From The New York Times:
The Trump administration has dismissed the hundreds of scientists and experts who had been compiling the federal government’s flagship report on how global warming is affecting the country.
The move puts the future of the report, which is required by Congress and is known as the National Climate Assessment, into serious jeopardy, experts said.
Since 2000, the federal government has published a comprehensive look every few years at how rising temperatures will affect human health, agriculture, fisheries, water supplies, transportation, energy production and other aspects of the U.S. economy. The last climate assessment came out in 2023 and is used by state and local governments as well as private companies to help prepare for the effects of heat waves, floods, droughts and other climate-related calamities.
Let's take a look at that last assessment:
The more the planet warms, the greater the impacts. Without rapid and deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, the risks of accelerating sea level rise, intensifying extreme weather, and other harmful climate impacts will continue to grow. Each additional increment of warming is expected to lead to more damage and greater economic losses compared to previous increments of warming, while the risk of catastrophic or unforeseen consequences also increases.
That (in part) is what this Administration doesn't want you to know.
And that requirement? Goes back 35 years to this legislation signed into law by George H.W. Bush.
Section 106 reads:
On a periodic basis (not less frequently than every 4 years), the Council, through the Committee, shall prepare and submit to the President and the Congress an assessment which—
(1) integrates, evaluates, and interprets the findings of the Program and discusses the scientific uncertainties associated with such findings;
(2) analyzes the effects of global change on the natural environment, agriculture, energy production and use, land and water resources, transportation, human health and welfare, human social systems, and biological diversity; and
(3) analyzes current trends in global change, both human- inducted and natural, and projects major trends for the subsequent 25 to 100 years.
Of course if you dismiss all the science folks writing the report you're not technically violating the law requiring it be submitted to the Executive and Legislative branches, are you?
You can just get Sean Hannity to write it for you instead!
Or maybe the next best thing. The Times has this a few paragraphs down:
President Trump has frequently dismissed the risks of global warming. And Russell Vought, the current director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote before the election that the next president should “reshape” the Global Change Research Program, because its scientific reports on climate change were often used as the basis for environmental lawsuits that constrained federal government actions.
And who is Russell Vought, current director of OMB?
He was a major player in Project 2025. From The Times:
Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.
And what does Project 2025 have to do with climate science?
From The Union of Concerned Scientists:
Effective climate governance, from policy to litigation, must be grounded in rigorous science. Project 2025, however, threatens this foundation by undermining scientists and the data they produce, a continuation of actions taken during Trump’s first term. The plan’s recommendations include policy changes that would stifle scientific research, sideline critical climate assessments, and discredit science as a guiding force for public policy.
For instance, it proposes directing the President to “critically analyze” and potentially reject assessments from the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)—the body responsible for the National Climate Assessment, a key scientific resource. The USGCRP was established under a 1990 Act of Congress and provides a crucial scientific underpinning to help the nation understand and respond to climate change. It is specifically not policy prescriptive in its work. Labeling these findings as “political” risks concealing climate realities from decision-makers who need accurate, independent science to make informed and accountable decisions. By casting doubt on established science, Project 2025’s agenda does more than distort policy; it feeds the disinformation machine.
Good news, they don't need Sean Hannity after all!
This is America now.
