it—like journalism, history, and even the best kind of art—is a way of seeking the truth. I’m leaving because I want to tell the truth.” > I was a research scientist at NASA. It was my job to learn things about Earth, and that is the greatest job description I can think of, because this is the best planet and there’s so much interesting stuff going on here. > Recently I had become interested in what we call carbon cycle feedback: When you disturb the Earth system, how much of the carbon dioxide that human beings put in the atmosphere stays up there? That is a story about how living things on the planet are changing, because, right now, about half of the CO2 that human beings put in the atmosphere gets taken out by things that grow, by things that photosynthesize. And we don't know if that’s going to continue. > I know that that is a violation of what some people might consider scientific neutrality. But I have a conflict of interest: I live on Earth, and so I don’t want to see this particular future. And so, without stepping into policy, which is very much getting over my skis, I think doing the applied science that helps inform those important decisions is something that I’m really excited about.