Latest news with #Hayhoe
Los Angeles Times
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Trump administration shuts down U.S. website on climate change
The Trump administration on Monday shut down a federal website that had presented congressionally mandated reports and research on climate change, drawing rebukes from scientists who said it will hinder the nation's efforts to prepare for worsening droughts, floods and heat waves. The U.S. Global Change Research Program's website, was taken down along with all five versions of the National Climate Assessment report and extensive information on how global warming is affecting the country. 'They're public documents. It's scientific censorship at its worst,' said Peter Gleick, a California water and climate scientist who was one of the authors of the first National Climate Assessment in 2000. 'This is the modern version of book burning.' The climate reports were required by Congress, and there will still be alternative ways of finding them even without the website, Gleick said. 'But this information will be harder and harder for the American public to find.' The White House didn't immediately provide comments about the removal of the website. In May, Trump signed an executive order saying that his administration is committed to 'restoring a gold standard for science to ensure that federally funded research is transparent, rigorous,' and that federal decisions are informed by 'the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.' The president cited an example relating to climate science, saying federal agencies previously used a 'worst-case scenario' of warming 'based on highly unlikely assumptions.' The U.S. Global Change Research Program was established under a 1990 law, which also mandated that climate assessments be prepared every four years. In April, however, the Trump administration dismissed hundreds of scientists and other experts who had begun to write the latest National Climate Assessment report. 'This is scientific information that the American taxpayers paid for, and it's their right to have it,' said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University who was an author of four previous versions of the climate assessment report. 'It's information that I, as a scientist, can say is absolutely critical to making good decisions for the future, whether you're a farmer, a homeowner, a business owner, a city manager, or anyone really who wants to ensure a safe and resilient future for themselves and for their children.' Hayhoe noted the 1990 law mandates that the program's research findings be available to all federal agencies and departments, and that the National Climate Assessments be available digitally. Hayhoe said the website's many resources had included an interactive atlas of projected changes in hot and cold days, rainfall amounts and other effects per degree of warming. 'Climate is changing faster than any time in human history, and we know that if we don't adapt, if we don't build resilience into all of our systems — our food and water systems, our infrastructure and our health systems — that we will suffer the consequences,' Hayhoe said. She said the National Climate Assessments have helped 'bridge the physiological distance' for Americans. 'It tells people in your region, here is what is already happening and here is what is going to happen, and here is how it is affecting your home, your insurance rates, your water, your food, the plants and animals that you see around you,' she said. Until Monday, the website made available more than 200 publications. They included the research program's yearly reports to Congress and studies on the Arctic, agriculture and human health. A few were republished reports from other organizations such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The site also hosted dozens of webpages, educational podcasts and videos on topics including sea level rise, greenhouse gases, biodiversity and drought. The top item on the homepage was the Fifth National Climate Assessment, which it described as 'the preeminent source of authoritative information on the risks, impacts, and responses to climate change in the United States.' But the Trump administration has cut funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which oversees the assessments. Around April 10, a small yellow banner appeared at the top of the site, reading: 'The operations and structure of the [U.S. Global Change Research Program] are currently under review.' Previous versions of the website can still be found using the nonprofit Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which keeps snapshots of sites to help track changes. The shutdown of the website comes after the Trump administration also took down another site, which had been maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That occurred after much of the staff that had worked on the site were reportedly dismissed. (The website now redirects users to Gleick said the new NOAA website is a 'pale substitute' for the extensive information that was previously available. He said he believes the removal of websites with scientific research on global warming, driven by fossil fuels and rising levels of greenhouse gases, appears aimed at hiding the risks from the public. Hayhoe and other climate scientists said that following the dismissal of the team that had been working on the Sixth National Climate Assessment, they still don't know what the Trump administration's plans are for the next congressionally required report. 'The deeper threat to the country is that we won't do the new assessments that are necessary to understand the latest research on climate threats to the country,' Gleick said. 'It seems like anything climate related is being either cut to the bone or completely eliminated, with no assessment of its value or importance.'
Daily Mirror
01-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Full cost of failed pandemic- PPE finally revealed after major fraud probe
The Covid counter-fraud commissioner uncovered the £1.4billion figure in the first phase of his investigation into wasteful Tory spending during the Covid-19 pandemic Failed pandemic-era PPE contracts cost the British taxpayer £1.4billion. The Covid counter-fraud commissioner uncovered the figure in the first phase of his probe into wasteful Tory spending during the pandemic. Some £762million is unlikely to ever be recovered, as the Sunday Mirror revealed. These failures saw substandard PPE, including gowns, masks and visors, not inspected for two years, meaning public money could no longer be recouped. Most of the wasted money went on surgical gowns, with more than half (52%) of them being non-compliant. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is now urgently trying to claw back £468million that could still be recovered, which she wants to reinvest in public services and local communities. The next phase of Tom Hayhoe's investigation will look into fraud and error in other pandemic spending programmes such as furlough, bounce-back loans, Business Support Grants and Rishi Sunak 's Eat Out to Help Out scheme. Mr Hayhoe's final report is due to conclude in December. Recovery action has so far resulted in £182million being returned to the public purse, with some PPE suppliers having been referred to the National Crime Agency for suspected fraud. Ms Reeves said: 'The country is still paying the price for the reckless handling of Covid contracts which saw taxpayer pounds wasted and criminals profit from the pandemic. This investigation and plan to recover public money underlines our commitment to ensure that every penny spent during the pandemic is fully accounted for.' The Chancellor confirmed her Covid fraud crackdown at Labour 's annual conference last September. At the time, she said: 'I won't turn a blind eye to rip-off artists and fraudsters. 'I won't turn a blind eye to those who used a national emergency to line their own pockets. I won't let them get away with it. That money belongs in our police, it belongs in our health service, and it belongs in our schools.' In December, she tasked Mr Hayhoe with the job of trying to claw back lost money. The Tory Government has always insisted that it was operating in a crisis, with global PPE shortages driving up prices for kit that was essential for frontline workers. Former Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the Covid Inquiry in March: "I have been subject to enormous amounts of conspiracy theories about what went on here, when in fact what happened was so many people working as hard as they could to save lives, and they bought more PPE as a result. And therefore people are alive who would otherwise be dead."
Japan Today
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Japan Today
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismisses report authors
FILE - Marquetta Wheeler, right, with Samaria Williams and Jemaria Shaw, walk through flood waters as they leave their home on Marietta Drive in Hopkinsville, Ky., April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File) By SETH BORENSTEIN Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
02-05-2025
- Politics
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismisses report authors
WASHINGTON -- Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.'
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Scientific societies say they'll do national climate assessment after Trump dismissed report authors
WASHINGTON (AP) — Two major scientific societies on Friday said they will fill the void from the Trump administration's dismissal of scientists writing a cornerstone federal report on what climate change is doing to the United States. The American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union said they will work together to produce peer-reviewed research documents assessing the current and future national impacts of climate change because a science-based report required by law is suddenly in question and being reassessed by President Donald Trump's White House. Earlier this week, Trump's Republican administration told about 400 scientists working on the National Climate Assessment that they were no longer needed and that the report was being reevaluated. That report, coming once every four to five years, is required by a 1990 federal law and was due out around 2027. Preliminary budget documents show slashing funding or eliminating offices involved in coordinating that report, scientists and activists said. 'We are filling in a gap in the scientific process,' AGU President Brandon Jones said. 'It's more about ensuring that science continues.' Meteorological society past president Anjuli Bamzi, a retired federal atmospheric scientist who has worked on previous National Climate Assessments, said one of the most important parts of the federal report is that it projects 25 and 100 years into the future. With the assessment 'we're better equipped to deal with the future,' Bamzi said. 'We can't be an ostrich and put our head in the sand and let it go.' Texas Tech University climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, also chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, said the two organizations joining to do this report 'is a testament to how important it is that the latest science be summarized and available.' Hayhoe, who was a lead author of reports in 2009, 2018 and 2023, said 'people are not aware of how climate change is impacting the decisions that they are making today, whether it's the size of the storm sewer pipes they're installing, whether it is the expansion of the flood zone where people are building, whether it is the increases in extreme heat." They need that knowledge to figure out how to adapt to harms in the future and even the present, Hayhoe said. The national assessment, unlike global United Nations documents, highlights what's happening to weather not just in the nation but at regional and local levels. Jones said he hopes the societies' version of the assessment can be done in just one year. The last climate assessment report, released in 2023, said that climate change is 'harming physical, mental, spiritual, and community health and well-being through the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme events, increasing cases of infectious and vector-borne diseases, and declines in food and water quality and security." In 2018, during Trump's first term, the assessment was just as blunt, saying: "Climate change creates new risks and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities in communities across the United States, presenting growing challenges to human health and safety, quality of life, and the rate of economic growth." But University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles, who led one of 2018's two national reports, said he worries about what kind of document this new administration will try to issue, if any. 'I think they'll put out something that will, like, it'll be be scientifically based, but it will be pretty crappy,' Wuebbles told The Associated Press. Watering down or killing the national assessment will not keep the message about the importance of climate change from getting out, Wuebbles said. The scientific societies' efforts to fill the void will have some value because it will be a statement of the scientific community, and, in the end, he said, science is about data and observations. 'We know this is an extremely important problem. We know it is human activities driving it. So the question is: What do you do about it?' Wuebbles said. Storms and wildfires don't care if it's a red state or a blue state, Hayhoe said. 'Climate change affects us all,' Hayhoe said. 'It doesn't matter how we vote.' ___ The Associated Press' climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
