AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report.

The planet is quickly warming, and severe impacts from climate change will continue to accelerate unless action is taken immediately to prevent irreversible changes. That’s according to the U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, calling for urgent action. In a video released last week, he cited a new update from the World Meteorological Organization that warns El Niño is expected to arrive in the coming months, with 90% certainty.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: The science is clear: El Niño is arriving on our doorstep in the coming months, with 90% certainty. The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is. El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world. Impacts will hit even harder, travel even further and cross borders with devastating speeds. The only effective response is climate action equal to the crisis, ending the addiction to fossil fuels, accelerating the shift to renewables, protecting the most vulnerable and delivering early warning systems for all.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, even as the climate news gets more dire, on Monday, climate scientist Peter Kalmus says he was forced to resign from his job at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. His new Substack post is titled “I Was Just Forced to Resign from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory: This administration would love for science to just go away.” He writes he “started getting concerned about climate change in 2006,” and at the time, he was sure “that by 2020 humanity would be on the same page about climate change, and well on its way to solving it for good. How could I have been so incredibly wrong?” he writes. “I overestimated humanity,” he says.

For more, we go to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We are joined by climate scientist and activist Peter Kalmus, for the first time, Peter, not identifying you as a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab.

Why did you resign?

PETER KALMUS: Yeah, thanks for having me back. I can speak freely for the first time on your show.

Well, the surface reason for my resignation was a mandate to return to in-person work at the laboratory. So, I’ve been fully remote in North Carolina for four years. A big part of the reason I left Altadena in 2022 to work remotely was because it was getting so hot there and so fiery. There’s a fire that made a smoke cloud that encompassed my entire house and my family for like — I think it was over a month, it was about a month, in 2020, the Bobcat Fire. And that got kicked off by a really strong heat wave, like heat that I’ve never felt before. Birds were literally falling off of trees while I was walking on the sidewalk. It was just remarkable. It was too much for me.

And obviously, as a climate scientist, I can see that we’re on this escalator towards warmer and warmer and warmer temperatures, and world leaders are not doing anything about it. This idiotic regime now in the United States, led by Trump, still thinks it’s a hoax. It is waging a war against solar panels. It’s just remarkably foolish.

So, that was part of why I left. And then, you know, two years after I left, the house that I had lived in and my entire neighborhood, my town of Altadena, burned down in the Eden Fire.

So, you know, it’s still getting worse. We’re still burning fossil fuels. We’re accelerating the burning of fossil fuels. This industry, oil, coal, gas industry, has been dishonest for half a century, blocking action, bribing politicians, playing dirty, lying through their teeth, going and testifying in front of Congress, saying that they’re not going to stop lying. They’re still doing it. Their ads are ridiculous right now, and the greenwashing that they do —

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain —

PETER KALMUS: — is absolutely insane.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab does, what you did there, and what you’re going to do now, Peter?

PETER KALMUS: Yeah. Thanks for that. JPL is, in my opinion, the — well, at least it was — the crown jewel in the NASA system of centers. So, it’s this beautiful campus in Pasadena, California, nestled in the hills there. And it is responsible for a huge fraction of the Earth-observing satellites that monitor climate change and monitor weather around the world. The public doesn’t really realize what a huge role JPL has played in monitoring the Earth.

But more famously, it’s responsible for putting rovers on Mars. You know, it does these spectacular landings on Mars. It explores, you know, the planets of the solar system and its moons. So, David mentioned the Europa Clipper. That’s a JPL mission, which is going to study the ocean under Europa. And he’s absolutely right, by the way, that we tend to really take for granted the boisterous, gorgeous life on planet Earth, in a way that I think is — you know, we have to stop doing. It’s remarkable how we take it for granted. JPL also studies astrophysics, has many astrophysics missions.

But it’s just — I worked there for 15 years. It was my dream job. I was, you know, one of those space kids. I was just, you know, really nerded out on space from first grade onward, and it was the dream job for me. The colleagues that I worked with were brilliant. Morale, though, over the last couple of years, because mainly of the Trump administration, has been lower than I’ve ever seen it. And 30% of the workforce at JPL has been laid off or has left because of funding cuts and because of that low morale in the last year and a half.

AMY GOODMAN: How were you forced out?

PETER KALMUS: So, basically, I was told that I had to return to JPL by October 27th. Obviously, I couldn’t do that, because I’d be leaving my sons and my wife and my life here in North Carolina behind. You know, we moved here four years ago. The kids are in school here. So that wasn’t an option. I would feel very sad, probably get depressed, if I lived in a little apartment alone in Pasadena. Moving my entire family back wasn’t an option. So I just fought. I tried to put in for remote exceptions. The process was extremely unfair. I had saved up a lot of vacation days and sick days. I injured my knee earlier this year and had to take a medical leave. Eventually, I was out of options, and I just had to leave.

But again, the indirect reason, the larger reason here, is that Trump is not only attempting to dismantle the United States’ ocean observing system, they’re trying to dismantle all of science in the United States. U.S. has had — my entire life, it’s been this sort of island in the world for doing science, because of the federal funding system. You can make a career in science here. You can sustain research because of federal grants. The Trump administration has already cut about 8,000 federal grants for scientists, ranging from public health to climate science. So, now, basically — my whole life, there have been scientists from around the world coming here, the best minds, the brightest minds in the entire world. Trump has destroyed that in less than two years, and I think it’s going to take generations to rebuild that, if we ever can.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus, for those who haven’t followed you on Democracy Now!, talk about your last arrests — we just have about 30 seconds — the reason you got arrested time and time again.

PETER KALMUS: Yes, I’ve been arrested three times. The first time, I attached myself to a door handle at JPMorgan Chase, because they were — they’re the worst funders of this dishonest fossil fuel industry in the world. And the L.A. police had a huge response with, like, about a hundred riot police. So, that action went viral, and it felt like a way to communicate to the public, finally, just how serious this is.

I want everyone to know that we are in extreme danger. It gets hotter and hotter and hotter every year. This summer, especially because of the El Niño, could be the hottest summer we’ve ever experienced in our lives, but it could also be the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.

AMY GOODMAN: Peter Kalmus, I want to thank you for being with us, climate activist who just resigned from his post as a climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab. His new Substack post, we’ll link to, as well.

That does it for our show. I’m headed to the Sheffield DocFest in England. I’ll be there on Thursday and Friday. We’ll be broadcasting, and the film Steal This Story, Please!, about Democracy Now!, will be premiering there. Then we’ll be, next week, in Belfast in Northern Ireland for Docs Ireland. It’ll be the first film to play at Docs Ireland. Then back to the United States to Vermont next weekend, Juneteenth weekend, Burlington, Brattleboro, St. Johnsbury and Montpelier. You can check our website at democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.