logo
Inside the federal government's purge of climate data

Inside the federal government's purge of climate data

Vox5 days ago
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
For 25 years, a group of the country's top experts has been fastidiously tracking the ways that climate change threatens every part of the United States. Their findings informed the National Climate Assessments, a series of congressionally mandated reports released every four years that translated the science into accessible warnings for policymakers and the public. But that work came to a halt this spring when the Trump administration abruptly dismissed all 400 experts working on the next edition. Then, late last month, all of the past reports vanished too, along with the federal website they lived on.
A lot of information about the changing climate has disappeared under President Donald Trump's second term, but the erasure of the National Climate Assessments is 'by far the biggest loss we've seen,' said Gretchen Gehrke, who monitors federal websites with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative. The National Climate Assessments were one of the most approachable resources that broke down how climate change will affect the places people care about, she said. The reports were also used by a wide swath of stakeholders — policymakers, farmers, businesses — to guide their decisions about the future. While the reports have been archived elsewhere, they're no longer as easy to access. And it's unclear what, if anything, will happen to the report that was planned for 2027 or 2028, which already existed in draft form.
So why did the reports survive Trump's first term, but not his second?
You could view their disappearance in a few different ways, experts said — as a flex of executive power, an escalation in the culture war over climate change, or a strategic attempt to erase the scientific foundation for climate policy. 'If you suppress information and data, then you don't have the evidence you need to be able to create regulations, strengthen regulations, and even to combat the repeal of regulations,' Gehrke said.
This isn't climate denial in the traditional sense. The days of loudly debating the science have mostly given way to something quieter and more insidious: a campaign to withhold the raw information itself. 'I don't know if we're living in climate denial anymore,' said Leah Aronowsky, a science historian at the Columbia Climate School. 'We have this new front of denial by erasure.'
By cutting funding for research and withholding crucial data, the Trump administration is making it harder to know exactly how the planet is changing.
In April, the administration pulled nearly $4 million in funding from a Princeton program to improve computer models predicting changes in the oceans and atmosphere, claiming the work created 'climate anxiety' among young people. That same month, the Environmental Protection Agency failed to submit its annual report to the United Nations detailing the country's greenhouse gas emissions. In May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ended its 45-year tradition of tracking billion-dollar weather disasters. Trump also hopes to shut down the Mauna Loa laboratory in Hawaii, which has measured the steady rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide since the 1950s — the first data to definitively show humans were changing the climate.
'This kind of wholesale suppression of an entire field of federally sponsored research, to my knowledge, is historically unprecedented,' Aronowsky said.
In a response to a request for comment, a NASA spokesperson said that it has 'no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov's data,' referring to the site that hosted the National Climate Assessments, adding that the US Global Change Research Program had already 'met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress.' The EPA directed Grist to a webpage containing past greenhouse gas emissions reports, as well as a version of what was supposed to be this year's report obtained by the Environmental Defense Fund. However, the agency confirmed that the latest data has not been officially released. The White House declined to comment, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration did not respond.
Climate denial first took off in the 1990s, when the oil and gas companies and industry-friendly think tanks started sowing doubt about climate science.
Last year, a leaked training video from Project 2025 — the policy roadmap organized by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank — showed a former Trump official declaring that political appointees would have to 'eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere.' The strategy appears to be designed to boost the fossil fuel industry at a time when clean energy has become competitive and the reality of climate change harder to dismiss, as floods, fires, and heat waves have become perceptibly worse. 'We will drill, baby, drill,' Trump said in his inauguration speech in January.
The administration hasn't exactly been subtle about its endgame. Lee Zeldin, the head of the EPA, doesn't deny the reality of climate change (he calls himself a 'climate realist'), but he's zealously dismantled environmental programs and has recommended that the White House strike down the 'endangerment finding,' the bedrock of US climate policy. It comes from a 2007 Supreme Court ruling on the Clean Air Act that required the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants since they endanger public health. If the administration can convince the courts that climate change isn't a health consideration, it could end that regulatory obligation.
'If you're removing information about climate change, its reality, and its impact on people, then I think it's a lot easier to make the case that it's not an environmental health issue,' Gehrke said.
There's a word for the idea that ignorance can serve political ends: agnotology (from the Greek 'agnosis,' or 'not knowing'), the study of how knowledge is deliberately obscured. What Trump is doing to information about climate change fits squarely in that tradition, according to Aronowsky: 'If you remove it, then in a certain sense, it no longer exists, and therefore, there's nothing to even debate, right?'
Climate denial first took off in the 1990s, when the oil and gas companies and industry-friendly think tanks started sowing doubt about climate science. Over the decades, as the evidence became rock-solid, those who opposed reducing the use of fossil fuels gradually shifted from outright denying the facts to attacking solutions like wind and solar power. What the Trump administration is doing now marks a radical break from this long-term trend, said John Cook, a climate misinformation researcher at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
'This is a 180, not just a turn, but diving into something we've never even seen before,' he said. On the other hand, Cook said, the administration is taking a classic climate denial tactic — painting scientists as 'alarmists' or conspirators who can't be trusted — and turning it into government policy.
Half a year in, the second Trump administration's treatment of climate information hasn't yet reached the 'eradication' levels that Project 2025 aspired to, at least on government websites. The EPA's climate change website, for instance, is still up and running, even though all references to the phenomenon were erased on the agency's home page. Most of the website deletions so far have served to isolate climate change as an issue, erasing its relationship to topics such as health and infrastructure, Gehrke said. Up until the National Climate Assessments disappeared, she would have said that 'climate erasure' was an inappropriate characterization of what's happening. 'But now, I'm really not so sure,' she said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Trump threatens to withhold trade deals from Thailand, Cambodia amid conflict
Trump threatens to withhold trade deals from Thailand, Cambodia amid conflict

The Hill

timea few seconds ago

  • The Hill

Trump threatens to withhold trade deals from Thailand, Cambodia amid conflict

President Trump threatened to withhold potential trade deals from Thailand and Cambodia amid a border conflict that has displaced tens of thousands of civilians and left at least 32 people dead. Trump said on Saturday that he spoke with Cambodia's prime minister Hun Manet and that he called Thailand's acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai to 'request' a ceasefire and an end to the cross-border war. 'We happen to be, by coincidence, currently dealing on Trade with both Countries, but do not want to make any Deal, with either Country, if they are fighting — And I have told them so,' Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. 'Many people are being killed in this War, but it very much reminds me of the Conflict between Pakistan and India, which was brought to a successful halt,' the president added, referring to U.S. efforts to help broker a ceasefire between India and Pakistan in May after the two exchanged tit-for-tat strikes. The conflict between Thailand and Cambodia has continued on Saturday, its third day. In Thailand, 19 people were killed, while in Cambodia, the death toll has reached 13, according to The Associated Press. The conflict has erupted after five Thai soldiers were wounded on Wednesday from a land mine explosion. In another Saturday post on Truth Social, Trump, who is visiting Scotland, said he had a 'very good conversation' with Wechayachai, Thailand's acting prime minister. 'Thailand, like Cambodia, wants to have an immediate Ceasefire, and PEACE. I am now going to relay that message back to the Prime Minister of Cambodia,' Trump wrote on Saturday. 'After speaking to both Parties, Ceasefire, Peace, and Prosperity seems to be a natural. We will soon see!' Trump's conversations with leaders of Cambodia and Thailand come as he has threatened to impose reciprocal tariffs on a host of countries, including the two currently at war. Both Bangkok and Phnom Penh would face a 36 percent reciprocal rate, which Trump and other administration officials said would go into effect on Aug. 1.

Trump notches winning streak in Supreme Court emergency docket deluge
Trump notches winning streak in Supreme Court emergency docket deluge

The Hill

timea few seconds ago

  • The Hill

Trump notches winning streak in Supreme Court emergency docket deluge

President Trump is on a winning streak at the Supreme Court with conservative-majority justices giving the green light for the president to resume his sweeping agenda. Their recent blessing of his firings of more independent agency leaders is the latest example of the court going the administration's way. This White House in six months has already brought more emergency appeals to the high court than former President Biden did during his four years in office, making it an increasingly dominant part of the Supreme Court's work. But as the court issues more and more emergency decisions, the practice has sometimes come under criticism — even by other justices. Trump prompts staggering activity Trump's Justice Department filed its 21 st emergency application on Thursday, surpassing the 19 that the Biden administration filed during his entire four-year term. The court has long dealt with requests to delay executions on its emergency docket, but the number of politically charged requests from the sitting administration has jumped in recent years, further skyrocketing under Trump. 'The numbers are startling,' said Kannon Shanmugam, who leads Paul, Weiss' Supreme Court practice, at a Federalist Society event Thursday. Trump's Justice Department asserts the burst reflects how 'activist' federal district judges have improperly blocked the president's agenda. Trump's critics say it shows how the president himself is acting lawlessly. But some legal experts blame Congress for being missing in action. 'There are a lot of reasons for this growth, but I think the biggest reason, in some sense, is the disappearance of Congress from the scene,' Shanmugam said. In his second term, Trump has almost always emerged victorious at the Supreme Court. The administration successfully halted lower judges' orders in all but two of the decided emergency appeals, and a third where they only partially won. On immigration, the justices allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of migrants and swiftly deport people to countries where they have no ties while separately rebuffing a judge who ruled for migrants deported to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. Other cases involve efforts to reshape the federal bureaucracy and spending. The Supreme Court allowed the administration to freeze $65 million in teacher grants, provide Department of Government Efficiency personnel with access to sensitive Social Security data, proceed with mass firings of probationary employees and broader reorganizations and dismantle the Education Department. Last month, Trump got perhaps his biggest win yet, when the Supreme Court clawed back federal judges' ability to issue universal injunctions. The most recent decision, meanwhile, concerned Trump's bid to expand presidential power by eviscerating independent agency leaders' removal protections. The justices on Wednesday enabled Trump to fire three members on the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Decisions often contain no explanation Unlike normal Supreme Court cases that take months to resolve, emergency cases follow a truncated schedule. The justices usually resolve the appeals in a matter of days after a singular round of written briefing and no oral argument. And oftentimes, the court acts without explanation. Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, two of Trump's three appointees, have long defended the practice. Last year, the duo cautioned that explaining their preliminary thinking may 'create a lock-in effect' as a case progresses. At the Federalist Society event, Shanmugam suggested the court might have more energy for its emergency cases if the justices less frequently wrote separately on the merits docket — a dig at the many dissents and concurrences issued this term. But the real challenge, he said, is the speed at which the cases must be decided. 'It takes time to get members of the court to agree on reasoning, and sometimes I think it's therefore more expedient for the court to issue these orders without reasoning,' he said. 'Even though I think we would all agree that, all things being equal, it would be better for the court to provide more of that.' The frequent lack of explanation has at times left wiggle room and uncertainty. A month ago, the Supreme Court lifted a judge's injunction requiring the Trump administration to provide migrants with certain due process before deporting them to a country where they have no ties. With no explanation from the majority — only the liberal justices in dissent — the judge believed he could still enforce his subsequent ruling, which limited plans to deport a group of violent criminals to the war-torn country of South Sudan. The Trump administration accused him of defying the Supreme Court. Ultimately, the justices rebuked the judge, with even liberal Justice Elena Kagan agreeing. The Supreme Court's emergency interventions have also left lower judges to grapple with their precedential weight in separate cases. After the high court in May greenlit Trump's firings at the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), the administration began asserting lower courts still weren't getting the message. The emergency decision led many court watchers to believe the justices are poised to overturn their 90-year-old precedent protecting independent agency leaders from termination without cause. But several judges have since continued to block Trump's firings at other independent agencies, since the precedent still technically remains on the books. The tensions came to a head after a judge reinstated fired CPSC members. The Supreme Court said the earlier case decides how the later case must be interpreted, providing arguably their most succinct guidance yet for how their emergency rulings should be interpreted. 'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the unsigned ruling reads. Liberals object to emergency docket practices The lack of explanation in many of the court's emergency decisions has frustrated court watchers and judges alike, leading critics to call it the 'shadow docket.' Those critics include the Supreme Court's own liberal justices. 'Courts are supposed to explain things. That's what courts do,' Kagan said while speaking at a judicial conference Thursday. Kagan pointed to the court's decision last week greenlighting Trump's mass layoffs at the Education Department. She noted a casual observer might think the president is legally authorized to dismantle the agency, but the government didn't present that argument. Her fellow liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and, particularly, Ketanji Brown Jackson, have made more forceful criticisms. Jackson increasingly accuses her colleagues of threatening the rule of law. She called one recent emergency decision 'hubristic and senseless' and warned another was 'unleashing devastation.' Late last month, Jackson wrote that her colleagues had 'put both our legal system, and our system of government, in grave jeopardy.' But in Wednesday's decision letting the CPSC firings move forward, the trio were united. Kagan accused the majority of having 'effectively expunged' the Supreme Court precedent protecting independent agency leaders, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, from its records. 'And it has accomplished those ends with the scantiest of explanations,' she wrote. Kagan noted that the 'sole professed basis' for the stay order was its prior stay order in another case involving Trump's firing of independent agency heads. That decision — which cleared the way for Trump to fire NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox and MSPB member Cathy Harris — was also 'minimally (and, as I have previously shown, poorly) explained,' she said. 'So only another under-reasoned emergency order undergirds today's,' Kagan wrote. 'Next time, though, the majority will have two (if still under reasoned) orders to cite.'

Jeffries hammers Trump on Gaza, calls for increased aid
Jeffries hammers Trump on Gaza, calls for increased aid

The Hill

timea few seconds ago

  • The Hill

Jeffries hammers Trump on Gaza, calls for increased aid

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) criticized President Trump over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, calling for an immediate ceasefire, increased aid to the war-torn enclave and the release of all remaining hostages held by the Palestinian militant group. 'During the first six months of Donald Trump's time in office, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached a breaking point, hostages are still being held by Hamas despite the President's promise they would be released and the pre-existing ceasefire the administration inherited has been breached,' Jeffries said in a statement on Friday. 'The starvation and death of Palestinian children and civilians in an ongoing war zone is unacceptable.' 'The Trump administration has the ability to bring an end to this humanitarian crisis. They must act now,' he added. Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Thursday that the U.S. will step away from peace negotiations in the region and is now considering alternative ways to free the hostages taken by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023, surprise attack on Israel. 'We will now consider alternative options to bring the hostages home and try to create a more stable environment for the people of Gaza,' Witkoff said in a statement. 'It is a shame that Hamas has acted in this selfish way. We are resolute in seeking an end to this conflict and a permanent peace in Gaza.' The Hill has reached out to the White House spokesperson for comment. Dozens of aid groups have warned that the Gaza Strip is on the brink of starvation, with one in five children being malnourished in Gaza City, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while waiting in food lines, according to the UN. Israel has argued that Hamas, which is a U.S.-designated terrorist group, 'operates every day to create a perception of crisis.' U.S. allies, including Australia, the United Kingdom and France, have similarly sounded the alarm over humanitarian conditions in the strip and have called for more aid. The House Democratic leader also reupped his calls for a two-state solution in the nearly two-year conflict. 'It is imperative that humanitarian aid be surged into Gaza immediately, the remaining Israeli hostages be released and the ceasefire negotiated by the Biden administration restored. We need a just and lasting peace,' Jeffries said in his statement. 'Ultimately, that will only occur through a two-state solution that facilitates a safe and secure Israel living side by side with a Palestinian state that provides dignity, self-determination and prosperity for its people,' the New York Democrat added. To help out the Palestinians, Israel is allowing Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to air-drop aid packages into Gaza. The 2023 terrorist attack left some 1,200 Israeli's dead and roughly 250 hostages were taken captive. Nearly two years later, the Israeli military has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to local health affiliates. That number does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store