Opinion - Trump gutted the National Climate Assessment. America will suffer as a result.

Yahoo

a day ago

The National Climate Assessment is more than just a report. Aside from its unique status as the authoritative statement on the state of climate change in America, it is also an expression of service and passion from the national climate community to our fellow citizens.
The National Climate Assessment is developed through an incredibly rigorous process, which includes exacting deadlines and multiple rounds of scientific, technical and public review. This is all followed by closely monitored and recorded revisions and thoughtful consideration given by the author teams of each chapter.
By law, an updated report is delivered to Congress and released to the public every four years.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment, published in 2023, was late getting started. Authors — all of whom volunteer their time to contribute to the report — faced truncated draft deadlines that challenged even seasoned academic writers. For someone like me, it meant long nights pouring over reports and academic papers, seeking to bolster my understanding and expert perspective of climate change in the Midwest, and then pour out that expertise into a brief, unbiased, well-cited sentences. I cried — some nights, I cried a lot.
Despite the challenging timeline, the director of the Fifth National Climate Assessment didn't choose the easy path of doing what's always been done before. Instead, she further challenged us to seek out lived expertise, traditional ecological knowledge and credible, non-peer reviewed sources of information that would explain the changes that are occurring, what the risks are if we do not adapt and what options or strategies are there for taking action. We were, in my opinion, asked to write the closest thing the U.S. has ever had to a national climate adaptation report.
The Fifth National Climate Assessment didn't stop there. Authors of the report and the team at the U.S. Global Change Research Program recognized that sharing the story of climate change needed to happen through many mediums. Dedicated, insightful colleagues launched the Art x Climate project, soliciting art from across the country, showcasing what climate means to people — young and old, rural and urban, from all races and genders. The results of the competition were integrated into the report and have made the report itself a beautiful work of art.
Finally, a poetry anthology titled 'Dear Human at the Edge of Time' was published ahead of the report. It features the voices of many authors of the assessment and gave an opportunity for these scholars, activists and practitioners to transform their climate passion into climate poetry.
Contributing to the National Climate Assessment and attending the in-person meeting of over 400 authors, technical reviewers and editors was the most meaningful thing I have done in my climate career. I remember standing in the room and feeling overwhelmed at the magnitude of the effort and selflessness of people who were volunteering their time, expertise, knowledge and passion to this national resource.
But on April 29 of this year, the authors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment, due out in 2027, received a brief and unexpected message: 'Thank you for your participation in the 6th National Climate Assessment. At this time, the scope of the NCA6 is currently being reevaluated in accordance with the Global Change Research Act of 1990. We are now releasing all current assessment participants from their roles.'
The dismissal of the 400 authors followed closely on the heels of the firing of the majority of the Global Change Research Program staff and contractors who provided the leadership, coordination and technical support for the report and other direction across 15 federal agencies. The Trump administration is already acting to seed any future version of the assessment with climate denialism. These actions ignore decades of science and, more importantly, they put American communities at increasing risk in a rapidly changing climate.
I am beside myself at losing this resource. I don't want to become immune to feeling pain, shame, loss, sadness just because this awful administration continues committing unlawful, unethical and despicable acts. I don't want the erasure of my work — and the work of my colleagues and friends — to be normalized, when it is not normal and not acceptable. I am tired of trying to be okay when I am not okay. And I'm not okay because these are not remotely okay times.
The National Climate Assessment is more than a report. It is a selfless contribution that the climate community painstakingly compiles, expertly reviews and earnestly delivers to the American people. It is only one of the many meaningful, necessary and useful acts of human creation that are being erased by a small group of lawless ideologues who are undermining what truly makes this country great.
Beth Gibbons is the inaugural director of the Resiliency Office in Washtenaw County, Mich. She is a former executive director of the American Society of Adaptation Professionals. She served on the Federal Advisory Council on Climate Change Adaptation under President Biden and was a contributing author to the Fifth National Climate Assessment.
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