Pamela McElwee is a professor of human ecology at Rutgers University, an expert in evidence-based climate policy, and an outspoken climate rights activist that is challenging the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on climate science. McElwee holds a Bachelor’s in Political Science from the University of Kansas, a Masters in Forestry and Plant Sciences from Oxford, and a Doctorate in Forestry, Environmental Studies, and Anthropology from Yale University. Her research took her to Southeast Asia where she studied the overlap between conservation, culture, and policy, and then back to the United States where she became crucial to climate mitigation strategies. She worked as a legislative aide to Al Gore and as an advisor on environmental policy to the Clinton White House. Globally, she has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, the UNDP, and a variety of NGOs dedicated to mangrove restoration, sustainable forestry practices, and watershed management. She has openly expressed criticism of the U.S. Department of Energy’s problematic review of the effects of greenhouse gas emissions. Their 150-page report, compiled by a now disbanded working group composed of 5 notorious climate skeptics, was riddled with cherry-picked data, misquoted research, and egregious citation errors. McElwee has pointed out how the document completely overlooks climate adaptation and how the Trump administration is using it as a so-called ‘scientific’ foundation to rescind and reverse monumental climate policies. Despite her criticism being belittled, she remains steadfast in her efforts to counteract the Trump Administration’s anti-climate science and pro-fossil fuels actions.
