After Trump killed a report on nature, researchers push ahead with release
The first-ever National Nature Assessment—which was based on significant public feedback and strove to reveal how nature loss influences climate change and impacts humanity—may still see the light of day after the Trump administration abruptly ended the ambitious project.
Researchers involved told The New York Times that the nature report was “too important to die” and that an “amazingly broad consensus” remains among its mostly volunteer authors, so the expansive report must be completed and released to the public.
The first draft of the report was due on Tuesday, so the bulk of the initial work appears mostly done. Although the webpage for the project has been deleted, an archived version shows that researchers had expected to spend the rest of 2025 seeking external review and edits before releasing the final report in late 2026.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.
Related Knowledge Center: Information integrity
In an increasingly fractured media landscape, truth has been a casualty in the public discussion. Coverage has been warped by the business needs of struggling news organizations, and a significant segment of the public relies on bad-faith outlets that are little more than propagandists. While fact-checking has become routine, some organizations are exploring other ways to combat the trends. And misinformation spewed by AI-driven chatbots has become more of a feature than simply a bug.
Fact-checking and its detractors