Climate

Not since Tony Benn has a Labour minister been so assailed – and not just by the Tory press, but also by his own colleagues

Why exactly does Ed Miliband make so many people so angry? At 55, 20 years into his parliamentary career, with rare ministerial experience under both New Labour and Keir Starmer, and a reputation around Westminster and Whitehall as one of politics’ nicer, more knowledgeable characters, he could be a respected figure in a generally inexperienced government. Instead, he’s this unpopular administration’s most controversial member.

“An eco-zealot”, “a net-zero fanatic”, a “nauseating” hypocrite, “a cackling madman”, an “eco-Marxist”, “out of control”, “trashing Britain”, “a recruiting sergeant for the opposition”, the “most dangerous man in Britain” – Miliband provokes rightwing journalists and voters like no other minister. Possibly not since the onslaught in the 1970s on the socialist disruptor Tony Benn, whom Miliband later worked for as a teenager, has a Labour minister been so relentlessly targeted. Even the long-running and complex crisis in Britain’s steel industry has become an opportunity to blame him, despite him being secretary of state for energy security and net zero for fewer than 10 months.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

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The president said the move was aimed at making the United States the world’s “dominant seafood leader.”

The shift to cleaner power needs resources from China. An export ban just cut off some supplies.

After a federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of up to $650 million in frozen grants, an appeals court temporarily halted the payouts.

Do you remember the first time that climate change really entered your consciousness?

For me, it was the powerful Congressional testimony by the Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Institute, Dr. Jim Hansen, in 1988. What he was telling the world sounded unbelievable. But he was from NASA, one of our nation’s—and the world’s—premier science agencies, so I knew this was real. I was a distracted, big-haired teenager, frozen in my tracks. I’ve been working for climate solutions ever since.

Fast forward to today…

I know…

Our political crises are a lot to hold. But as part of the climate movement, you also know that climate change is the context in which all of these crises are unfolding. You know that if we are successful in slowing down or stopping the Trump administration’s authoritarian roll and restoring democracy, we still have this colossal global climate problem to contend with. What you may not know—what is just now becoming clear through leaked documents covered in the press—is that the administration is preparing to bring climate science in the United States to its knees. This illegal overreach will make the work of contending with climate change so much harder for many years to come.

We have to stop them.

The insatiable anti-science Trump agenda

The infamously anti-science Trump administration, back in February, requested reorganization plans from each federal agency by April 14th. The planned cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), according to news reports, are not the equivalent of trimming but of sawing a whole tree down to the ground. Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), for example, is at risk of elimination, a move that would gut NOAA’s ability to pursue climate change research itself and to support, as it currently does, countless research efforts across the US and around the world.

As my colleague, Marc Alessi summarizes in his blog, the leaked memo “proposes closing all 16 Cooperative Research Institutes in 33 states, every one of the 10 research labs, all 6 regional climate centers, slashing the budget for the NASA Goddard Space Institute, and ending $70 million in grants to research universities. Thousands of seasoned scientists, early career scientists, and young scientists in graduate schools will lose funding.” As of this writing, the rich online resources of three of the Regional Climate Centers have already been taken down. The destruction is underway.

Also requested in February and presumably being finalized now are plans for “large-scale reductions in force (RIFs)”. Those firings of federal employees would come on top of the hundreds of NOAA staff who were fired last week—for the second time, this time permanently.

This is what I mean by bringing US climate science to its knees. And as my colleague, Rachel Cleetus, details in her blog, it is at the same time incredibly reckless and carefully premeditated by those behind Project 2025.

Climate science tracks and unpacks the dangerous trends that will harm people’s lives and livelihoods, and already are. It shows, for example, that both the strength and rapid intensification of hurricanes are increasing, that the intensity and duration of drought and extreme precipitation are increasing, that sea level rise and coastal flooding are increasing, and that wildfires are increasing in frequency and size. If we look back just a handful of months, from Hurricane Helene to the L.A. wildfires, the devastation our changing climate is causing in people’s lives is clear. The proposed cuts would ravage our ability to understand and meet these evolving threats.

The entire global climate science community relies on NOAA scientific expertise and the science it produces. A passing anti-science administration, hell-bent on destruction across our federal government, has no right to make these legacy scientific resources disappear. They belong to us. NOAA belongs to the millions of people warned and kept safe by our National Weather Service, to the diverse economic sectors informed by its annual, seasonal, and monthly outlooks, and to the thousands of communities dependent on good information to invest and plan for the future. This anti-science agenda is anti-people and it must be stopped.

Federal climate science IS climate science

After my 1988 wake-up call, many indelible moments of new climate awareness followed—so many bearing the fingerprints of NOAA and NASA science. For millions of us in the climate movement, it was the first time we saw the “Keeling Curve”, the iconic chart illustrating the steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels since 1958, as recorded at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory. (The observatory’s support office is on a DOGE list of federal leases slated for cancellation.)

This NOAA graph shows the full record of monthly mean carbon dioxide measured at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii. The carbon dioxide data on Mauna Loa constitute the longest record of direct measurements of CO2 in the atmosphere.https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-carbon-dioxide-levels-surge-faster-than-ever

For many, seeing the “hockey stick” chart or NOAA’s global historical temperature anomaly record sent shockwaves of recognition through us: we are in unprecedented territory.

This NOAA graph shows yearly surface temperature from 1880–2024 compared to the 20th-century average (1901-2000). Blue bars indicate cooler-than-average years; red bars show warmer-than-average years. https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature

NOAA’s sea level rise projections similarly transformed our collective sense of the future of our coastal communities and the inevitability of large-scale human migration: seismic change lies ahead.

This NOAA graph shows observed sea level from 2000-2018, with future sea level through 2100 for six future pathways. http://climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level 

Just yesterday, new climate research was released using NOAA’s long-term historical record of carbon dioxide levels to show a dramatic recent spike in CO2. While the scientific community needs to determine what this means for our climate, it is a terrible trend—and a vital one for us to see, track and understand. These measurements are part of the work of the Global Monitoring Laboratory—one of the laboratories proposed to be closed by these cuts.

This NOAA graph shows annual mean carbon dioxide growth rates based on globally averaged marine surface data. https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/gl_gr.html

Speaking of laboratories, NOAA’s  Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) is targeted for closure. GFDL developed the world’s first global climate model and remains at the forefront of climate research. Its loss would represent a serious wound to climate science, globally.

It is no accident that these watershed moments in public awareness of the climate crisis (alongside climate disasters of historic proportions like Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy) came courtesy of our federal agencies. This is a central purpose of government: marshalling collective resources for the public good. This is our federal science at work—as we want and need it to work—advancing and innovating over time to bring our changing climate into focus in service of the public’s well-being, today and into the future.

Climate science serves people

Our federal climate science isn’t just big picture trends and long-term projections. It also provides us with the localized, near-term data, information and expertise we need to perceive current changes at granular, community and neighborhood levels and to anticipate unavoidable impacts for which we must prepare.

Put bluntly, NOAA science saves lives and money. Improved hurricane forecasting by institutions like those currently slated for closure is estimated to have yielded nearly $5 billion in avoided damages for each major US-landfalling hurricane, not to mention the many lives saved, while the cost of letting those institutions do their job is a fraction of that. With climate change driving more dangerous and costly hurricane seasons, this is bad math.

The pillars of NOAA’s mission include “1. To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts. And 2. To share that knowledge and information with others.” As it quips on its website, climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. Its work is based on the understanding that climate and weather are inseparable, that each year, climate change manifests in more extreme weather events, and that we must understand these changes in order to meet them.

We’re still making sense of the implications of these cuts for everyday people, but as my colleague writes, they could lead to a significant decrease in hurricane forcasting accuracy, since the proposed cuts would end support for NOAA’s hurricane hunter missions; elimination of important climate monitoring and decision support for farmers with the loss of the NOAA Regional Climate Centers; and coastal communities left without the National Ocean Service and the critical information it provides, e.g., on flood risk from extreme weather events. 

NOAA and NASA are able to respond to the mounting threat of climate change because of many decades of taxpayer investment in their work. Americans value the services we receive from this science and use them every day. No one but the Trump administration, Elon Musk, and the creators of Project 2025 is asking for the dismantling of the public US scientific enterprise. But like barbarians at the gate, the administration is ignorant and/or uncaring about the painstakingly-constructed, globally-prized scientific asset that NOAA and NASA represent. They only seem intent on sacking and claiming the spoils, apparently to make a small dent in the cost of tax breaks for billionares and to pave the way for greater profits for big corporations.

Make it hurt until they make NOAA whole

So, Climate Movement, I know we don’t feel like a “climate” movement right now, and that’s as it should be. Too many urgent fronts to fight them on. But we’re still here. And this assault on climate science requires the greatest response we can marshal. If they succeed, we will be badly delayed in building the climate future we need by having to rebuild the climate science past they stole.

The Trump administration claims a “mandate” to justify the destruction, but a strong majority of the American public is concerned about climate change. Amidst the coming, inevitably-bruising summer—or “Danger Season“—of climate extremes, frustration will rise over the administration’s crushing of both federal climate science and disaster preparedness efforts. Layered on top of this will be the volatility, harm and added vulnerability people will be facing from the administration’s countless other egregious actions, from cuts to housing and cooling assistance to ever-expanding rights violations.

Congress has an opportunity to stop this madness and we need to make them. Members should hear encouragement to be bolder or face constituent anger at every turn until they stand up for NOAA, climate science, and the public good.

The people, especially those of us with privilege, have an opportunity to stop it, too. The streets, local media, town halls, the market place should fill with our bodies and our voices calling for the restoration of these vital agencies and programs—as well as rights and freedoms and the rule of law, however misaligned those are with the Trump agenda. It’s time to be bold and go hard. They can’t take it from us if we refuse to let it go.

Nearly a quarter of shareholders vote against the chair, Helge Lund, as green protesters are blocked from entering

BP suffered an investor rebellion on Thursday after facing shareholders for the first time since abandoning its climate strategy at a meeting marred by protest.

About a quarter of shareholders voted against the chair, Helge Lund, at the company’s annual meeting in Sunbury-on-Thames, on the edges of London, which attracted protest from several green campaign groups.

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Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known rightwing counterparts – as do their methods

One afternoon in February, hoping to survive the apocalypse or at least avoid finding myself among its earliest victims, I logged on to an online course entitled Ruggedize Your Life: The Basics.

Some of my classmates had activated their cameras. I scrolled through the little windows, noting the alarmed faces, downcast in cold laptop light. There were dozens of us on the call, including a geophysicist, an actor, a retired financial adviser and a civil engineer. We all looked worried, and rightly so. The issue formerly known as climate change was now a polycrisis called climate collapse. H1N1 was busily jumping from birds to cows to people. And with each passing day, as Donald Trump went about gleefully dismantling state capacity, the promise of a competent government response to the next hurricane, wildfire, flood, pandemic, drought, mudslide, heatwave, financial meltdown, hailstorm or other calamity receded further from view.

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Remember the board game Risk? I used to play it with a neighbor who always moved most of his armies to one spot on the world map to project overwhelming force, only to lose the battalions he left exposed. The strategy of protecting your positions was lost on him—he thought he could win through sheer intimidation.  

Two recent events show that President Trump is falling prey to a similar weakness. Instead of addressing the many ways climate change threatens the country’s financial stability, his administration is pulling back safeguards in order to reward his Big Oil donors. 

Delivering for fossil fuel donors 

On March 28, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—an independent federal agency that protects investors by watching Wall Street—abandoned a rule it passed just last year requiring companies to examine how climate change impacts their operations and disclose their findings. The rule received overwhelming support from investors, who said they needed such information to assess risks to companies’ business models. 

Three days later, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of the three independent agencies responsible for regulating banks, withdrew from a collaboration among the agencies to create guidelines on climate-related financial risk. The guidelines, issued in October 2023, would help banks with more than $100 billion in assets manage the ways in which climate change affects bonds, mortgages, and other financial products. Both the rule and guidance were significantly weakened by corporate lobbying but still represented an acknowledgement of the financial threat climate change poses. 

The SEC rule and OCC principles grew from a longstanding demand by investors that was accelerated by a Biden Administration executive order directing regulators to assess the US financial system’s exposure to risks resulting from climate change. Trump revoked that order on his first day in office, along with several others related to climate change, public health, and the environment. He would later issue another order stripping away power from independent agencies like the SEC and OCC, both of which were established to make sure companies and banks don’t take too much risk with the public’s money. Both agencies are currently led by acting officials appointed by Trump. 

The rollbacks didn’t come out of left field.—they’re  a return on the fossil fuel industry’s major investment in Trump’s reelection campaign. The SEC rule and Biden executive order were explicitly named as targets for elimination in a 2024 briefing book for the board of the American Exploration and Production Council, an oil and gas trade association representing the country’s largest oil and gas companies. Trump’s executive orders also advance industry interests by making it easier to increase fossil fuel production while blocking clean energy development.  

The fossil fuel industry has aggressively fought efforts to track and regulate climate-related financial risk. Industry representatives such as the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce tried to stop the SEC rule with lawsuits, which are now combined into a single suit currently before an appeals court in Missouri (the SEC’s recent move withdrew agency defense of the rule, but state attorneys general continue to defend it). One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits against the SEC rule is Liberty Energy, the company founded by Chris Wright, who Trump appointed secretary of the Department of Energy. Last year, ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit against investors pressing the company for increased disclosures.  

Risky business 

What does climate-related financial risk actually mean? Though the answer might seem implicit, it’s helpful to remember that banks, investment funds, insurance companies, and other financial industry players are in the business of assessing risk. The financial industry employs legions of analysts to crunch numbers that will hopefully prevent them from losing money. If you’ve ever taken out a mortgage or other type of loan, you know how much work is required to prove that lending to you is a safe bet.  

Climate change poses what risk experts call “systemic risk,” meaning it affects so many parts of the financial system that any negative event could set off a cascading series of crises, thereby destabilizing the entire system. Mark Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England who was recently elected Canadian prime minister, laid out three principal types of risk that climate change poses to financial stability in a 2015 speech to insurance executives.   

The first is physical risk, meaning devaluation of physical assets like buildings or oil rigs due to climate-related hazards like hurricanes or wildfires. The second is liability risk, also called legal or litigation risk, meaning losses from legal action by parties harmed by climate change who seek compensation. The third is transition risk, or losses to fossil fuel-intensive industries resulting from the world’s transition to renewable energy sources. These can manifest as decreased demand for products like gasoline, or policy changes that limit the amount of carbon emissions a company can emit, to give just two examples.  

As some of the world’s highest emitters of the carbon emissions that cause climate change, fossil fuel companies face heightened levels of these risks compared to other industries. Oil and gas companies are particularly vulnerable to physical risks to infrastructure located in extreme weather zones like coastlines or oceans; transition risks related to falling demand for their products; and liability risk. Several dozen lawsuits against fossil fuel corporations have been filed in the United States alone by states, counties, cities, and tribes seeking accountability for fraud, climate damages, or racketeering. While these cases do not seek to regulate emissions directly, they represent a significant financial and reputational threat through introduces risk through potential judgments, discovery of internal documents, and the broader scrutiny of industry practices. 

Using science for risk resilience 

In his 2015 speech, Carney said risk “will only increase as the science and evidence of climate change hardens.” Ten years later, that hard evidence has continued to mount. A well-established field known as attribution science is strengthening evidence of climate change-related risk to companies, investors, communities, and the economy. Attribution science can explain how climate change makes a heatwave hotter or a hurricane-related downpour more intense. This kind of event attribution helps assess changing risks to assets, infrastructure, and insurance.  

Another branch of attribution science focuses on emissions sources, quantifying how emissions from specific companies contribute to global warming and related impacts over time. 

A new UCS study, building on a robust body of UCS-led research, shows that nearly half of the increase in present-day temperature and one-third of present-day sea level rise can be traced to emissions from just 122 fossil fuel producers and cement manufacturers.   

Think of all the damage wrought by rising seas, warming oceans, and hurricanes, and it becomes clear why so many are calling for greater accountability from oil and gas companies—much like the public reckoning that followed with the tobacco and asbestos industries. 

Roll the Dice, Pay the Price

These political shenanigans are just attempts to deny a reality that Wall Street already knows: Climate risk is financial risk. Just this year, banks and insurance companies released a slew of reports chronicling how climate change will impact the financial world. For real-time evidence, investors need look no further than the current insurance crisis. As my colleague Rachel Cleetus recently wrote, this crisis “was entirely foreseeable, and largely preventable…climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, and yet the market and policymakers have reacted with short-term strategies because those are the timeframes for determining shareholder value, profits and elections.” 

Trump’s rollbacks reflect more of this cynical, short-term thinking. But companies across industries must look beyond politics and face the reality of climate-related risk disclosure, both from within the US (rules in states including California) and abroad (regulations in Japan and the EU).

The key to winning the game Risk is fortifying your positions against all attackers. But where a board game depends a good deal on a roll of the dice, we can and must take charge of our future by accounting for the risks we face. By removing mechanisms to hold companies accountable, the Trump administration is playing political games with our financial future as well as the planet’s.  

Illegally diverted rivers, seawater and poorly managed building projects have polluted the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. But the Unesco site has a vital role to play in fighting climate change

From the porch of her family home in Nueva Venecia, Magdalena, Yeidis Rodríguez Suárez watches the sunset. The view takes in the still waters of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta wetlands. Pelicans dip their beaks into the lagoon, ripples breaking the glassy surface. Distant mangroves turn from green to deep purple in the dying light.

The 428,000-hectare (1,600 sq mile) expanse of lagoons, mangroves and marshes in Colombia has been a Unesco biosphere reserve since 2000. Yet, for Rodríguez, 27, the natural abundance is little more than an illusion.

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Plus, a capybara controversy in Argentina.

The N.I.H. has indicated that it will stop funding research on the topic. Scientists said that would make it harder to protect people.

Climate scientists, environmentalists, Labor and Greens condemn opposition leader for comments at Wednesday election debate

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The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has insisted he “believes in climate change” a day after refusing to state if the impacts of global heating were worsening.

Climate scientists, environmentalists, Labor and the Greens lined up on Thursday to condemn the opposition leader for comments he made during Wednesday night’s election leaders’ debate, which prompted renewed scepticism of the Coalition’s commitment to climate action.

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The White House will soon move to rapidly repeal or freeze rules that affect health, food, workplace safety, transportation and more.

Extreme weather disasters, increasing as the planet warms, can curb blood donations while increasing demand, a new analysis found.

An internal document describes how severe shortages of meteorologists and other staff members could affect forecasts and other operations.

Blazes in some parts of the country are up by 1,200% since last year, as charities warn about effects on wildlife

Entire ecosystems have been “decimated” and endangered species put at risk after one of the worst wildfire seasons on record in the UK, charities have warned.

Vast areas of habitat for animals including butterflies, beetles and falcons have been damaged, and some peat bogs may take “hundreds of years” to recover following one of the driest Marches in decades combined with warmer than average temperatures in April.

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The rulings are setbacks to Trump’s efforts to halt climate and environmental funding approved under the Biden administration.

Last week, hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) employees were fired for a second time (!) by the Trump administration. Since then, news reports have indicated that NOAA will face further drastic cuts in staffing and budgets soon, including potentially getting rid of the entire Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) division. Our nation’s foremost federal scientific agency for weather forecasting and climate research is under a full-scale assault—and that should alarm us all.

The cuts identified in news stories have not yet been publicly confirmed by NOAA or the Trump administration. In any other administration, one might be inclined to wait and see, hoping that rational choices safeguarding the public interest will prevail. But again and again, this administration has shown that it’s willing to engage in unbounded destruction and cares little about what it’s destroying or if their unilateral actions are even legal. Cut first and ask questions later, no matter the harm to people, seems to be the modus operandi.

And what they’re destroying is an incredibly rich and valuable scientific enterprise, built up over decades through investments made by US taxpayers, for the public’s benefit. NOAA belongs to all of us—communities, first responders, farmers, mariners, businesses, local decisionmakers—and we need to fight for what is ours. Congress needs to step up to do its job: reclaim its constitutional power and limit the worst excesses of this increasingly authoritarian administration.

Timing and scale of cuts to NOAA

Numerous news outlets have reported on a leaked document showing the president’s proposed budget for NOAA, which outlines significant cuts to the agency. As my colleague Marc Alessi points out, if those cuts go forward, they would significantly degrade the agency’s ability to provide lifesaving and economically beneficial data and forecasts.

Back in February, following from an executive order issued by President Trump, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management, (OPM) issued guidance requiring agencies to author and deliver reorganization plans by April 14. Specifically, it says:

Agencies should… submit a Phase 2 ARRP [Agency Reduction in Force and Reorganization Plans] to OMB and OPM for review and approval no later than April 14, 2025. Phase 2 plans shall outline a positive vision for more productive, efficient agency operations going forward. Phase 2 plans should be planned for implementation by September 30, 2025.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who heads the department that oversees NOAA, has presumably complied with this guidance but those decisions have not yet been made public.

It seems that the administration is determined to degrade NOAA’s capabilities, one way or another. Of course, decisions about the actual budget appropriated for agencies are made by Congress—and it should not just obediently rubberstamp these dangerous cuts.

Threat of eliminating NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) division

OAR, headquartered in Silver Spring, MD, provides the foundational research and data underpinning the work of other parts of the agency. In collaboration with various divisions at NOAA, OAR helps develop and advance scientific understanding of Earth systems to ensure more accurate weather forecasts, better early warnings for extreme weather events, and greater understanding of climate change within the US and across the globe.

From improved hurricane forecasting to better tornado modeling and warning systems, OAR science and scientists play a critical role in keeping people in every part of the country safe.

Yet, the leaked proposed Trump budget document calls for the elimination of OAR as a line office, and many of its career staff have already been laid off. While parts of its work and staff may be shifted to other divisions of NOAA, there’s no question that huge cuts like this would be devastating to its essential work, not to mention our country’s standing in the global scientific community.

NOAA’s satellite resources at risk

Just last week, NOAA celebrated 50 years of its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) program. GOES satellites are the agency’s “eyes in the sky,” helping to monitor and track severe weather, environmental hazards and space weather. GOES-19, the latest model in the series, just became operational as GOES-East and is slated to provide critical new information to weather forecasters across the nation.

Just in the last month, this incredible satellite system has helped monitor two powerful storm system and tornado outbreaks—one that affected central and eastern US, and another that stretched from Texas to the Great Lakes—and provided early warnings to communities in their path that undoubtedly helped save lives. NOAA has plans to expand these capabilities through the Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite system, scheduled to begin operation in the early 2030s, which would provide enhanced information on emerging threats including climate change.

Yet, the leaked document indicates a plan to make major cuts in NOAA’s satellite program, including cancelling contracts associated with the GeoXO program and contracts for NASA collaboration on it. Unfortunately, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine that changes like this could be aimed at trying to deliberately gut agency capabilities so as to privatize critical satellite systems and hand large contracts to companies that will then take advantage of taxpayers financially in the years to come.

NOAA cuts are cruel, dangerous—and premeditated   

The Trump administration’s assault on NOAA—including the reckless mass firings of career scientists and other experts, targeting of climate-related work for elimination, and threats to precious, long-standing resources and data—are all reprehensible. They will harm people across the country and could leave the nation at a scientific disadvantage for decades to come.

Much of what is happening was previewed in Project 2025, whose chief architect, Russell Vought, is now executing his master plan from his powerful perch at the OMB. Project 2025 chillingly said:

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.

It took specific aim at OAR, calling for it to be downsized and for its climate-related research to be disbanded, falsely disparaging it as “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism.”

And here we are, not even three months into the term of this administration, watching the destruction unfold as planned.

Refusing to accept the scientific reality of climate change and gutting the nation’s ability to understand those changes won’t make climate impacts go away. Instead, cities, states and our country will be left flying blind into this oncoming disaster, without the information they urgently need to get out ahead in responding to worsening risks.

This is not efficiency; this is not going to save money. This is, quite literally, going to cost lives and lead to mounting, incredibly expensive damage to our economy. Congress, please stand up to these attacks and defend NOAA.

According to a leaked internal budget memo, the Trump Administration is planning to end climate research at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). If this goes ahead, it would be an illegal escalation by the Trump Administration against the United States’ scientific enterprise and will directly hurt American livelihoods, leading to more deaths and greater economic damage from extreme weather events. Congress holds the power of the purse in our democracy and should step up to oppose harmful cuts to NOAA and NASA.  

While the proposed cuts claim to only be directed at climate change research, which would be disastrous on its own, the scientific institutions on the chopping block are imperative for the prediction and research of extreme weather events, including tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. The memo proposes closing all 16 Cooperative Research Institutes in 33 states, every one of the 10 research labs, all 6 regional climate centers, slashing the budget for the NASA Goddard Space Institute, and ending $70 million in grants to research universities. Thousands of seasoned scientists, early career scientists, and young scientists in graduate schools will lose funding. These folks have spent their livelihoods conducting research that improves climate and weather prediction that directly affects every American. 

But what does this mean? Why should you care? Here are just some examples of how these cuts will affect you, if they go ahead: 

1. Significant decrease in hurricane forecasting accuracy

The proposed cuts include closing the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (CIMAS) at the University of Miami and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML). This would end support for NOAA’s hurricane hunter missions as we know them, which provide invaluable data for hurricane forecasting models that predict the path and strength of hurricanes making landfall in the United States. Further, improvements in hurricane forecasting by these institutions have led to nearly $5 billion saved per major US-landfalling hurricane. The total budget cuts that would close these institutions? $485 million. These 2 institutions alone save the American taxpayer tens of billions of dollars annually, far more than what they cost. Closing them makes zero financial sense, and will cost us dearly, including in lives. 

2. An end to climate monitoring for farmers

If this budget passes, the NOAA Regional Climate Centers (RCC) would shut down operations, which provide critical decision tools for farming communities across the United States. This includes products that factor long-term climate data into decisions for frost, drought, extreme precipitation, and even turf grass for golf courses. The RCCs further archive weather and climate data that are used for understanding trends in temperature and precipitation extremes. 

3. Coastal communities will be left on their own

The memo calls for a slashing of the budget that supports the National Ocean Service, which provides information on tides, flood risk from extreme weather events, sea-level rise due to climate change, and water pollution for coastal communities. 

4. An end to US climate science leadership

The proposed budget would close the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, New Jersey, which is the birthplace of weather and climate modeling. If this occurs, the US would be abdicating its leadership in the advancement of our understanding of the atmosphere, especially under climate change. If we can no longer predict the effects of climate change, communities in the United States will be left on their own, with no help in how they should adapt to changes in extreme weather events. 

5. Young scientists under threat with nowhere to go

Graduate students and early career scientists across the country depend on funding from NOAA grants and Cooperative Institutes to conduct their research. These projects are vital for the future of the US economy and include anything from predicting tornado outbreaks using machine learning to studying how hurricanes undergo rapid intensification. If this funding is cut, we lose the ability to fund these projects that benefit every American, and we lose the ability to support curious young scientists who want to better the world with research. Furthermore, international graduate students and professors across the country are fearful of having their visas revoked due to small administrative errors or by exercising freedom of speech as is protected under the US constitution. In order for the US to attract the world’s brightest minds, we must be creating a space for scientists to flourish in, rather than causing panic and spreading fear through deportations.

On a personal note, my path to getting a PhD would not have been possible had these cuts been made previously. My undergraduate and master’s research was funded by the Northeast Regional Climate Center, where I conducted research on drought risk in the Northeastern United States and applied a statistical model to weather model forecasts for improved predictions of temperature and precipitation. And now, friends in the field who are just leaving graduate school are struggling to find jobs and worried about anything that’s federally funded. Scientists should feel safe and secure in their curiosity of the climate and weather system; that’s how it always used to be in the United States. 

The American scientific enterprise is under attack and being sabotaged by the Trump Administration. This is not about making the government more efficient, as it will drastically affect our ability to predict and research extreme weather events, which will have devastating effects on our country’s economy.

It is critical that we stand up and fight for these institutions at this crucial moment. We must contact our representatives and name how these institutions, which we’ve been investing in for decades, benefit our livelihoods. Luckily, we’ve seen some US Representatives stepping up: here is a letter organized by Representative Wesley Bell, press releases from Representative Tonko and Senator Cantwell, and a letter organized by UCS and signed by 2,500 scientists calling on US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to protect the work of NOAA.  

For decades, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, the federal government has recognized that safeguarding all communities requires a deliberate effort to enforce environmental regulations, monitor pollution, and implement programs aimed at those most affected by environmental harm. Despite decades of progress in environmental protections, the Trump administration aims to systematically roll back these safeguards. Upon taking office, President Trump immediately rescinded a suite of Executive Orders that directed federal agencies to prioritize environmental justice— including one that had been in effect for more than thirty years. 

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has doubled down on this effort by announcing plans to cut 65% of the agency’s budget. He further detailed his plan by announcing a suite of more than 30 actions aimed to weaken or eliminate longstanding protections for air quality, water quality, chemical safety, greenhouse gas regulation and much more. This plan undermines the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to fulfill its mission, to “protect human health and the environment.”  

The Role of Environmental Justice at the EPA 

As a former Environmental Health fellow at the EPA during the first Trump administration, I witnessed the importance of environmental justice programs in action. Environmental justice, as defined by the EPA, is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, culture, national origin, income, or educational levels, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of protective environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”  

The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights (Office of EJ) advocates for community-led solutions to environmental issues, coordinating these efforts across the agency and enforcing civil rights protections. This office has played a crucial role in addressing environmental injustices in over-polluted communities, such as Cancer Alley in Louisiana, where high cancer rates are linked to the region’s petrochemical industry, and Flint, Michigan, which suffered from the infamous lead-contained water crisis.   

During my fellowship, I worked in the Office of Air and Radiation in the Indoor Environments Division. Our office integrated environmental justice and equity into programs that reduce asthma triggers indoors, reduce exposure to harmful gases such as radon, and improve air quality in schools.  On average, Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors where concentrations of some pollutants can be as much as five times higher than outdoors. Older adults, children and people with cardiovascular and respiratory disease face a greater health risk from exposure to pollutants indoors. Black individuals in the US are 1.5 more likely to diagnosed with asthma. The EPA works to ensure that all communities have access to a healthy environment by reducing environmental risks and improving public health in overburdened areas.  

EPA’s Environmental Justice Efforts are Making Communities Healthier

EPA’s Office of EJ develops policies and provides guidance to help federal, state, and local agencies incorporate environmental justice principles into their programs. The office also addresses environmental disparities by identifying and rectifying areas with higher pollution levels or limited access to green spaces. One place where EPA’s intervention has helped to address community pollution is North Birmingham, Alabama. North Birmingham, Alabama has faced decades of residential contamination due to its close proximity to heavy industry. The area includes asphalt plants, cement facilities, coke production, and lumber manufacturing, many of which are located near homes and schools. The neighborhood’s population is predominantly Black, a direct result of racial redlining, a discriminatory practice that historically confined Black residents to certain areas.  

The contamination from these plants includes chemicals in soil such as Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), lead and arsenic which are known carcinogens. In 2011, EPA decided that immediate action was needed to address the contamination and underwent an effort to sample the soil in residential properties and at schools. Based on the results, the EPA Superfund program removed about 90,000 tons of contaminated soil and replaced it with clean soil to reduce residents’ exposure to harmful toxins.  

North Birmingham is just one example where the EPA has focused on improving public health by identifying and addressing areas with elevated pollution levels. By slashing environmental justice, the administration is cutting programs designed to ensure equal protection for clean air, water, and land, endangering vital research into environmental health risks. Furthermore, cuts to funding, resources, and community engagement jeopardize strategic efforts to address public health issues and promote local economic growth. 

EPA Programs Are Revitalizing My Community 

In addition to my role as Senior Campaign Manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, I also serve as a County Commissioner in Macon County, Alabama. In this position, I am deeply committed to ensuring that our community, along with others across the country, receives the support needed to keep our governments functioning and our residents safe. This can be especially challenging for small, rural counties with limited budgets. The EPA’s justice programs and resources have been vital for counties like mine, providing grants, technical assistance, and enforcement support.  

Communities nationwide, including those in my home state of Alabama, have long struggled to access the funding and support needed for life-saving infrastructure upgrades. Alabama is home to several of the nation’s worst environmental disaster sites, along with numerous Superfund sites. As a result, federal resources have been crucial in helping us make the necessary improvements to our infrastructure.  

My hometown of Tuskegee, AL has experienced years of underinvestment and economic stagnation. We have benefitted from the EPA’s Brownfields Program, a program designed to assist communities, states and tribes in assessing, safely cleaning up and reusing contaminated properties. Known for its power to clean up and revitalize communities, the EPA Brownfields programs has received bipartisan support. As a part of a larger effort to “improve the environmental, public health, economic and social impacts associated with contaminated and abandoned sites,” Tuskegee applied for and received a $300,000 grant from the EPA Brownfield’s program. 

This award is intended to develop seven cleanup plans and conduct community engagement activities in the City of Tuskegee. Notably, the grant provides funding to assess the level of contamination in soil and groundwater for sites, including a former oil distribution center, former hotel, and former gas station. The funding will also support examining contamination on properties with dilapidated buildings. Rehabilitating properties like this is tough for local leaders like me because no one otherwise would want to take on the liability risks to redevelop them. This program, and programs like this, support communities in remediating and reusing sites with legacy pollution which can be vital for economic development and community improvement.

The Brownfields program is just one of the EPA’s countless programs revitalizing small communities while making people healthier across the country. While Brownfields has historically enjoyed bipartisan support, reports of the administration’s desire to slash the EPA’s funding by 65% amidst broader attacks on environmental justice leaves me deeply concerned for the future of vital programs like this.  

Counties across the country rely on many EPA funding programs to provide basic services and protect public health. To provide safe drinking water, we rely on the support of programs like the Clean Water State Revolving Funds program which is administered by the EPA to finance projects to upgrade wastewater treatment plants and/or repair old pipelines. A drastic reduction in funding could lead to delays in maintaining and upgrading these facilities, resulting in lower water quality or the unreliability or failure of critical infrastructure.  

The Enduring Need for Environmental Justice

It is clear that the Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights helps EPA connect people and communities to government resources needed to solve problems and protect health and the environment. Moreover, that EPA at large has an important mandate, to protect all people. Whether it is in my community or any other part of the country, EPA’s programs help communities and local officials by providing the technical support and funding needed to address long standing environmental pollution challenges.

There is broad cross-cutting support for the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights. Recently, 170 organizations signed-on to a joint letter to urge Congress and the EPA officials to reverse steps to dismantle the Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights. In a parallel show of support, more than 500 individuals from across the United States signed on to a similar letter urging the EPA to keep the Office of Environmental Justice.  

The environmental justice movement emerged as a response to years of evidence showing that low-income and communities of color were disproportionately affected by environmental and health harms. Industries that others were unwilling to have near their homes, such as toxic landfills, polluting fossil fuel plants, and hazardous chemical manufacturing companies, were often placed in marginalized communities of color lacking the political power or capital to block such decisions.  

The recognition of EJ in the federal government fulfilled a distinct need, backed by science. Without the safeguards, our nation is on track to exacerbate environmental issues that disproportionally impact low-income communities and communities of color and local officials around the country will have to figure out how to navigate the challenges without the support of the agency charged to lead the way.