Following the sudden announcement of the Trump administration’s plans to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) last week, hundreds of protesters gathered in Boulder on Saturday to show their support for the center, as well as their contempt for the administration’s decision.
While the rally was organized on short notice, its large turnout included NCAR employees past and present, CU faculty, elected officials, and concerned citizens from across the state. Attendees assembled on Broadway, in front of the David Skaggs Research Center, which houses federal facilities and labs for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as the location is much more publicly visible than the NCAR facility itself.
“This is exactly what we wanted to happen, and I’m so proud of Boulder. Everybody’s out here, and they are out here to say, ‘No, you can’t destroy this lynchpin of science and research,’” said Christine Cowles, one of the event’s organizers and a member of Forever Indivisible Boulder. “It’s very heartening to see all of the town out here saying science matters.”
The planned closure was announced by White House budget director Russell Vought in an X post on Dec. 16, stating that the center was “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”
Colorado officials, from local to federal, also made appearances, including Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett, Sen. John Hickenlooper, and Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado’s 2nd congressional district, which includes Boulder.
“It’s inspiring to see, yet again, the community rally to the cause to try to do everything we can to stop the lawlessness that we see emanating from Washington, D.C.,” said Neguse in an interview with the Colorado Times Recorder during the rally. “We intend to use every single tool that we have to stop this and to prevent the dismantling of what is a world-renowned scientific institution.”
NCAR has long been a world-renowned research center, its atmospheric and climate modeling a widely used resource for science, industry, and government alike. While the center receives nearly all of its funding from the federal government, it is not a federal agency; It is the nation’s first federally funded research and development center, established by the National Science Foundation and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. Founded in 1960, it currently employs a staff of more than 800, with seven laboratories and two projects in operation.
Steven Oncley, a now-retired scientist who worked at the center for 34 years, says that the research happening there has been used to support everyone from farmers to wildfire victims. Like many of those holding up signs along Broadway, he saw the Trump administration’s decision as unjustified.
“NCAR’s got their hands in a lot of different things that are helping society, and that’s why Republican and Democratic administrations for as long as I’ve been alive have been supportive of it,” said Oncley.
