Climate Connection: Climate.Us
Climate activists long lamented that the mainstream media seldom reported the links between global warming and disasters such as hurricanes, floods, droughts, and forest fires. That deficit is being slowly remedied by services such as Climate Matters which educates journalists and provides free content for their use. Attribution science has matured, contributing information about how much more likely climate change has made specific events. In May, 74% of all registered voters thought the U.S. should use more renewable energy and less fossil fuels; 64% wanted the U.S. Congress to do more to address global warming.
Prior to the current administration, Climate.gov was a popular source of scientific climate information, with 15 million page views in 2024, updated weekly by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Its staff was fired in February, and its content was stripped of effects on vulnerable populations (diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns). The climate.gov website was shut down altogether in June. This website had hosted the Congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment compiled every 4 years by teams of climate scientists. The current team working on the next report, due in 2027, was fired in April.
A few fired federal workers have reconvened to re-disseminate the climate information in a non-profit group called climate.us. Its nongovernmental website is not subject to censorship or politically influenced misinformation. Nevertheless, the group first has to reconcile the content available online prior to January 17 and the current administration’s deletion of whole sections of information and that produced afterwards until June. The group also has to raise funds from the public to keep updated information available. Governmental data collection has been curtailed by cuts to NOAA, the Weather Service, monitoring stations for CO2, and reports from polluting power plants and industries.
The curtailment of information about climate is similar to what is happening to federal information about food security, consumer expenditures, the Pentagon, and labor and health statistics. Investigative journalism is suffering as data is no longer being collected and as corporate media has become sensitive to the administration’s characterization of criticism as unacceptable. The crippling of data collection about weather makes preventive preparation less likely and increases costs of response after disasters. The crippling of scientific research by withholding grants and attacks on universities and governmental research agencies makes implementation of improved forecasts and effective responses less likely. Science itself is seen as a threat, as are scientists who largely agree that climate change threatens the stability of our existence, our cultures, our health, our financial system, and our food security.
Who benefits from the curtailing of scientific information? The combustion of coal, oil, and natural gas (largely methane) is responsible for global warming from greenhouse gases. Sun and wind are now cheaper than these fuels. The transition to clean energy is urgent, despite harm to the fossil fuel industry, which prospers by the federal administration’s attacks on science.
–– Kay Kreiss, Transition Sitka