Climate

Populations are falling in the United States, a new study has found. Look up what’s happening in your area.

As the administration fires rangers and other workers, an internal memo is directing the National Park Service not to publicize visitors numbers.

Experts say that President Trump may be able to slow the transition away from fossil fuels, but he won’t be able to stop it completely.

Drop in line with rate of overall insect loss as scientists point to habitat loss, pesticide use and the climate crisis

Butterflies may be among the most beloved of all creatures, routinely deified in art and verse, but they are in alarming decline in the United States with populations plummeting by a fifth in just the past two decades, according to the most comprehensive study yet of their fortunes.

The abundance of butterflies in the US slumped 22% between 2000 and 2020, the new analysis of more than 76,000 mostly regional surveys, published in Science, found. For every five butterflies fluttering daintily around at the start of the century, just four remain today.

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The Biden-era rules require thousands of hazardous-chemical sites to adopt new safeguards against storms, spills and other risks.

Caroline Cotto’s research group taste-tests meat alternatives so plant-based companies can attract new customers – and help the climate

I am sitting in a Manhattan restaurant on a frigid Thursday in January, eating six mini servings of steak and mashed potatoes, one after another. The first steak I am served has a nice texture but is sort of unnaturally reddish. The second has a great crispy sear on the outside, but leaves behind a lingering chemical aftertaste. The next is fine on its own, but I imagine would be quite delicious shredded, drenched in barbecue sauce and served on a bun with vinegary pickles and a side of slaw.

If you peeked into this restaurant, you’d see nothing out of the ordinary – just a diverse range of New Yorkers huddled over plates of food. But everyone present is here for more than just a hot meal. We’re participating in a blind taste test of plant- (or sometimes mushroom-) based steaks, organized by a group of people who hope that better-tasting meat alternatives just might be a key to fighting the climate crisis.

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Murray Auchincloss paid £5.4m in 2024 as oil company ditched green investment strategy

BP cut the pay of its chief executive after a chastening year in which the British oil company missed profit targets and ditched its green investment strategy as it came under pressure from a US-based activist investor.

Murray Auchincloss’s pay decreased by 30% to £5.4m for 2024, according to the company’s annual report, published on Thursday.

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The term ‘polycrisis’ has gained traction as we face one disaster after another. It’s overwhelming – but diagnosing the catastrophe is the first step to addressing it

Two months into 2025, the sense of dread is palpable. In the US, the year began with a terrorist attack; then came the fires that ravaged a city, destroying lives, homes and livelihoods. An extremist billionaire came to power and began proudly dismantling the government with a chainsaw. Once-in-a-century disasters are happening more like once a month, all amid devastating wars and on the heels of a pandemic.

The word “unprecedented” has become ironically routine. It feels like we’re stuck in a relentless cycle of calamity, with no time to recover from one before the next begins.

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A New York Times analysis of campaign finance data also revealed an influx of funding to Nigel Farage’s right-wing party from fossil fuel investors, climate skeptics and multimillionaires.

Lee Zeldin was full of pablum in his January Senate confirmation hearing to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A former member of Congress from Long Island, New York, with scant regulatory experience, Zeldin promised to “defer to the research of the scientists” on whether climate change made oceans more acidic. In even more laudatory language, he said he would “defer to the talented scientists,” on whether Earth had hit thresholds for runaway climate change.

He said he “would welcome an opportunity to read through all the science and research” on pesticides and search for “common sense, pragmatic solutions” on environmental issues. Claiming there was “no dollar large or small that can influence the decisions that I make,” Zeldin went so far as to say, “It is my job to stay up at night, to lose sleep at night, to make sure that we are making our air and our water cleaner.”

It was all a lie. Last week, President Trump said Zeldin was considering firing 65% of EPA’s staff, which would amount to nearly 10,000 of the agency’s 15,000 workers. The White House later issued a clarification—as if it made any difference—that Zeldin was “committed” to slashing 65% of the agency’s budget. The EPA issued a statement saying President Trump and Secretary Zeldin “are in lock step.”  

Also last week, the news broke that Zeldin is urging the White House to strike down the 2009 EPA finding that global warming gases endanger public health and the environment. That finding, made under the Obama administration, girded federal efforts to reduce vehicle and industrial emissions. The finding, long a legal target for climate deniers, has so far held up, even in an ultra-conservative Supreme Court, but that has not stopped the administration from attacking it. Project 2025, the blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation to guide this White House, calls for an “update” to the endangerment finding. Leading climate denier and former Trump transition adviser Steve Milloy told the Associated Press last week that without the finding, “everything EPA does on climate goes away.”

This is after Zeldin told senators in written answers for his confirmation that he planned to “learn from EPA career staff about the current state of the science on greenhouse gas emissions and follow all legal requirements.” Instead, Zeldin has scientists in a state of bewilderment. In one fell month, he has every employee looking over their shoulder, fearing the dismissal of their work or the tap of outright dismissal.

Zeldin’s latest “lock-step” actions cap an already-breathtaking first month in running the EPA.

He has launched an illegal effort to claw back $20 billion in EPA clean energy funding significantly targeted for disadvantaged communities. He placed nearly 170 workers in the office of Environmental Justice on administrative leave and oversaw the firing of about 400 probationary staff (although some have momentarily been brought back after public outcry).

Zeldin has begun a rollback of Biden administration energy efficiency and water conservation regulations for home appliances and fixtures, and is asking Congress to repeal waivers for California to phase out new, gasoline-only  vehicle sales and stricter emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks. Many other states in recent years have decided they would follow California’s standards, as they are allowed to under the Clean Air Act. Combined, these states add up to 40% of the automobile market in the United States.

There are surely many more attempts to come that will turn back the clock on environmental protection.

An EPA led by industry apologists 

Zeldin’s EPA includes a rogue’s gallery from President Trump’s first term.

Returning to the EPA in top spots for chemical regulation are Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva. Both formerly served on the American Chemistry Council, the top lobbying arm of chemical manufacturers, and Dekleva spent more than three decades at DuPont, one of the most notorious companies for burying the dangers of PFAS.  

In the first Trump administration, Beck was at the center of the suppression on science to resist the most stringent regulation or bans on carcinogenic chemicals such as trichloroethylene, PFAS, methylene chloride, and asbestos. She was also reported to have helped in burying the strongest possible health and safety guidelines to help communities reopen during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dekleva was accused during her first stint in President Trump’s EPA of pressuring employees to approve new chemicals and colluding with industry to weaken the Toxic Substances Control Act.

The nominee to be Zeldin’s assistant administrator, David Fotouhi, is another returnee who was at the center of the first Trump administration’s efforts to strip wetlands protections. When not inside the EPA, Fotouhi has a long record defending industries in legal battles over standards or contamination lawsuits about toxic chemicals, such as asbestos, PFAS, PCBs, and coal ash.

Holding high-level positions in the Office of Air and Radiation are Abigale Tardif and Alex Dominguez. Tardif lobbied for the oil and petrochemical industry and was a policy analyst for the Koch-funded network Americans for Prosperity. Dominguez lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute, which opposed the vehicle pollution standards of the Biden administration.

Aaron Szabo has been nominated to be assistant secretary for Air and Radiation. Szabo was a contributing consultant to the Project 2025 chapter on the EPA that recommends sharply curtailing the agency’s monitoring of global warming gases and other pollutants and eliminating the Office for Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.

Other recent EPA appointees who also contributed to Project 2025 (which President Trump disavowed during the presidential campaign) are Scott Mason and Justin Schwab. Steven Cook, a former lobbyist for plastics, chemicals, and oil refining, and another veteran of the first Trump administration, is also returning.

Zeldin may be inexperienced at regulation, but none of the above are. Kyle Danish, a partner at Van Ness Feldman, a consulting firm for energy clients, told the New York Times, “This group is arriving with more expertise in deploying the machinery of the agency, including to unravel regulations from the prior administration. They all look like they graduated one level from what they did in the first Trump administration.”

Same playbook at other agencies

Other agencies responsible for addressing climate change pollution have also quickly deployed the machinery of environmental destruction.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy issued a memorandum ordering a review of the fuel economy standards of the Biden administration, claiming without evidence that the standards would destroy “thousands” of jobs and “force the electrification” of the nation’s auto fleets. This is despite the agency’s own analysis showing the rules would save consumers $23 billion in fuel costs and result in annual health costs benefits of $13 billion from reduced air pollution.

Secretary Duffy also issued a memorandum canceling the Department of Transportation’s plans to address environmental justice in low-income populations and communities of color, climate change, and resilience polices for department assets and the department’s Equity Council. Again, no facts were offered as to why communities disproportionately beset with pollution and pollution-related diseases should be excluded from protection. He was just following President Trump’s Orwellian executive order that aims to wipe any consideration of race, gender, climate, equity, and disproportionate impacts from federal programs.

Over in the Interior Department, Secretary Doug Burgum issued a memorandum directing all his assistant secretaries to provide action plans that “suspend, revise, or rescind” more than two dozen regulations. The obvious goal is to plunder more public land and water for private profit for the fossil fuel and mining industries. Many of those regulations to be revised or killed involve endangered wildlife and plants, landscape and conservation health, the Migratory Bird Treaty, and accounting for the benefits to public health, property, and agriculture of reducing climate-related pollution.

In a recent interview on FOX News, Secretary Burgum said he was “completely embracing” the massive shrinking of the federal workforce by the Department of Government Efficiency, a cruel act that means he is just fine with DOGE’s 2,000 job cuts at Interior, including 1,000 in the chronically understaffed National Park Service, which has a $23.3 billion backlog for deferred maintenance. 

Climate mockery at Department of Energy

And then we have the reported layoff of between 1,200 and 2,000 workers at the Energy Department, now run by Chris Wright, a former CEO of one of the nation’s largest fracking companies. In President Trump’s Cabinet, Secretary Wright is the most blunt in dismissing the effects of the climate crisis. In 2023, he said the “the hype over wildfires is just hype to justify” climate policies. He said, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition.”

He has doubled down on his rhetoric during his first month in office. Wright told a conservative policy conference in February—without evidence —that net zero goals for carbon emissions by 2050 were “sinister” and “lunacy.” Wright also went on FOX Business in February to say that climate change is “nowhere near the world’s biggest problem today, not even close.”

Despite all the evidence already unfolding that climate change is a factor in the increasing number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the US, and despite a major 2023 study projecting that five million lives a year could be saved around the world by phasing out fossil fuels and their pollution, Wright said a warmer planet with more carbon dioxide is “better for growing plants.” Never mind the communities living in the crosshairs of contamination and climate catastrophe or conservationists who are concerned anew about endangered species.

Wright spent his first month in office postponing Biden-era energy efficiency standards for home appliances, claiming without evidence that they have “diminished the quality” of them. His office announced the canceling of $124 million in contracts, many of them connected to diversity, inclusion, and equity initiatives. He said those contracts were “adding nothing of value to the American people.” When asked if he wanted fossil fuels to “come back big time,” Wright responded, “Absolutely.”

Behind the pablum of confirmation hearings was an iron fist

And over in the Commerce Department, the 6,700 scientists and 12,000 staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are reeling from the recent first wave of hundreds of layoffs. Many more job losses are threatened, with sources telling major media outlets that the Trump administration and new Secretary Howard Lutnick are considering a 50% cut in staff and a 30% cut in the agency’s budget.

It is irrelevant to the Trump administration that NOAA is a bedrock agency that protects the public with its real-time tracking of dangerous storms. It is at the center of long-term federal analysis on climate, the toll in property and life of global warming, the health of our oceans, and the state of our fisheries. Instead of being placed on a pedestal for this central role, NOAA is as much a bullseye for polluters and plunderers as the EPA. Project 2025 calls for the breaking up of NOAA because it “has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future US prosperity.”

Lutnick, a billionaire Wall Street financier, told senators in his January confirmation hearing that he had “no interest” in dismantling NOAA. The firings suggest the dismantling has begun.

When Lee Zeldin promised at his confirmation hearing that he would “defer” to talented scientists on climate change data, it was a mere six days after NOAA and many other weather agencies around the world confirmed that Earth had its hottest year yet in 2024. That was obviously lost on him. In just one month, the only demonstrated deference of Zeldin, Burgum, Wright, Duffy, and Lutnick is to President Trump’s mantra of “drill, baby, drill” and the deregulation of toxic industries.

Left in the wake are demonized and demoralized federal scientists.

In his address to Congress this week, President Trump boasted about ending “environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable.” Hopefully it will not be one hurricane, one contamination, or one disappearing species too many to realize we cannot afford to be without those scientists. We will be far less safe without them.

This past week, I attended the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Hangzhou, China. Delegates from nearly 190 nations came together to discuss—and, in theory, make decisions about—next steps for the 7th assessment cycle. In previous posts, I’ve explained what the IPCC is, why this assessment cycle is crucial, and highlighted its role in climate action.  

As climate change advances, the IPCC’s goal—to provide policy-relevant science—becomes increasingly urgent. And yet, as I walked away last week, it was clear that urgency is not universally shared: we saw the weakening of scientific language, delayed deadlines, and a failure to reach consensus on some of the most fundamental and pressing areas of research. 

The Goals of the Hangzhou Plenary 

The agenda for this Plenary was packed with essential tasks shaping the next IPCC reports in this cycle. The main objectives included: 

• Approving and adopting outlines for the three major working group reports and an additional methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR). 

• Approving report timelines to clearly state when working group reports will be completed.  

• Approving expert meetings and passing the budget. 

While the IPCC reports are a synthesis of scientific literatures written by scientists, it’s important to remember these Plenary meetings are not a scientific gathering. Rather, they’re negotiations where member countries review plans and make decisions about the structure and process of IPCC reports. 

Key Discussions and Outcomes 

As is often the case with IPCC Plenary meetings, discussions can feel slow. Many debates repeated points from earlier sessions, as delegations revisited unresolved issues. By the end of the session, some key decisions were made, although it took longer than anticipated—nearly every day of the week long meeting ran late and delegates worked more than 38 hours straight on the final day. 

1. Working Group Report Outlines Approved  

After much debate, outlines for each of the three work group reports were approved. Since these outlines were already drafted by experts nominated by the panel, agreeing to these outlines was the bare minimum. Each IPCC Working Group (WG) plays a distinct yet interconnected role in the 7th Assessment Report (AR7): 

• Working Group 1: Physical Science Basis – Examines the fundamental climate science, including observed and projected changes in temperature, precipitation, extreme events, and Earth system processes​. 

• Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability – Assesses the risks climate change poses to human and natural systems, the effectiveness of adaptation strategies, and emerging challenges such as climate-related displacement and health risks​. 

• Working Group 3: Mitigation of Climate Change – Evaluates pathways for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, sustainable development strategies, and the role of finance, technology, and policy in achieving net-zero emissions​. 

During the Hangzhou plenary, governments had the opportunity to review and adjust the draft outlines developed at earlier expert meetings. These outlines serve as a roadmap for the scientists who will write the reports, shaping the scope of each assessment. Although they are indicative rather than prescriptive, delegates debated word choices—sometimes late into the night—before finally approving the chapter structures for all three Working Groups. 

2. The CDR Methodology Report Failed to Achieve Consensus  

One of the most contentious discussions revolved around the outline for the proposed IPCC methodology report on carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The report, initially scoped in 2024 and planned for completion by 2027, aims to provide technical guidance on measuring, reporting, and verifying emissions removals from CDR technologies. However, disagreements over the inclusion of marine CDR prevented consensus, meaning the outline will be revisited at the next plenary​. 

This debate is not just technical—it is deeply tied to ethics, governance, and the role of the IPCC in assessing emerging technologies.  

Delegates questioned when (or if) the IPCC should develop methodologies for technologies with unclear risks. The IPCC’s core mandate is to assess existing science and provide neutral guidance, but defining methods for speculative technologies raises important ethical questions. Marine CDR lacks long-term observational data and has potential ecological risks. Some countries argued that including methods for ocean alkalinity enhancement and direct ocean carbon capture, two experimental marine CDR technologies, could prematurely legitimize these technologies before their environmental impacts are fully understood. 

3. Working Group Report Timelines Decision Delayed, Again.  
Although the outlines were approved, the timeline for producing each report was pushed back, again. Ultimately, delegates decided to postpone setting any hard deadlines. The key question remains whether timing will allow these reports to inform the next UNFCCC Global Stocktake (GST), expected to take place in 2028. The GST is a cornerstone of the Paris Agreement, designed to periodically gauge collective progress and identify gaps in ambition. Delays in the IPCC’s work could mean that policymakers won’t have the most up-to-date science in time for the stocktake discussions. 

4. Expert Meetings and Budget  

The IPCC will move forward with expert workshops on engaging diverse knowledge, which will include work on both Indigenous knowledge and using AI systems, and methods of assessment. The Plenary deferred decision on the proposal for an expert meeting on high-impact events and earth systems tipping points. The budget was also ultimately approved, however, much is up in the air since the overall timeline for the reports remains unknown.  

Backsliding on Science, Stonewalling on Deadlines 

While the approval of the AR7 Working Group outlines represents a significant step forward, several concerning trends emerged during the Plenary discussions—raising questions about whether the IPCC process and the heavy-handed role of the country delegations could end up limiting the scope and clarity of scientific assessments. 

Scientific Language and the Removal of Key Concepts 

Throughout the plenary, some delegations pushed for edits that weakened or removed previously accepted scientific language. While Working Group I (Physical Science Basis) largely retained its core concepts, Working Groups II (Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability) and III (Mitigation) saw key terms and phrases—many central to prior IPCC reports—either watered down, or removed entirely. 

Some of the most notable omissions from the approved outlines include: 

• Lock-in and maladaptation, both fundamental concepts for adaptation and resilience planning, were removed from the outline. 

• Fossil fuels, which are central to mitigation discussions but were largely avoided, reflecting ongoing political tensions. 

• Cost of inaction, subsidies, and trade, all key factors shaping climate policy decisions, were watered down or removed.  

• Policy evaluation, including ex-post assessments of mitigation and adaptation strategies, raising concerns about the ability to reflect on past successes and failures. 

• Removal of all legal references, including climate litigation and deletion of explicit language on corporate accountability and attribution in WG-II. 

The scientists writing AR7 still have the flexibility to incorporate these topics based on available research, but the removal of these terms from the official outlines signals a worrying trend—one that could make it harder to communicate critical findings in a clear and policy-relevant way. 

The Push Against Plain-Language Summaries to Promote Accessibility 

A proposal from Working Group I experts to include plain-language summaries in each chapter—aimed at making climate science more accessible—was rejected. While many delegates strongly advocated for clear, direct language, others expressed concerns that these summaries might be perceived as too policy prescriptive, ultimately preventing their inclusion. 

This decision underscores a broader challenge: as the climate crisis worsens, clear and effective communication of scientific findings is more critical than ever. The rejection of plain-language summaries risks making IPCC reports less accessible to decision-makers, journalists, and the public—undermining their impact at a time when clarity is essential. 

The Problem of Extended Negotiations and Equity in Decision-Making 

Another major issue is the repeated extension of negotiations, which once again ran late into the night and well past the scheduled close of the plenary. This disproportionately disadvantaged smaller delegations—many from climate-vulnerable nations—who often lack the financial resources to extend their stay and had to leave before the final decisions were made. 

This recurring problem within the IPCC raises concerns about whose voices are heard at the most critical moments. While the Plenary operates by consensus, the reality is that practical constraints, including funding and logistical challenges, mean some nations are effectively excluded from last-minute negotiations. This is particularly troubling given that these same nations are often the most affected by climate change and have the most at stake. 

What’s Next for the IPCC? 

Despite slow progress and ongoing challenges, the IPCC continues to move forward. With outlines now finalized for all three Working Groups, the next critical step is the call for authors—a process where countries and observer organizations, including UCS, can nominate experts to contribute to AR7. 

Experts selected as Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors, and Review Editors will be responsible for assessing the latest science, drafting report chapters, and responding to expert and government reviews. Given the scale and importance of this assessment, it is essential that scientists from diverse backgrounds and disciplines stay engaged in the process. The absence of the US from this Plenary raises concerns about official US government engagement in AR7. However, US-based scientists can still participate if nominated through other channels, such as observer organization like the Union of Concerned Scientists.  

The IPCC remains a cornerstone of global climate science, shaping the foundation for climate policy and action worldwide. With AR7 now in motion, the real work begins. Scientists must remain engaged, ensuring the reports reflect the best available evidence, not just what is politically convenient.  Despite the debate that dragged on in the Plenary, the strength of the IPCC lies in its scientific rigor, collective expertise, and global collaboration. . 

Jill Warren heads the European Cyclists’ Federation, a Brussels-based nongovernmental organization that advocates cycling to help lower carbon emissions.

Scientists called the news ‘particularly worrying’ because ice reflects sunlight and cools the planet

Global sea ice fell to a record low in February, scientists have said, a symptom of an atmosphere fouled by planet-heating pollutants.

The combined area of ice around the north and south poles hit a new daily minimum in early February and stayed below the previous record for the rest of the month, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.

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A government spreadsheet lists thousands of campsites and trails that could shutter for the summer because of federal government staff reductions and budget freezes.

Conservationists say the rodents will fix ecosystems and bring wildlife back to wetlands

• ‘I feel real hope’: historic beaver release marks conservation milestone in England

Beavers have been legally released for the first time into England’s rivers. Conservationists are celebrating, as they say the large rodents will help heal broken ecosystems and bring wildlife back to wetland habitats.

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Cyclone Alfred formed in the Coral Sea towards the end of February when sea surface temperatures were almost 1C hotter than usual

• Tropical Cyclone Alfred LIVE updates and latest news
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Tropical Cyclone Alfred is due to hit south-east Queensland about 1am on Friday morning, bringing the risk of destructive winds, extreme flooding and storm surges to millions of people around Brisbane, the Gold Coast and northern New South Wales.

After last year was recorded as the hottest on record around the world, and the hottest for Australia’s oceans, what role could the climate crisis be playing in Tropical Cyclone Alfred and its impacts?

When and where is Cyclone Alfred likely to hit?

How to prepare for a cyclone

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He is surrounded by people who have grandiose plans and dreams beyond our planet. Vengeful nihilism is a big part of the Maga project

In thinking about the war being waged against life on Earth by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their minions, I keep bumping into a horrible suspicion. Could it be that this is not just about delivering the world to oligarchs and corporations – not just about wringing as much profit from living systems as they can? Could it be that they want to see the destruction of the habitable planet?

We know that Trump’s overriding purpose is power. We have seen that no amount of power appears to satisfy his craving. So let’s consider power’s ultimate destination. It is to become not only an emperor, but the last of the emperors: to close the chapter on civilisation. It is to scratch your name indelibly upon a geological epoch. Look on my works, ye vermin, and despair.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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After a relentless deluge of Trump administration attacks, overwhelmingly at the hands of Elon Musk, the nation’s exceptional, thriving innovation machine is teetering on the brink. 

The ramifications are calamitous.  

Since World War II, the US has committed itself to robustly supporting the scientific enterprise, that great endless frontier, in recognition of the wellspring of public benefits that such research can ultimately bring forth. At the heart of that commitment is the central tenet that science should be a public good, for public good. The US research enterprise reflects that, with the nation supporting a vast ecosystem within which a staggering array of public and private actors—and their many and varied areas of interest—can flourish.  

Musk is now knowingly, deliberately, gleefully taking an ax to the whole of it.  

With the full and unyielding support of President Trump and his administration’s leadership, Musk is directing the indiscriminate firing of federal workers, casting off hard-earned, impossible-to-replace expertise. 

He is hamstringing agencies and their capacity to execute research internally and launch significantly more research externally. 

He is slashing universities’ and research institutions’ capacity to pursue bold new ideas, as well as onboard and train the next generation of innovators. 

He is arbitrarily and catastrophically reneging on government contracts and agreements, leaving pioneering new investments in the lurch while undermining faith in future government-supported endeavors. 

He is isolating the nation’s researchers by attacking vital channels of international coordination and collaboration that have long improved our own country’s work.  

And instead, courtesy the world’s richest man whose riches rest upon the very system he now abhors: science behind a paywall; knowledge for a fee.  

Firing federal researchers, hamstringing federal agencies  

Federal researchers are positioned at agencies throughout the government, at institutions as wide-ranging as the Centers for Disease Control, the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Department of Agriculture, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.  

From tracking food safety outbreaks, to studying pollution controls, to analyzing crop yields; from triaging pending pandemics, to identifying infrastructure vulnerabilities to cyberattacks, to flying through hurricane eyewalls. Civil servants, in civil service, pushing for insights that ultimately help to unravel how things work, how things break, and how we, as a society, can push ever forward.  

But now, Musk is directing the slashing of the federal workforce, without concern for the role, the expertise, the loss, the cost.  

Take, for example, the mass firing of federal workers on probationary status. Conservative estimates suggest that this has impacted approximately 20,000 workers thus far, though lack of transparent reporting, as well subsequent re-hirings, have muddied accurate accounting. The Trump administration has further signaled its apparent intent of ultimately slashing nearly all of the hundreds of thousands of employees on probationary status—albeit now under new cover. 

This move is illegal on its face, and is being advanced in a manner that is entirely devoid of authority. 

Moreover, it is fully untethered from any coherent strategy. Notably, “probationary” does not equal “junior” or even “new,” as promotions and position shifts can result in a return to probationary status. Indeed, such firings are only being advanced because probationary employees have fewer workplace protections and are thus easier to fire.  

The net result, the intended result, is a staggering theft of publicly funded, publicly held knowledge and expertise—as well as the theft of all the ways in which that publicly held expertise would have served the interests of the public in the hours, days, and decades to come.  

Much will be lost outright. That which is not lost faces threats of privatization and paywalls. Think hurricane warnings for the rich—not for the most exposed; drought forecasts for commodity traders—not for the farmers planting rows.  

And this is just the beginning.  

At the same time that agencies are being forced to draw up broader plans for even more massive reductions in staffing, they are also being directed to abandon core and critical areas of work. The ensuing involuntary atrophy of capacity and achievement will then be cynically invoked to justify even further staffing cuts in the time to come.  

For those who remain, the work will change. Not just in the way in which an administration change always signals the arrival of new priorities, nor even in the way in which a specifically, relentlessly anti-science administration will antagonize the means of executing those priorities.  

No, this cuts deeper.  

The Trump administration is already forcing the nation’s remaining federal scientists and experts to insulate and isolate: to depart from coordinating bodies, to abandon collaborative endeavors, to extract themselves from the inherently interconnected affair of scientific research. 

At Musk’s and Trump’s direction, federal agencies are seizing up. And as they do, so too does the capacity of the scientific enterprise to serve the public good.  

Slashing federal support for research and innovation 

As harmful as the arbitrary attacks on federal agencies and federal experts are for the nation’s public good, attacks on the federal government’s ability to support the broader innovation ecosystem threaten to be even worse.  

In 2024, US support for research and development totaled approximately $200 billion dollars.  

More than half of that funding was dedicated to defense. Of the rest, approximately half was allocated to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), while the rest was channeled through a range of agencies including the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NASA, Commerce, USDA, and more.   

And yet, the Trump administration is now attempting to illegally seize the funds outright or, where stopped, undertake other means to achieve the same outcome.  

Take what’s occurred at NIH.  

Of NIH’s approximately $47 billion budget, as much as 85 percent is awarded to outside research. In 2023, that funding translated into approximately 60,000 awards, supporting more than 300,000 scientists, at more than 2,700 entities, across all 50 states. A recent sample of that research: a vaccine to treat pancreatic cancer, novel ways to detect Alzheimer’s earlier, and the most detailed mapping yet of human brain cells, to name just three.  

A scientific-, economic-, innovation-spurring, and life-saving colossus—which the Trump administration is now actively, unrelentingly working to break. 

Since Day 1, the Trump administration has alternately attempted: directly freezing funds, indirectly freezing funds, freezing the means by which funds can actually be granted, firing the workforce required to process funds, limiting the scope of what can be funded, and dramatically curtailing how research institutions are compensated.  

What’s occurred at NIH is shocking. It also should not be viewed as a one-off. 

For one thing, the administration directed the freezing of all funds, disbursed by all agencies. Same for limiting research agendas. Same for wildly disruptive workforce firings. And there is no reason to believe that attempts at abrupt, severe changes in indirect cost rates will stop at NIH. 

Accordingly, the chill is setting in. Research institutions across the country are confronting this injection of wild uncertainty into the funding picture and bracing for shattering impact. Already, word is emerging of institutions halting enrollment for the next class of researchers—the canary, in plain sight. But the specter of calamitous funding shortfalls is also leading to broader hiring freezes, holds on approvals of new instruments and equipment, and overall adoption of austerity measures.  

If these attacks do not soon relent, austerity will be just the start.  

Moreover, at the same time as the administration is attempting to knock out the research foundations of the US scientific enterprise, it is also—again illegally, again incomprehensibly—attempting to dismantle the scaffolding established by forward-looking industrial policy intended to help turn that research into applied solutions.  

These are policy instruments and investments meant to ensure that the technologies, the industries, the workforces our nation will want and need to have on hand to respond to the challenges confronting us are strategically nurtured and developed. Under Musk’s and Trump’s hands, however, the green shoots of those policies—the manufacturing investments, the job training programs, the novel solutions—are withering in salted earth.  

What could be—and what gets lost 

Musk and his team of DOGE scavengers revel in spotlighting off-beat grants—nevermind the repeated falsehoods of their “efficiency” claims, nevermind the rapidly accruing expenses resulting from their lawless execution of unconstitutional actions. Moreover, these identifications are not the wins they think. 

The hallmark of the US commitment to the scientific enterprise is just that: A commitment to science, and in so doing, a commitment to curiosity. It is precisely because of that fiercely held commitment to curiosity, and its attendant tolerance of funding work that could ultimately fail to deliver, that the US has cultivated the research envy of the world. These are, at their core, the conditions required to allow for pioneering, truly path-breaking discovery.   

Now, as Musk and his DOGE team hunt for the latest bad-faith headline to win the internet for the day, they lurch the country another step further, another step further, another step further to rendering the whole of the publicly-oriented scientific enterprise obsolete.  

As the endless frontier recedes, in its place looms the pitch-black darkness of pay-to-play, with a public cut off from the vast riches enabled by civil science, in civil service.  

In the heart of Utah’s Uinta Mountains, a team of scientists is re-creating historical pictures to study how much, and how quickly, ecosystems are changing.

Este tipo de pensamiento, que indica que solo hay espacio para un ganador, se ha extendido como un virus mental desde la geopolítica hasta la cultura pop.