This Researcher Left the USDA for Higher Ed. Here’s His Plea on Climate Science: ‘Please, God, Don’t Make It Political.’

For more than 20 years, Lewis Ziska researched plant physiology at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has published papers on climate change, environmental threats, and — as they relate to rising carbon-dioxide levels — food security and public health. He works on issues that, as he puts it, are at once “very prosaic and very important.”

But he resigned after, he said, the federal agency questioned the results of his recent study that showed that rice grown in atmospheres with elevated carbon-dioxide levels was less nutritious. The agency planned to put out a news release but later reversed course, Ziska said.

“At that point it was, like, OK, this isn’t about the science anymore, this is about something else,” he told The Chronicle. “I really started looking for another way to do the research I feel is essential.”

Ziska has left government science for higher education, joining Columbia University this week as a researcher in the department of environmental health. He expects the independence of a college campus to allow him to speak more openly about his findings. But he’s frustrated that scientists working at federal agencies can’t effectively pursue research on topics deemed controversial or political.

The USDA did not respond to a request for comment, but the agency told Politico, which reported Ziska’s resignation on Monday, that the decision to forgo a news release on Ziska’s study had not been based on politics. Ziska spoke with The Chronicle this week about his transition to higher education and the factors impeding climate-change research.

I’m curious about how you see the role of the government scientist.

The role has always been fairly clear, at least from the agricultural point of view. Our goal is to promote the safe and sustainable aspects of American agriculture, to maintain productivity and economic return on what we invest and what we hope for as a country. There’s a national aspect to that. There are some very good scientists at all of the agencies.

And one of the frustrating aspects of this is you have climate change occurring in real time with respect to what’s happening with agriculture in the United States. Unprecedented flooding that happened this spring. Extreme drought that happened in 2012. The farmers are noticing it. They’re maybe not calling it climate change — they call it extreme events, global weirding, whatever. But they’re seeing it, and we’re seeing it as scientists.

On one hand, you have the obvious challenge of trying to address sustainability and productivity in the context of climate change. On the other, you have scientists that are willing to help and have the expertise to do so. And then a huge wall down the middle of that is politics. No, we’re not going to let you do that because it’s not real. No, we’re not going to let you do that because it’s a Chinese hoax. No, we’re not going to let you do that because it’s a liberal plot to take over the world. Whatever you want to call it. I’ve heard various epithets for why climate change isn’t real.

That’s the frustrating part. You have both the challenge and the resources to help you meet that challenge. But you can’t apply the resources. That’s part of, for myself personally, that’s part of my frustration.

Given the wall of politics that you describe, do you believe that more of the burden of scientific research, particularly connected to climate change, is going to fall to American universities, outside of federal agencies?

I suspect that it will. And the frustration I have with that is that there are some very good people at the federal level who could help. It makes no sense to me. It’s surreal that you’re not using it. There’s a fire that’s happening, but you won’t let the fire department put it out because the source of the fire is something that has to do with politics. It makes no sense.

There are some exceptional scientists. Why not turn to them and use them as a resource? Call it whatever you want. Call it — I don’t know — uncertainty in your weather patterns or something. But don’t make it political. Please, God, don’t make it political. Let it just be something that farmers are dealing with in real time, which they are. And have it be something that we can bring our resources in, not only as federal scientists, not only as university scientists, but as policy makers, as the general public, as NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], as all of us here, as people. To begin to help maintain food security in the 21st century.

Do you expect that moving to a university will change your research — either the practicalities of conducting it or the impact it might have?

My sense is that government science — it’s not trusted the same way it was trusted when I was a kid. Back in the day, if you were a government scientist and you published something, I think folks believed what you published.

It’s not to say that government scientists and what they do now is any less important or any less peer-reviewed than what it was back then. But there’s been a perception on the part of the public that the government has its own agenda. We don’t have an agenda. Our goal is to try to help.

And so, from academia, from an Ivy League college like Columbia — I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think it’ll have an impact. If I continued to be at USDA and published these studies, and the studies didn’t have an impact, and they were discouraged or they didn’t have the support or the resources to build on those studies, I felt like I had an obligation, given the importance of the subject, to go to a new platform that will allow me to move that dime forward.

Here’s a chance for me to go to Columbia, with some of the best minds in the world, and to take what I know and to try to find synergy with what is currently happening. Look for new opportunities, look for ways that we can make a difference. One person, one idea, one thought, particularly in the context of climate change, is not going to result in a silver-bullet solution. But it’s part of what will be a silver buckshot. There are different ways, different little ways, to try to make a difference. I’m very grateful to be here and to have the opportunity to continue the work I’d been doing.

Do professors and academic researchers have more leeway to make a direct argument to lawmakers than agency scientists would?

Yes. Because of the Politico story [on his departure from the USDA], there’s a firm possibility, a definite maybe, that I can do a stint on MSNBC, or wherever. If that happened when I was at USDA [laughs], there would have been a lot of hand-wringing and fear. Don’t say this. Be careful about that. Here, they’re letting you, in the freedom of academia, say what you need to say. They’re not worried about their image. They’re not worried that some policy maker is going to cut off funds to their lab. They want to know what the truth is. This is the bastion of academia, to be able to tell people in power: “Here’s what we see. Here’s what we have the best evidence for.”

You can’t make them follow it, but you have a reputation. And this is one of the things that Harvard and Yale and other Ivy League schools have — they have a good track record of saying something that has some oomph behind it. People will listen to them. I’m hoping that this will allow for research that will not be viewed under the guise of “Oh, that’s a federal scientist, they have their own political agenda.” But viewed under the guise of “Oh, that’s from Columbia. Let’s listen to what they have to say.”

I’ve read recent studies about the distrust of higher education, particularly among those with more right-leaning views. The same themes can apply to both worlds.

My dad was a sergeant in the Air Force. I grew up on military bases all around the world. My father is about as far to the right as you possibly can get. When I sit down with him, I don’t put it in a political context, but I say, “Here’s what we’re seeing.” He knows I’m not going to lie to him. He sees that it is something that’s happening.

He may view academia and other aspects in a very skeptical way. I grew up in various trailer parks, various base housing. People there are conservative. But if you bring it to them in a way that makes a difference to them, they’ll get it. They’re working two, three jobs. They’ve got kids. They don’t have time to sit down and talk about the academic, ethereal, what-ifs kind of things that we talk about as academics. They want to know: What are the concrete things that are going to impact my life?

Will you need to apply for funding from the USDA to pursue your research at Columbia? Are you worried about that?

I looked at their RFAs [requests for applications] for 2019, and there’s no mention of carbon dioxide and nutrition. There’s no mention of climate change. There’s no mention of any of these things. There’s nothing I could apply for that I would absolutely fit. Until that changes, there’s nothing I can do. I can’t apply to them. It’s not going to happen.

From a science point of view, it’s the best of times. There are so many interesting things that are happening. So much is going on. So many things are related to each other. There’s no shortage of fascinating questions, from an academic point of view, that you want to try to address.

At the same time there’s this big, six-ton T. rex in the room — of politics — that you have to get beyond. Of denial that you have to get beyond. And the resources that you need are behind those monsters. How do you get to them? How do you get to those resources in order to address what is essentially an existential crisis? I know as a scientist I’m supposed to be dry and objective. But it’s hard.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Lindsay Ellis is a staff reporter. Follow her on Twitter @lindsayaellis, or email her at lindsay.ellis@chronicle.com.