Former USDA Scientist Says He'll Make A Bigger Impact On Climate Change Research Outside Of The...

Lewis Ziska quit his job as one of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s top scientists in July in protest of what he says are the Trump administration’s efforts to silence his research.

After researching how climate change affects plants for more than two decades at the department, Ziska and a team of other scientists looked at how rising carbon dioxide levels impact the nutritional value of rice since the grain is a staple food for people across the world, Politico reported in August.

“Plants, which are the basis of all life, are changing,” says Ziska, now an associate professor at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, “and how they're changing is going to have implications, not only for human health but also for the environment as a whole.”