Latest news with #SixthNationalClimateAssessment
Free Malaysia Today
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
US climate assessment thrown into doubt as Trump dismisses authors
The decision marked the latest flashpoint in Donald Trump's extensive efforts to reshape the US scientific landscape. (AP pic) WASHINGTON : President Donald Trump's administration on Monday disbanded the authors of the US' premier climate report, a move scientists said threatens to derail a critical assessment mandated by Congress and vital to the nation's preparedness against global warming. In an email sent to contributors of the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA6), the administration said the report's 'scope' was being 'reevaluated' and informed participants they were being 'released from their roles,' with no timeline offered for potential reengagement. The decision follows mass firings earlier this month at the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the federal body overseeing the congressionally required report, and marks the latest flashpoint in Trump's sweeping efforts to reshape the federal government, particularly in the realm of science. Rachel Cleetus, a senior policy director at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and a former author on NCA6's chapter on coastal impacts, blasted the move as reckless and politically motivated. 'Today, the Trump administration senselessly took a hatchet to a crucial and comprehensive US climate science report by dismissing its authors without cause or a plan,' Cleetus said in a statement. 'Trying to bury this report won't alter the scientific facts one bit, but without this information, our country risks flying blind into a world made more dangerous by human-caused climate change.' The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Other authors also took to social media to confirm they had received identical notices, expressing frustration and alarm over the unprecedented disruption of the scientific process. Since returning to office, Trump has embarked on an aggressive overhaul of federal institutions, firing thousands of civil servants, including climate scientists and public health experts. It has also steered agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the National Institutes of Health away from climate and environmental research. The disruption of NCA6 comes at a perilous time: global temperatures have begun to breach 1.5C of warming above preindustrial levels, according to recent international analyses, fuelling worsening wildfires, droughts, floods, and storms across the US. The National Climate Assessment, first published in 2000, is a cornerstone of US government climate understanding, synthesising input from federal agencies and hundreds of external scientists. Previous iterations have warned in stark terms of mounting risks to America's economy, infrastructure, and health if greenhouse gas emissions are not curtailed. While not directly prescriptive on policy, the reports have served as critical guideposts for lawmakers, businesses, and local governments planning climate resilience measures. Under the Global Change Research Act of 1990, the federal government is legally obligated to deliver the climate assessment to Congress and the president. It remains unclear whether the administration's actions will ultimately delay, compromise, or cancel the report entirely.
Scientific American
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Scientific American
Jupiter's Cyclones, Amazon's Satellites and
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! And happy May. I hope the weather is pleasantly springy wherever you're listening from. For Scientific American 's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. Let's kick off the month with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed last week. First, a crucial report on climate change is under threat. The National Climate Assessment, published by the federal government every few years since 2000, provides the most comprehensive look at how climate change is impacting the U.S. It looks at things like sea-level rise and wildfire smoke mitigation, as well as analyzes climate change's impacts on areas including health, farming and the economy. Private companies, nonprofits, and state and local governments use the information in the assessment to help navigate the effects of climate change. According to the Los Angeles Times, about 400 people were already at work on the next edition of the report, which is due in 2027 or 2028. Last Monday all of those volunteer authors were dismissed via an email that said 'the scope of the [Sixth National Climate Assessment] is currently being reevaluated.' This comes several weeks after the Trump administration cut funding and staffing for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which oversees the creation of the assessment. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. The release of the National Climate Assessment every four years is actually mandated by Congress. Under George W. Bush the report that should have come out in 2004 was released a few years late but it did come out. And that was thanks to a lawsuit led by environmental advocacy groups that forced the administration's hand. So it's probably not a bad idea to call up your representatives and ask them to make sure this congressionally mandated report isn't stymied, but it's also possible some of the entities that rely on the assessment will take legal action to save it. In space news Amazon launched its first round of Internet satellites into orbit last Monday. The 27 Project Kuiper satellites are intended to circle about 400 miles [about 630 kilometers] above the Earth's surface to provide broadband Internet coverage. Amazon reportedly plans to launch more than 3,200 of the small satellites into orbit, where they'll join the more than 7,000 SpaceX Starlink satellites already in the sky. Reports indicate that SpaceX aims to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the future. Back in late 2024 more than 100 astronomers signed an open letter asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to halt the launch of further satellites of this kind, which collectively form networks often referred to as mega constellations. The scientists called for more investigation into how these mega constellations will impact the environment. In addition to creating more and more space debris—which can damage other satellites and even spacecraft like the International Space Station—mega constellations have the potential to interfere with astronomical observations. The satellites that make up these networks can also damage the ozone layer and pollute the planet when they fall back down to Earth, which happens after a few years of operation. Speaking of satellites, here's a riddle for you: how do you go about weighing a few trillion trees? With a giant space umbrella, apparently. Last Tuesday the European Space Agency launched its Biomass satellite, nicknamed the 'space brolly,' to study our planet's forests. An estimated 1.5 trillion trees in Earth's forests absorb around eight billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, but it's difficult to estimate exactly how much carbon is getting stored—especially as forests are damaged and destroyed by human activities. The Biomass satellite will use a special type of radar to see through forest canopies and measure the woody material that stores most of the carbon. Farther out in space, new data from NASA's Juno spacecraft offers insights into the extreme environment of Jupiter and its moon Io. One of the most exciting findings focuses on Jupiter's giant cyclones. While hurricanes on our planet typically pop up one by one—and tend to stay at lower latitudes—Jupiter has a consistent cluster of cyclones around its poles. On e is quite close to the north pole itself, and another eight circle around it. After years of observing these cyclones scientists say they've seen the storms slowly drift toward the pole—but then bounce off one another when they get close. That could help explain why this set of storms is so stable. Juno also provided an update on Io's volcanic activity. This Jovian moon is constantly squeezed by the massive planet's gravitational pull, which creates enough friction to melt parts of Io's interior. That means Io has pretty much constant volcanic activity. In December Juno spotted a massive new volcanic hotspot in Io's southern hemisphere. Scientists estimated that the hotspot was nearly a third larger than Lake Superior and was spewing six times as much energy as all of Earth's power plants combined. According to the latest Juno data, that eruption was still spitting out ash and lava as of March 2. Scientists hope to observe it again during another close flyby on May 6. We'll end with a fun story—or maybe kind of a bummer of a debunking, depending on your perspective. You may have seen some news stories last week claiming that lab-grown Tyrannosaurus rex leather could soon be used to craft wallets and purses. Those headlines stemmed from a press release issued by VML, a communications and marketing agency, in partnership with biotech companies Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. and the Organoid Company. The press release claims that together these companies will use fossilized T. rex collagen to engineer cells with synthetic DNA that mimic those found in dinosaur skin. Can you guess where this is going? I bet you can. Two different experts told Live Science that the notion is misleading at best. Thomas Carr, director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology in Wisconsin, told Live Science that scientists have an incomplete understanding of T. rex collagen because all the fossilized evidence we have of its amino acids are fragmented. He also pointed out that collagen is a pretty generic molecule across species, so even having a good sense of what T. rex collagen looked like at the cellular level wouldn't necessarily help you create distinctly T. rex -esque skin. So yeah, whether you're reading about mammoth mice, dire wolf puppies or dinosaur wallets, if you see someone promising to resurrect a prehistoric creature using the powers of genetic engineering, you should probably be pretty skeptical. And I promise if that changes, you will hear it here first. That's all for this week's news roundup. We'll be back on Wednesday to explore the benefits of strength training. While I've got you, I've got just a quick favor: We're running a listener survey to find out what people like about Science Quickly and what we might be able to improve. If you complete it this month, you'll be entered to win some sweet SciAm swag. Go to to help us out. We'll also include a link in this episode's show notes. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
Hamilton Spectator
04-05-2025
- Science
- Hamilton Spectator
McGill platform becomes safe space for conserving U.S. climate research under threat
MONTREAL - Academics at McGill University in Montreal are providing the U.S. scientific community a platform to protect climate research under attack. Six months ago, researchers at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management launched , a database that centralizes climate research and data. 'We initially created this platform to connect researchers and professionals in sustainable development and climate change,' said Juan Serpa, a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management, describing the platform as a kind of 'LinkedIn' for the field. But at a time when the administration of United States President Donald Trump is firing climate researchers, banning certain words from scientific articles, cutting funding for environmental research, threatening to withdraw financial support from universities, and deleting scientific reports from government websites, the McGill platform has taken on a different significance. 'The goal is to protect scientific data against threats from the U.S. government,' Serpa said. The platform has been logging 39,000 weekly visits from academics and researchers. Scientific data that is on the chopping block south of the border is downloaded and uploaded to the platform. Scientific data on wildfires, protecting forests from insects and diseases, the impact of climate change on agriculture, flood risks, ocean plastic pollution, and the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases are just a few examples of data that can be accessed on and that would otherwise be at risk of being lost. 'We want to be proactive, not reactive, because once data disappears, there's nothing we can do,' Serpa said. The thousands of data sets his team has saved are freely accessible and categorized according to 65 themes related to sustainable development. The platform also provides access to a directory of 60,000 researchers and 25,000 research institutes. 'It's an international network, but mainly American researchers,' Serpa said, adding he is very worried for colleagues in the United States. 'I feel compassion and empathy for all these researchers,' he said. 'It is a very difficult time for them, many people are afraid right now.' Serpa fears he will no longer be able to travel to the United States because of his involvement in the platform. Since the beginning of Trump's second term in office, U.S. federal agencies have removed information on climate change from more than 200 government websites, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a network that seeks to save scientific research. The Trump administration also laid off thousands of employees at the U.S. Forest Service and hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency that studies climate change. Last week, the Trump administration fired hundreds of researchers working on the Sixth National Climate Assessment, a major report on climate change published every five years. Layoffs, budget cuts, funding cuts, and what many researchers describe as censorship have given rise to the 'Stand Up for Science' movement in the United States. Abroad, Trump's revolt against science is also galvanizing initiatives that would have been considered improbable just a few years ago. In France, for instance, former president-turned-parliamentarian François Hollande introduced a bill on April 14 to create a 'scientific refugee' status to make it easier for France to welcome scientists threatened by the American president's policies. 'Researchers, forced into exile by the Trump administration, must be recognized as full-fledged refugees,' wrote the former French president in an op-ed in the newspaper Libération, a few days before introducing his bill. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2025.
Winnipeg Free Press
04-05-2025
- Science
- Winnipeg Free Press
McGill platform becomes safe space for conserving U.S. climate research under threat
MONTREAL – Academics at McGill University in Montreal are providing the U.S. scientific community a platform to protect climate research under attack. Six months ago, researchers at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management launched a database that centralizes climate research and data. 'We initially created this platform to connect researchers and professionals in sustainable development and climate change,' said Juan Serpa, a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management, describing the platform as a kind of 'LinkedIn' for the field. But at a time when the administration of United States President Donald Trump is firing climate researchers, banning certain words from scientific articles, cutting funding for environmental research, threatening to withdraw financial support from universities, and deleting scientific reports from government websites, the McGill platform has taken on a different significance. 'The goal is to protect scientific data against threats from the U.S. government,' Serpa said. The platform has been logging 39,000 weekly visits from academics and researchers. Scientific data that is on the chopping block south of the border is downloaded and uploaded to the platform. Scientific data on wildfires, protecting forests from insects and diseases, the impact of climate change on agriculture, flood risks, ocean plastic pollution, and the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases are just a few examples of data that can be accessed on and that would otherwise be at risk of being lost. 'We want to be proactive, not reactive, because once data disappears, there's nothing we can do,' Serpa said. The thousands of data sets his team has saved are freely accessible and categorized according to 65 themes related to sustainable development. The platform also provides access to a directory of 60,000 researchers and 25,000 research institutes. 'It's an international network, but mainly American researchers,' Serpa said, adding he is very worried for colleagues in the United States. 'I feel compassion and empathy for all these researchers,' he said. 'It is a very difficult time for them, many people are afraid right now.' Serpa fears he will no longer be able to travel to the United States because of his involvement in the platform. Since the beginning of Trump's second term in office, U.S. federal agencies have removed information on climate change from more than 200 government websites, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a network that seeks to save scientific research. The Trump administration also laid off thousands of employees at the U.S. Forest Service and hundreds of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency that studies climate change. Last week, the Trump administration fired hundreds of researchers working on the Sixth National Climate Assessment, a major report on climate change published every five years. Wednesdays A weekly look towards a post-pandemic future. Layoffs, budget cuts, funding cuts, and what many researchers describe as censorship have given rise to the 'Stand Up for Science' movement in the United States. Abroad, Trump's revolt against science is also galvanizing initiatives that would have been considered improbable just a few years ago. In France, for instance, former president-turned-parliamentarian François Hollande introduced a bill on April 14 to create a 'scientific refugee' status to make it easier for France to welcome scientists threatened by the American president's policies. 'Researchers, forced into exile by the Trump administration, must be recognized as full-fledged refugees,' wrote the former French president in an op-ed in the newspaper Libération, a few days before introducing his bill. This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2025.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Earth science societies take on US climate report after Trump administration dismisses researchers
Only days after the Trump administration dismissed authors of a congressionally mandated climate report, two of the biggest and most reputable Earth science societies announced they will pick up the slack and pursue a collection of reports in its place. The announcement Friday morning from the American Geophysical Union and American Meteorological Society is a solicitation for authors to contribute scientific studies that would have gone into the Sixth National Climate Assessment. The new research will be published in a special collection across 29 peer-reviewed research journals. The official assessment was on track to publish in 2028. It is unclear whether the administration will seek to publish an assessment with a different viewpoint. 'The new special collection does not replace the NCA but instead creates a mechanism for this important work to continue,' the AGU and AMS said in a joint statement. The move is a pointed response to the administration's actions to either abandon the NCA entirely or produce an alternate report downplaying the threat climate change poses to the United States, according to Brandon Jones, president of AGU. The dismissals followed other attacks on climate science and efforts to defund climate research, Jones told CNN. He compared the special collection of studies to a library that will grow over time. 'We're responding in this collaborative way with a sibling society to stand up for science and maintain the missions that we hold dear as societal organizations,' Jones said. Congress mandated the NCA to be produced every four years, with the next one due out by the end of Trump's second term in office. The assessment provides detailed information on how the climate crisis is affecting the US in terms of extreme weather impacts, adaptation and mitigation options for the country as well as regions, states and localities. The administration sent an email to about 400 of the report's authors earlier this week, many of them located in academia, and told them their work was no longer needed as the assessment is being rethought.
