Experts raise red flags as White House makes concerning U-turn on vital public resource: 'Doesn't want people to know'
The Trump administration has once again reversed a major decision regarding vital climate-based assessments, and many experts are sounding the alarm.
What's happening?
In June, the Trump administration revealed that it was shutting down the U.S. Global Change Research Program's website, globalchange.gov, which hosted the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessments as well as other climate research.
This decision removed public access to extensive data on how climate-related issues impact the United States.
The move was criticized by scientists who viewed it as an attempt to hinder the nation's ability to prepare for the future.
As reported by The Associated Press, NASA then announced on July 3 that "all preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting."
Despite this, the Trump administration appears to have changed its mind regarding the data for a second time.
"The USGCRP met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov's data," NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens wrote in an email.
Why is the removal of public access to the National Climate Assessment concerning?
According to Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, the lack of National Climate Assessment hosting could leave the public uninformed.
Hayhoe, who has co-authored multiple National Climate Assessments, derided the decision by the Trump administration.
"This document was written for the American people, paid for by the taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly," Hayhoe told the AP.
Do you think our power grid needs to be upgraded?
Definitely
Only in some states
Not really
I'm not sure
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
Hayhoe's sentiments were echoed by John Holdren, a fellow climate scientist and former science adviser during the Obama administration. Holdren criticized the current administration's direction regarding climate-based data, accusing it of intentionally keeping the public in the dark.
"They simply don't want the public to see the meticulously assembled and scientifically validated information about what climate change is already doing to our farms, forests, and fisheries, as well as to storms, floods, wildfires, and coast property — and about how all those damages will grow in the absence of concerted remedial action," Holdren wrote in an email to the AP. "Trump doesn't want people to know."
What's being done about the rising global temperatures?
As noted by the most recent National Climate Assessment, released in 2023, the more the planet warms, the greater the impacts will be.
"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," the report reads.
To help combat this, 195 countries adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015. The initiative aims to limit the rise of the global temperature to below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit compared with preindustrial levels. It involves a series of commitments from participating countries to reduce planet-warming gas pollution and promote the advancement of renewable energy resources, such as wind and solar power.
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: Count 'em all — Trump has no authority to muck with 2030 Census Bureau count
Not caring about the U.S. Constitution is a regular refrain for President Donald Trump, who now wants to exclude undocumented people from the 2030 census count — a nonstarter as much else is in this bizarro world we now inhabit, promulgated via a screed on his Truth Social platform — is both a terrible idea and certainly a rehash. Trump attempted something similar during his first term in office as the 2020 census closed in, deciding to suddenly include a citizenship question in the count, a move promptly blocked by the courts. Now Trump's trying to go whole hog and exclude the undocumented altogether, in doing so going against the plain language of the Constitution, which unambiguously mandates the count 'of the whole number of persons' in each state. The chief executive certainly seems to care less about the letter of the law and the orders of judges this time around, though these will still slap him down. It's worth noting, though, that even if and when a judge makes the easiest ruling of a career and strikes down any directive to exclude from the census anyone based on citizenship or immigration status, that's not necessarily mission accomplished. Trump and Stephen Miller's all-out campaign of shock and awe and terror against immigrants around the country is designed at least in part to create an environment of fear and concern that will discourage people from participating in all facets of civic and public life, including the mandated decennial count. The Census Bureau itself found that it probably failed to count up to millions of noncitizens, largely because many declined to participate out of a fear that it would put them on the administration's radar and target list. So Trump was able to accomplish some of his aims, even without the directive technically being in place, and that was in an environment less hostile than now. New York infamously lost a House seat because it came up just 89 people short in the 2020 count, which is almost certainly a partial result of Trump's meddling last time around. That extra seat could have made a real difference in a House of Representatives that is so narrowly controlled by the GOP, which itself seems to understand itself as a mere arm of the Trump administration. Neither Trump, nor his top echelon of grifters and ideologues are going to be personally conducting the census count, though. That is left to a small army of temporary public servants overseen by career officials within the Census Bureau, and these folks will hopefully recall that their responsibility is to this important constitutional mandate and not to Trump. The one-time real estate promoter is fully incapable of seeing anything except in terms of monetary or political gain, and probably sees an attempt to exclude the undocumented from the census as good red meat for the base. However, the census guides everything in the United States — not just apportionment and representation in the Congress and the Electoral College, but disaster planning, disease preparedness, allocation of federal resources, and all manner of private-sector uses like demographic data for business development and so on. Ironically, huge chunks of those that would go uncounted under Trump's illegal decree would be in the red states like Florida and Texas, which Trump claims to want to support. The whole idea is pointless, damaging and unconstitutional. _____
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Investors are frogs in a Trumpian pot
Markets are bending the knee to Donald Trump, opening up the possibility of a new level of recklessness in the US president's economic Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Fast Company
19 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Sustainable aviation fuels were making progress before federal budget cuts
The federal spending law passed in early July 2025, often called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, significantly reduces federal funding for efforts to create renewable or sustainable types of fuel that can power aircraft over long distances while decreasing the damage aviation does to the global climate. Aviation contributed about 2.5% of global carbon emissions in 2023. It's particularly hard to reduce emissions from planes because there are few alternatives for large, portable quantities of energy-dense fuel. Electric batteries with enough energy to power an international flight, for instance, would be much larger and heavier than airplane fuel tanks. One potential solution, which I work on as an aerospace engineer, is a category of fuel called ' sustainable aviation fuel.' Unlike conventional jet fuel, which is refined from petroleum, sustainable aviation fuels are produced from renewable and waste resources such as used cooking oil, agricultural leftovers, algae, sewage, and trash. But they are similar enough to conventional jet fuels that they work in existing aircraft tanks and engines without any major modifications. Prior to Donald Trump's second term as president, the U.S. government had set some bold targets: by 2030, producing 3 billion gallons of this type of fuel every year, and by 2050, producing enough to fuel every U.S. commercial jet flight. But there's a long journey ahead. A range of source materials The earliest efforts to create sustainable aviation fuels relied on food crops —turning corn into ethanol or soybean oil into biodiesel. The raw materials were readily available, but growing them competed with food production. The next generation of biofuels are using nonfood sources such as algae, or agricultural waste such as manure or stalks from harvested corn. These don't compete with food supplies. If processed efficiently, they also have the potential to emit less carbon: Algae absorb carbon dioxide during their growth, and using agricultural waste avoids its decomposition, which would release greenhouse gases. But these biofuels are harder to produce and more expensive, in part because the technologies are new, and in part because there are not yet logistics systems in place to collect, transport, and process large quantities of source material. Some researchers are working to create biofuels with the help of genetically modified bacteria that convert specific raw materials into biofuel. In one method, algae are grown to produce sugars or oils, which are then fed to engineered bacteria that turn them into usable fuels, such as ethanol, butanol,, or alkanes. In another effort, photosynthetic microbes such as cyanobacteria are modified to directly convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into fuel. All of these approaches—and others being explored as well—aim to create sustainable, carbon-neutral alternatives to fossil fuels. Exciting as it sounds, most of this technology is still locked away in labs, not available in airports. Blends are being tested At present, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration allows airlines to fuel their aircraft with blends of up to 50% sustainable aviation fuel mixed with conventional jet fuel. The exact percentage depends on how the fuel was made, which relates to how chemically and physically similar it is to petroleum-based jet fuel, and therefore how well it will work in existing aircraft tanks, pipes, and engines. There are two major hurdles to wider adoption: cost and supply. Sustainable fuels are much more expensive than traditional jet fuel, with cost differences varying by process and raw material. For instance, the raw price of Jet-A, the most common petroleum-based aviation fuel, had a wholesale price averaging $2.34 per gallon in 2024, but one type of sustainable fuel wholesaled at about $5.20 per gallon that year. The federal budget enacted in July 2025 reduces government subsidies, effectively raising the cost of making these fuels. In part because of cost, sustainable fuel is produced only in small quantities: In 2025, global production is expected to be about 2 million metric tons of the fuel, which is less than 1% of the worldwide demand for aviation fuel. There is international pressure to increase demand: Starting in January 2025, all jet fuel supplied at airports in the European Union must include at least 2% sustainable fuel, with minimum percentages increasing over time. Planes can use these fuels Companies such as General Electric and Rolls-Royce have shown that the jet engines they manufacture can run perfectly on sustainable fuels. However, sustainable aviation fuels can have slightly different density and energy content from standard jet fuel. That means the aircraft's weight distribution and flight range could change. And other parts of the aircraft also have to be compatible, such as those that store, pump, and maintain the balance of the fuel. That includes valves, pipes, and rubber seals. As a visiting professor at Boeing in the summer of 2024, I learned that it and other aircraft manufacturers are working closely with their suppliers to ensure sustainable aviation fuels can be safely and reliably integrated into every part of the aircraft. Those finer details are why headlines you may have seen about flights that burn ' 100% sustainable aviation fuel ' are not quite the full story. Usually, the fuel on those flights contains a small amount of conventional jet fuel or special additives. That's because sustainable fuels lack some of the aromatic chemical compounds found in fossil-based fuels that are required to maintain proper seals throughout the aircraft's fuel system. Good promise, with work ahead While many details remain, sustainable aviation fuels offer a promising way to reduce the carbon footprint of air travel without reinventing or redesigning entire airplanes. These fuels can significantly cut carbon dioxide emissions from aircraft in use today, helping reduce the severity of climate change. The work will take research and investment from governments, manufacturers, and airlines around the world, whether or not the U.S. is involved. But one day, the fuel powering your flight could be much greener than it is now.
