“I had become an outcast for standing up.”

That’s Maria Caffrey is an environmental scientist who was for 12 years on staff at the US National Park Service. The “outcast” part of those years came after she wrote a report in 2016 on “future sea level and storm surge estimates for 118 coastal parks under different greenhouse gas emissions scenarios.” Her work analyzed the damage the US coasts will experience because of human fossil-fuel usage.

A year after she submitted the report, it was still not published. And then, while on maternity leave, Caffrey was told that “senior leadership” wanted her to eliminate any mention of human effects on climate. If she didn’t accede, there were three possibilities: One, the administration would make the deletions without her approval. Two, they’d release a redacted report without naming Caffrey as the primary author. Or three, they wouldn’t release the report at all.

“Failing to mention anthropogenic climate change,” said Caffrey, “would have eliminated crucial context and affected the scientific conclusions of the report.”

Caffrey protested, Congress acted, and her report was published as she’d written it. But then came the retaliations.

Her pay was cut. She was demoted. The funding for her work wasn’t renewed. And even her application to put in volunteer hours was denied. Caffrey questioned her supervisor: “Is this because of the climate change stuff?” The response: “I don’t want to answer that.”

No longer able to do the work that is her expertise was a great loss to her. “Losing my position at [the National Park Service] has been extremely difficult for me, both financially and emotionally. I have struggled to find other employment.”

“The current administration may only last a matter of years, but its actions may potentially impact our planet for centuries.”