She’s Braved Rough Seas, Space Walks -- and Now Climate Change Deniers

"Kathryn Sullivan has helped U.S. Navy sailors navigate — literally — through rough seas as an oceanographer in the Navy Reserves. As a NASA astronaut, she’s walked in space, the first American woman to step outside a spacecraft, 140 miles above Earth. These challenges are a world apart from what she’s now confronting in Washington as she leads an agency of federal scientists in the crosshairs of a powerful member of Congress.

But allies of the embattled chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say Sullivan’s experience as a working scientist exploring the upper atmosphere and the bottom of the sea and a Navy reserve officer for 18 years has prepared her well for the contact sport of Capitol Hill politics. They imprinted a military ethic of looking out for comrades and troops and a scientific one of sticking by the results of your research and never tailoring  them to others’ political whims."

Lisa Rein reports for the Washington Post December 15, 2015.

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"Climate Change Reversal Puts Brighter Spotlight on Weatherman Greg Fishel" (McClatchy)