Union of Concerned Scientists Global Warming

Project 2025, the far-right’s playbook for systemically reshaping the federal government, specifically calls out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to be “dismantled,” “downsized,” and “eliminated.” Calling the agency “the source of… climate alarmism,” it recommends the privatization of many of NOAA’s essential functions, some of which are congressionally mandated.

Although denying any knowledge of this plan throughout the campaign, the new administration appears ready to follow through. Roughly 10% of NOAA staff have been fired, with more layoffs expected. Confidential and proprietary data have been compromised, budgets are threatened, and scientists censored and ignored. And this is just the beginning.

So, what’s the big deal? How will this affect people in the United States, including those who support efforts to cut government spending? Through their mission of science, service and stewardship, the work of NOAA helps everyone in the U.S. every day. You may be most familiar with their weather forecasts, which are available to all free of charge (under Project 2025, you may need a paid subscription to get weather alerts). But NOAA provides so much more to every American every day.

Sure, NOAA lets you know if it will rain or whether you will need a light jacket or heavy coat. But the agency is responsible for so much more than that.

Your community’s safety and prosperity rely on NOAA

Your community uses NOAA products and tools to plan events and development. It relies on forecasts of hazardous weather events and blue sky flooding to protect property and save lives. Working with NOAA, towns and cities as well as rural communities and counties take science-informed actions to prepare for a changing environment and enhance their resilience to climate change and sea level rise. For every dollar invested in disaster resilience, informed in a large part by NOAA climate information, companies and communities avoid $13 in economic losses from extreme weather.

NOAA amergency alerts of severe weather events, like wildfires, tornadoes, and flash floods give people and communities more time to prepare, and protect lives and neighborhoods. NOAA scientists fly on the iconic “Kermit” and “Miss Piggy” hurricane hunters to collect data for more accurate, longer-term storm forecasts. Their seasonal outlooks and drought monitoring are essential for farmers to plan what and when to plant and harvest. Are you taking a commercial flight today? NOAA serves up aviation weather forecasts to guide your airplane safely and smoothly to its destination.

NOAA watches the oceans and coasts for you

Do you like seafood? NOAA inspects domestic and imported fish and shellfish products to insure they are safe and properly labeled. They also manage commercial and—with the states—recreational fisheries to ensure they are sustainable and productive for future generations. NOAA monitors and certifies seafood trade. Their research protects endangered species and helps vulnerable marine populations recover to healthy levels. NOAA also works to prevent and eradicate aquatic invasive plants and animals from our coastal and Great Lakes waters.

How about a day at the beach? NOAA’s monitoring and forecasts protect you from oil and chemical spills and red tides, from high surf and tsunamis, and from plastics and marine debris. They even provide a UV index so you know how much sunblock to apply. Going sailing? You’ll probably rely on a NOAA navigation chart to avoid shoals and hazards, and marine weather and tidal predictions to time your voyage.

NOAA helps the ‘blue economy‘

The nation’s thriving maritime industries and businesses contribute over 2 million jobs and $500 billion annually to the US economy. NOAA’s restoration and conservation projects protect coastal, wetland, and streamside habitats and green infrastructure, while boosting coastal resiliency and recreational opportunities, decreasing safety hazards, and creating jobs.

NOAA services and products improve the precision of marine navigation and the efficiency and safety of our ports and harbors. Ocean energy exploration and production—conventional and renewable—depend on information from NOAA to carry out siting and operations in areas and in a manner that optimizes their investment and minimizes negative interactions with marine animals and other economically important activities. Beyond traditional commerce sectors, NOAA’s New Blue Economy initiative harnesses the power of technology and big data to apply ocean and coastal data and information to our nation’s economic vitality, growth, and sustainability, and to address our societal challenges.

Marine sanctuaries and estuarine reserves protect resources and fuel local economies. NOAA scientists also study and forecast natural ecological events such as coral bleaching, marine heatwaves, and shifts in fish stocks that impact economically and culturally important marine resources and the people, businesses, and coastal communities that depend on them.

NOAA and national security

NOAA’s impact extends beyond our shores. It works closely with the Department of Defense (DOD) to protect our military assets and plan operations. Global weather forecasts are coordinated between DOD and NOAA entities, and NOAA informs resource management through dual use of DOD data and products. It coordinates with the US Coast Guard to combat illegal, unauthorized, and unregulated fishing and human trafficking. NOAA even goes extraterrestrial, monitoring solar activity and space weather that can disrupt electric power transmission, radio and satellite communications, and global navigation, as well as advising us when to expect awesome Northern Lights displays.

In short, NOAA is a critical source of factual, evidence-based, and unbiased information about our environment, communities, and economies. It helps individuals, leaders, and businesses make decisions based on science, not politics, alternative facts, or speculation. Because of NOAA, lives have been saved, property is protected, businesses are vibrant, communities are safer, and ecosystems are healthier.

What can you do to protect NOAA?

The threat to NOAA’s science, services, and stewardship is dire. The agency cannot carry out its critical functions on limited staff, shrinking budgets, and aging ships and satellites.

Call or message your elected representatives and remind them about the vital role of NOAA to you and your community. Contact your local news media; ask them to report on what is happening to NOAA and other federal science agencies and how it will impact your community and neighbors. Share your story about what NOAA means to you and how you are protecting it. And show your solidarity with federal scientists by sharing critical resources from UCS and other organizations.

NOAA has offices, labs, facilities, and staff in every state and territory, and overseas. If you want to learn more about NOAA in your state and community, you can download fact sheets about their facilities, programs, and activities.

NOAA remains a target to those taking a chainsaw to its critical government services. Take action to save NOAA in your state and your hometown.

It’s almost the end of California’s wet season. California is in a Mediterranean climate zone, characterized by long, dry summers and short, wet winters. Snow is a crucial part of our year-round water supply, serving as a natural reservoir and providing up to a third of our water supply. Today, the California Department of Water Resources conducted a snow survey to determine how much snow we have stockpiled to date. Today’s survey shows we are at 85% of average levels, statewide. That could spell trouble given above average temperatures that the state is currently experiencing. In addition, significant regional differences reveal some of the ways climate change is shifting our water supplies.

StatewideNorthCentral SouthPercent of normal to date85%104%80%70%Snowpack as of 2/28/2025 SnowTrax – Home

While February saw a set of strong atmospheric rivers bring snow to Northern California, Southern California is still well below average for yearly precipitation. Indeed, drought conditions are present across Southern California and much of the American West. In addition, 2024 was the world’s warmest on record globally, and the first calendar year in which global temperatures exceeded 1.5°C above its pre-industrial levels. Recent wildfires in the Los Angeles (LA) region highlighted the sometimes-disastrous consequences of this combination of hot and dry conditions. Scientists have found that climate change made the conditions that drove the devastating fires some 35 percent more likely than they would have been had the fires occurred before humans began burning fossil fuels on a large scale.

Current drought conditions U.S. Drought Monitor Climate change is increasing the gap between water supply and water demand

Climate change is increasing the misalignment between when we get water from our snowpack and when we need it in our streams, fields, and cities. As climate change accelerates snowmelt and heats up spring temperatures, springtime runoff is projected to peak between 25 and 50 days earlier than it does now. That’s around a month added to California’s dry season when other stored water resources will need to meet demand. The Department of Water Resources noted that current above average temperatures mean snowpack is melting quickly.

Warming temperatures also amplify the risk of the water stored in snowpack coming down in massive, damaging, and hard-to-capture flood events rather than a more gradual steady stream. This can happen when lots of rain falls on top of snowpack, washing both the rainfall and the snowmelt into streams all at once—as in Oregon’s 1996 Willamette River flood, one of the worst natural disasters in that state’s history. The state of flooding emergency called for LA in 2017 and the devastating flooding in the US Midwest in 2019 was a similar situation.

Political stunts aren’t helping Levee breached in Pajaro River in 2023. California Department of Water Resources

What all this means is that there is more of a need to conserve our dwindling winter water supplies for the long, dry summer season. Despite this, President Trump unexpectedly ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release water from dams into the federal water supply system known as the Central Valley Project last month. This political stunt not only did not help anyone in Southern California fight fires but also wasted water that could have been stored for the summer. The sudden water release came without local and state coordination, threatening to undermine earthen levies that protect many farms and cities in the Central Valley. No one benefited— not farmers, not fish, not cities. 

The political theater didn’t stop there. A related Executive Order directed federal water projects to ignore legal protections like the endangered species act and water quality standards in order to pump more water South. Unfortunately, the reality is that exporting significantly more water out of the Delta actually threatens Southern California’s water supply. The Public Policy Institute of California explains: “If the Central Valley Project takes more water out of the Delta, the burden to meet water quality standards would fall on the State Water Project. This would likely lead to less water available for Southern California, not more.”

Currently, the federal Central Valley Project and the State Water Project share the burden of meeting state and federal water quality standards in the Bay Delta. These standards protect drinking water quality, requiring enough water to flow out through the Bay Delta and into San Francisco Bay to hold back seawater that would otherwise intrude and make the water too salty for human consumption.

Real solutions to climate-proof water supplies are available

Indeed, LA’s largest wholesale water provider, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, has shifted from an historic focus on increasing water imports to maximizing local water supplies, like water recycling, given climate impacts. That’s why the Metropolitan Water District, along with many other water agencies, supported the recent climate bond to invest in a range of smart water solutions.

These include climate-proof strategies, such as:

• increasing groundwater recharge and storage,
• modernizing water rights,
• strategically repurposing land to maximize water savings and community well-being,
• and conserving and reusing whenever possible.

Californians resoundingly support these solutions, as shown by the passage of the climate bond in November 2024. While we expect the federal political stunts to continue, states can chart their own path to real solutions. In red and blue states alike, people expect government to continue to provide essential services like safe and affordable drinking water. Now, more than ever, states must step up.

By my count, representatives from roughly 190 countries are currently gathered in Hangzhou, China, to advance the current cycle of scientific assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, one country is notably absent: the United States. Just as I boarded my flight to China to attend the IPCC meeting as an observer, news broke that the Trump administration’s “work stop” order would prevent any US federal scientists from participating in this crucial IPCC meeting.  

This raises urgent questions: How does this decision impact international climate collaboration, and what can we expect moving forward? The US has historically played a critical role in the IPCC in three main ways: providing scientific expertise, participating in negotiations, and helping to fund the process. The current de facto withdrawal affects all three. 

Absence of Federal Scientific Expertise 

One of the most immediate and significant consequences of the US withdrawal is the absence of US federal scientists at the IPCC plenary. US scientists from federal agencies such as NASA and NOAA have long played an important role. In this cycle, they have a prominent role in Working Group III (WG3), which focuses on climate change mitigation—assessing methods for reducing heat-trapping emissions and removing them from the atmosphere. 

The impact of this absence is particularly severe because NASA’s chief scientist, Kate Calvin, is currently the co-chair of WG3. Without her leadership, the group loses an essential voice in shaping climate mitigation strategies. 

Additionally, each working group relies on a Technical Support Unit (TSU) to provide scientific, technical, and organizational assistance. The WG3 TSU is staffed almost entirely by US personnel (9 of 10 people), and its contributions are substantial: just last cycle, the WG3 report spanned over 2,000 pages. Compounding the challenge, the NOAA Assessment Technical Support Unit, which provides editorial, data visualization, IT, and production services, is also sidelined by the work stoppage and anticipated attempts to dismantle NOAA.  

While this stoppage is technically temporary, if federal experts continue to be barred from participating, it would represent a major loss to the IPCC’s ability to produce rigorous and comprehensive reports. 

No US Negotiators at the Table 

IPCC plenary meetings are where representatives from participating countries review, discuss, and make key decisions to advance the IPCC’s work. During the meeting this week, countries are debating outlines for all the major IPCC reports. This is an important moment that sets the stage for work over the next few years. While country negotiators do not author the reports themselves, the IPCC’s influence stems in part from its consensus-based approach—ensuring that governments accept and commit the science and its conclusions. The absence of US negotiators means that the US has effectively removed itself from this process. 

Why does this matter? Without US participation, other countries will shape the discussions without US input, reducing the nation’s influence in shaping global climate assessments. This might be an overall benefit to the IPCC based on Trump’s public anti-science rhetoric on climate change, but historically the US has been a value-add to the process.  

Loss of US Funding for the IPCC 

Countries make voluntary contributions to support the IPCC’s work. The Biden administration had pledged approximately $1.5 million for this year’s IPCC budget, but those funds have not been delivered. Given Trump’s past actions—he pulled US funding from the IPCC during his previous term—there is little expectation that his administration will reinstate financial support. 

The loss of US funding, while not crippling, creates additional financial strain for the IPCC. Other nations or philanthropists (Bloomberg stepped in to cover UNFCCC funding) may step in to fill the gap, but the de facto withdrawal reinforces the message that the US is abdicating from its commitments to international climate cooperation. 

What This Means for the Future of the IPCC 

Climate change is a global challenge that requires global solutions. The IPCC was founded to foster international collaboration on climate science—science that is not policy-prescriptive, but rather provides world leaders with information crucial to crafting policy decisions. While this week’s IPCC plenary is proceeding, the absence of the United States signals a retreat from international climate leadership at a time when the worsening climate crisis demands stronger global cooperation.  

In the face of these restrictions, it’s important to remember that the IPCC’s structure allows for continued participation from non-federal scientists in the US—scientists like me. The IPCC’s strength lies in its ability to convene voluntary experts from universities, NGOs, research institutions, and government agencies worldwide. The last cycle included thousands of authors, most of whom are independent researchers unaffected by the federal work stoppage.  

However, the withdrawal of US federal support weakens the IPCC’s collective ability to provide the science the world needs to help tackle the climate crisis. In a moment when urgent, coordinated action is needed, this step back from collaboration could have long-term consequences. The path forward may not be easy, but the IPCC will continue its work and adapt to these challenges. As an observer organization, the Union of Concerned Scientists will continue to actively engage in this important scientific process. The real question now is how long the US will remain on the sidelines, and at what cost to the global effort and US communities? 

More and more communities across the United States are being exposed to extreme weather and fossil-fueled climate disasters. In 2024 alone, 27 declared disasters caused over one billion dollars in damage. Growing physical risk from extreme weather is colliding with the nationwide shortage of affordable housing. A thoughtful and equitable reimagining of our disaster response and recovery system has never been more urgent. But the Trump administration’s dismantling of federal agencies and programs responsible for disaster response puts Americans everywhere at extraordinary risk and will hamper state and local government’s ability to prepare for and recover from disasters.  

Cuts to HUD will hurt disaster recovery and affordable housing 

The Trump administration has signaled that it plans to reduce the workforce at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) by half. One of the targets within HUD for layoffs is the Office of Community Planning and Development—a leaked document suggests 84% of the staff in the office will be terminated. Staff in that office run the Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) which support states and local governments to rebuild homes, public infrastructure, and fund economic development activities in areas where disaster has been declared. The Office of Community Planning and Development also administers the Continuum of Care program, which funds nonprofits and local governments in their response to homelessness—which is at a record high. Staff terminations will cause delays in these crucial programs.   

Within a week of HUD Secretary Scott Turner’s confirmation, details about climate-specific research and programs have disappeared from the HUD website. Advocates are raising concerns about the agency’s failure to disperse the most recent tranche of funding for the Green and Resilient Retrofit program, which supports improvements to federally-financed, affordable apartments.  

FEMA cuts harm communities pre- and post-disaster 

The Trump administration has also announced significant layoffs and cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA has the sole mission to help people before, during, and after disasters. As my colleague Shana Udvardy notes, the agency needs both competent leadership and funding to accomplish its mission. Unfortunately, we are seeing the exact opposite right now.  

Currently, FEMA is operating under an interim head who has little experience in emergency management or disaster response. Adding to that, recent layoffs to an already understaffed agency means decreased capacity to respond to increasingly frequent disasters. In addition to disaster response, risk reduction and resilience efforts also seem to be on the chopping block. FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities and Flood Mitigation Assistance programs have obligated over 1.6 billion dollars nationwide in the last five years. Although both programs existed before the creation of the Biden administration’s Justice40 initiative, their designation as Justice40 programs in light of recent rollbacks raises questions about the continued funding despite enormous need for resilience investments.  

A pattern of politicizing disasters 

While the level of funding and personnel cuts may be unprecedented, the politicization of aid by President Trump is not. During his first term, Trump used the Office of Budget and Management (run then as now by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought) to delay obligated disaster recovery funding to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017. This weaponization of aid has continued into the second Trump administration, as evidenced by his threats to withhold aid to California after the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles, and FEMA acting administrator Cameron Hamilton’s refusal of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s request to extend the 100% federal cost share for continuing Hurricane Helene clean-up efforts. 

Ripple effects of uncertainty in federal disaster funding 

The politicization of disaster aid doesn’t just delay recovery and increase near-term risk, it poses longer-term threats to frontline communities. One such threat is the impact on municipal bond markets, which provide debt securities for state and local governments to finance everything from day-to-day operations to critical infrastructure investments needed for climate adaptation. Until recently, the municipal bond market has been slow to reflect climate risk, in part because of information gaps and in part because federal investments in disaster response and recovery can help reduce future risks and thereby ameliorate the negative impacts of these disasters on local communities’ creditworthiness.   

Federal aid to state and local governments both directly increases resilience through disaster recovery grants, and indirectly by reducing the riskiness of municipal bonds through reducing climate risks to communities. The worst thing that could happen to communities hit by a climate disaster would be to then find their credit rating hit too, through no fault of their own. Investments in climate resilience pay off—for communities and for their ability to raise money through bond funding. Slashing disaster aid and resilience programs based on political whims will inject uncertainty into municipal bond markets that state and local governments simply can’t afford.  

Rethinking local climate planning as defense 

Already, state and local governments are mounting legal challenges to this administration’s rollbacks. Outside of the courts, state and local governments will need to take a more expansive view of planning for climate change, beyond emissions reductions. These expanded goals should be pursued with all available financing options before investor confidence in municipal bonds wanes drastically.

Investments in meaningfully affordable housing—from the building of new homes in less risky places to weatherization and upgrades to existing single and multi-family housing—will increase resilience. Policy changes should co-occur with investment. For example, adopting stronger building codes will help homes withstand increasingly severe storms, and developing tenant protection policies will ensure that well-intentioned investments in housing won’t inadvertently spur displacement. As property insurance premiums increase and put greater strain on homeowners and affordable housing developers, regulators on the state level could compel insurers to report more thorough data on rate increases and policy cancellations with the goal of moving towards risk reduction partnerships.    

While state and local governments can play important defense against resilience policy and funding rollbacks at the federal level, they can do much more with the funding, strong standards, and technical assistance from the federal government. As the US Congress enters budget reconciliation, lawmakers should fight tooth and nail for agencies like HUD and FEMA, federal workers, and funding that communities across the country rely on.

Amid the Trump Administration’s illegal moves to freeze Congressionally-authorized funding, shutter Congressionally-authorized agencies, and fire civil servants for political reasons, budget reconciliation looms.

Does Congressional budget reconciliation even matter right now given our unfolding Constitutional crisis?

Yes, it does. Budget reconciliation is a legislative tool with the power to fundamentally reshape federal spending for a decade if Congress and the President manage to deploy it successfully. And unlike much of what the Trump administration has sought to do so far, it is allowed by law. As a result, even as President Trump and Elon Musk continue sowing dangerous, illegal chaos, it is important to spare some energy to crawl into the weeds on budget reconciliation and understand what awaits us in the months ahead.

Who is responsible for Congressional budget reconciliation?

While both the US House and White House play critical roles in budget reconciliation, this is really all about the Senate.

Most commonly, there are two ways to move legislation through the Senate: unanimous consent or a vote of three-fifths of the Senators (60 out of 100) called a supermajority. The history and legitimacy of the supermajority requirement in the Senate are topics for another day. For our purposes, the thing to know is that requiring a supermajority vote makes enacting sweeping, partisan legislation, especially when it comes to rearranging tax and spending priorities, exceedingly difficult.

What is budget reconciliation?

Enter the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 (CBA). Passed by the 93rd Congress and signed into law by President Ford, the CBA governs all aspects of the federal budget process. Among the law’s most important provisions is a rule that if the House and Senate can agree on a budget resolution, legislation implementing the spending levels in that resolutioncan pass the Senate by a simple majority vote (51 out of 100 senators). Such legislation is called a budget reconciliation bill because it is supposed to reconcile actual spending and revenues with the new budget resolution.

Reconciliation is unworkable when the two political parties share control of the federal government. During unified control of the Executive and Legislative branches, as is the situation currently with the Republicans controlling the White House, House of Representatives, and Senate, budget reconciliation offers a rare opportunity for the party in control to reshape the federal government for years to come.

Recent examples of budget reconciliation legislation include the Republican tax cuts in 2017 (the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), the Democratic economic stimulus plan in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021 (the American Rescue Plan), and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

Where does budget reconciliation happen?

The budget reconciliation process starts in the House and/or Senate Budget Committees. As of today, each chamber is moving its own, vastly different, budget resolution, each proposing different spending levels across the federal government.

The Senate is considering a narrower resolution that purports to increase energy production and invest in border security, with a second resolution focused on tax policy to come later. The House is resisting the two-step approach in favor of one massive package containing all of President Trump’s planned spending, including permanent extension of the 2017 tax cuts.

How will budget reconciliation happen?

Eventually, the House and Senate will have to agree on a single budget resolution or reconciliation will not be triggered (the budget resolution only requires a simple majority for passage and does not require approval by the President). The final budget will include instructions to a wide variety of Congressional committees with jurisdiction over different areas of spending.

For example, the final budget resolution could instruct the House Energy and Commerce Committee to find budget savings within its jurisdiction totaling a specific amount, or the Senate Armed Services Committee to identify provisions in its purview that would increase spending by a certain amount.

Each committee receiving instructions in the budget resolution will then write provisions to comply with its instructions. Finally, the budget committees package all the provisions in one legislative vehicle, which must pass the House and Senate and then be signed into law by the President. It remains to be seen whether the House approach (one big bill) or Senate approach (two smaller bills) will win out.

Senate rules prohibit the inclusion of “extraneous” matters in a budget reconciliation bill. This is enforced through the “Byrd rule,” named for the late Senator Robert C. Byrd. The Byrd rule says the Senate Parliamentarian is required to review budget reconciliation legislation and identify provisions unrelated to the budget. This review is called the “Byrd bath.” Provisions found to violate the Byrd rule are subject to removal from the bill. In other words, anything unrelated to the budget can’t be added to a reconciliation bill. (For a deep dive on the Byrd rule, please see this excellent report from the Congressional Research Service.)

To be clear, budget reconciliation legislation is required to be related to federal spending and revenues, but it is not required to actually save any money, and it rarely does. The current House budget resolution would specifically raise the debt ceiling by $4 trillion, which is strong evidence that the House majority expects reconciliation legislation to increase the debt, not lower it.

When will budget reconciliation start and be completed?

Great question! Who knows?

The Congressional Budget Act includes deadlines for this process, and the final budget resolution will include dates by which the committees receiving reconciliation instructions should comply, but there are no enforcement mechanisms. The Congressional Research Service summarizes the timing this way (emphasis, mine):

The record of experience with reconciliation legislation over the period since 1980 indicates considerable variation in the time needed to process such measures from the date the reconciliation instructions take effect (upon final adoption of the budget resolution) until the resultant reconciliation legislation is approved or vetoed by the President. The interval for the 24 reconciliation measures ranged from a low of 27 days (for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990) to a high of 384 days (for the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005). On average, completing the process took about five months (155 days) . . .

Assuming the House and Senate can come to agreement on a budget resolution this spring, a budget reconciliation bill could be expected in the fall.

But don’t forget that this 10-year budget reconciliation process is unfolding while annual spending legislation for the current fiscal year expires March 14. That’s right: Congress and the Administration are focused on a long-term budget plan while they cannot agree on a plan to keep the government open past next month. Ironic, eh?

Why is Congress using the budget reconciliation process?

President Trump and Congressional Republicans hope to use the budget reconciliation process to enact a partisan spending plan that could not pass the Senate under normal rules. Just how extreme that plan will be remains to be seen.

The current Senate budget resolution would pump $150 billion into the already-bloated Pentagon, and another combined $350 billion into law enforcement agencies within the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, ostensibly to curb unauthorized migration.

Meanwhile, the Senate plan claims to defray a tiny percentage of that spending by expanding fossil fuel production from federal lands and waters. Senate Republicans have also indicated they intend to use reconciliation to repeal much of the Inflation Reduction Act’s investments in renewable energy and clean transportation, while overturning the Biden Administration’s fee on methane.

The House budget blueprint is even more destructive. It would extend the Trump tax cuts from 2017, which exploded the deficit and were severely skewed in favor of the wealthy. To mask a small percentage of the cost of such a move, the House budget plan would allow cuts to Medicaid, federal student assistance, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

Both resolutions, and the reconciliation bill that will result, would redistribute trillions in taxpayer dollars to the already-wealthy, powerful, and politically connected, and away from poor and working-class families, while managing to grow the deficit and debt.

What can we do about this?

As this process unfolds, the Union of Concerned Scientists—working independently and in coalition with partners—will defend crucial spending priorities while highlighting the disastrous impacts of the current reconciliation plans. We will continue to provide policymakers who are willing to protect investments in a clean energy economy, respond to the climate crisis, protect programs vital to working families, pursue tax fairness, and right-size our defense spending with tools to engage in that defense using the best available science.

Enactment of a budget reconciliation plan is not a forgone conclusion. While the process does provide a crucial shortcut to Senate passage for the administration’s legislative priorities, it remains a heavy lift, made even harder by the historically narrow margin in the House and the tendency toward Congressional in-fighting.

Effective science advocacy can affect this outcome, and that is what we at UCS do. Please stay tuned.

There is an abundance of Native American imagery in the US imagination, and much of it is inaccurate: The Western films depicting cowboys winning against local Natives, Wild West TV shows, the classic tear rolling down the cheek of a man in a headdress as he looks at litter, or the picturesque images as Disney’s Pocahontas sang about all the colors the wind holds.

Some of the concepts about Native Americans that many non-Native people possess are rooted in stereotypical portrayals from the media. These concepts were crafted hundreds of years ago and codified in the Declaration of Independence, which calls us “merciless Indian savages.” Because of these propagandized portrayals routinely woven into the mainstream, the stereotypical imagery of Natives has been challenging and nearly impossible to correct.

This imagery has been exploited, propagandized, and weaponized regularly without responsibility or accountability, even as Native communities work tirelessly to continuously debunk falsehoods. These are not just old-school representations that don’t apply today. I was once asked by a judge in court how often I drank alcohol. When I responded that I don’t, he asked me, “Well, what kind of Indian ARE you?” I responded that I prefer to be outdoors, and be active. He replied, “Oh, so you’re that kind of Indian.”

It’s important to realize that there are no positive stereotypes; all stereotypes lead to a generalized assumption, and an unrealistic, erroneous expectation that leaves members of certain groups pressured and then villainized or persecuted for behaving unstereotypically—which is so harmful when the stereotypes were inaccurate in the first place. Stereotyping omits the possibility of variability and choice among the stereotyped group.  

The “Ecological Native” stereotype persists and harms

In my opinion, one of the worst and most exploited of all the stereotypes is that of the “Ecological Native”: This stereotype rests in the belief that Natives are connected to the land, inextricably and mysteriously—almost magically. To be fair, some of us are connected to our land, and it has nothing to do with magic. And others are not, which doesn’t mean they are any less a part of Native American communities. Each of us still make up the collective People; each of us contributes our talents, skills, and gifts.

Personally, I have been an outdoor-loving child ever since I can remember. I happened to understand and learn Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) without effort, and carry on sustainable practices that have been in our family since time immemorial. I also have family members who don’t like to go outside, who can’t tell what weather patterns are coming, when to gather, or when fishing season is. The danger of stereotyping resides when someone in a position of power, such as a government agent, business person, consultant, academic researcher, or nonprofit administrator, expects a Native person not skilled in environmental areas to offer information. Assuming that individuals are skilled in an area that they are not, based only on stereotypes, is dangerous. We don’t all know the same information, hold the same ideals, or have the skills and ability to produce information upon command. Situations like this become perilous when we are “asked” while expectation and pressure are embedded in the “request.”

Requests arrive from people or government agencies, and other places that want to validate information or prove inclusivity by incorporation of TEK, and by extension a Native individual. Even if someone who is contacted wishes to say no to such requests, our history of Native peoples across this land is rife with dangerous interactions and being punished to varying degrees for such refusals. Some people may even feel that if they refuse, or if they don’t live up to “Ecological Native” stereotypes, they could be fired or replaced.

Relying on false experts is dangerous

Increasingly, we’re seeing people who do not have specific TEK or Tribal knowledge—but claim to—promote themselves as “experts” to those who don’t have any information on how to carefully vet collaborators. These individuals then fall back onto tropes of land connection and meaningless verbiage while taking funding or influencing land management practices while excluding Tribal input. Often, we see non-vetted individuals be awarded contracts and funding over vetted TEK practitioners simply due to the reliance on a learned stereotype that has been exploited.

I receive emails weekly about someone who has contacted a colleague or Tribal member in search of any Native who is expected to then represent the community. This presents a difficult predicament, since some Natives are willing to give talks, but often don’t have the accurate information needed to address the topic at hand. That information is often recorded and presented as fact, and reused as being from a Native ‘expert.’ This leads to inaccurate data, unverifiable information when claiming the inclusion of TEK, and disbelief of and passing over of vetted Native researchers and specialists. This pattern also contributes to discounting Native scientists and scholars who have spent much lengthier periods of time than others specializing in TEK areas.

It is imperative that anyone who wants to include TEK or data from any discipline of Indigenous science be vetted within—and by—Tribal communities and their administrations, rather than by non-Native people who misunderstand who and what vetted Native scientists are and do.  

Additionally, the process of incorporation of Native data and select disciplines of Indigenous science must be carefully reviewed and include vetted Native scholars. Reliance on “someone who knows someone who works with a Native” or a Native who is self-proclaimed as a Native Indigenous scientist, is a dangerous, unethical practice.

Misusing TEK affects climate science

As scientists realized that Western science was failing to comprehensively address climate change, they began seeking out TEK as a method of combatting its effects. The Western science community began looking outside itself to alternative ways of knowing, and found that many Natives had been recognizing climate change in various ways while practicing their TEK. Some oral documentation of discussions of initial change goes back as far as the 1950s.

The new awareness of this perspective and our longstanding datasets offered new insight and filled the holes and gaps in the datasets based on siloed information that much Western science is based upon.

Ongoing TEK practices are carefully maintained and recognized through oral documentation by vetted practitioners. These practitioners are then at the mercy of belief systems that do not take into account the complexity of TEK, nor understand the phenology of the land and resources. 

Traditional burn systems provide a perfect example:

A common TEK practice along the West coast and other areas of the country was that of annual controlled burns to maintain vegetation, provide healthy systems, and encourage new growth. This encouraged game to return for the fresh shoots, and provided better basketry material. A detailed understanding of the forested areas, how the landscape moved and shifted, and how cool burn fires (with lower heat intensities than wildfires) would move, was common TEK knowledge.

My father can still recount a childhood memory of attending one of the last burns that was done in the Willamette Valley area of Oregon, stretching from just south of Portland through to Eugene. He recalls how those who started the fire had to then hide away for fear of being arrested for “arson.”

This kind of knowledge, and all its benefits, cannot be applied or used by Western science so long as false narratives about Native people, based on antiquated belief systems, are still the norm. This conflict remains, as Western scientists are interested in TEK but also want to cherry-pick topics to apply it to. This is problematic and ineffective because TEK is holistic in practice; understanding the system as a whole is an absolute necessity. Many non-Native scientists working on climate change don’t understand the premise of multi-generational understanding as it applies to scientific knowledge and consequently don’t take our TEK seriously .

And if at the same time they don’t understand TEK, climate scientists also subscribe to the stereotype of the Ecological Native, believing that all Natives hold the key to climate change, that faulty belief will perpetuate the issues of climate change that we all face. This is wasting time and when time is wasted it threatens our communities as well as verifiable science, both Western and Indigenous.

Painting the issue of climate change, or any other issue for that matter, as “solved by Indigenous science” is like calling John Wayne movies accurate.   

A cruel irony for TEK practitioners

On top of all of the intentional, irreparable, and ongoing harm done to Native peoples, for those of us who are blessed enough to retain and attempt to maintain our TEK, the cruel irony is that many of our homelands and natural resources—where we gained this knowledge— have been stolen, destroyed, and/or privatized. We are often barred from the areas where we hold U&A (usual and accustomed) rights to, and we are inundated with procedural blockades designed to keep us from access when we do seek to access homeland areas and resources. These obstructions come from federal, state, and local agents who gatekeep—often quite literally.

Left: a rock pile blockage on a road used for Tribal hunting. Right: a fence to keep people out and discourage hunting, with elk behind the fence. Photo credit: Samantha Chisholm Hatfield

Furthermore, the sustainability measures—like traditional burns, the ability to utilize sustainable methods of monitoring species health such as eels, salmon, or deer, or to ensure native plant species’ growth in traditional homeland areas—that we have fought for, reclaimed, and that have been left in our care to protect and be protected for at least seven generations into the future are often at risk of being blocked by some type of bias. As community members, we all know someone whose hunting, fishing, plant, medicinal, or other resource collections were confiscated, whose permit forms were “lost,” or who arrived to find the forest gates locked when they were assured they would be unlocked. This can result in missing the run, a failed hunt, or plants withering preventing harvest collections. This then throws off the sustainable TEK practices we work diligently to uphold and maintain.

Many of the follow-up conversations on situations like these and others that involve sustainability practices of TEK include responses from non-Natives in legal, agency, business, and community sectors who are clearly operating from stereotypical beliefs they hold against Natives. For example, my Tribal community members have told me they have heard inaccurate statements about themselves in these types of situations, such as that they only want to steal resources, or that Natives are “greedy,” that we don’t need natural resources since we have casinos, or that we don’t understand what it takes to manage the areas.

TEK and Western science can co-exist for the benefit of all

Indigenous and Western scientists can co-exist, but in order for this to happen, non-Natives must recognize and set aside their harmful stereotypes of Native peoples, including that we can magically solve climate change. Vetted Native practitioners of TEK must be given the freedom and trust to practice their resource management that contributes to climate change data, without the stereotyping that we will mismanage our lands, or that we don’t need our resources. Indigenous scientists, scholars, and practitioners of TEK cannot collaborate effectively with western science, when stereotypes of Natives persist and perpetuate a bias that interferes with TEK.

Non-natives in positions of power must stop viewing outreach to just one unvetted, non-expert Native person as a quick fix for their projects and initiatives, and instead seek input from Native communities, especially those that will be most affected by whatever policies or solutions they’re working on. And Native practitioners of TEK must be given the freedom and trust to practice their resource management, without the stereotypes that we will mismanage our lands, or that we don’t need our resources.

Among the many attacks in President Trump’s Day 1 Executive Order on “unleashing” American (fossil) energy, is a directive to EPA administrator Zeldin to reevaluate the agency’s bedrock 2009 scientific determination of the harms caused by heat-trapping emissions and submit recommendations within 30 days (i.e. this week). The ‘Endangerment Finding’ establishes that heat-trapping emissions harm people and the environment, and it forms a core legal basis for the agency’s subsequent actions to set standards to limit global warming pollution from vehicles and power plants, as well as methane pollution from oil and gas operations.

It’s no surprise that this anti-science, pro-fossil fuel administration wants to go after the Endangerment Finding. Of course, an honest assessment of the latest climate science will show that since 2009 the evidence has become even more compelling and dire. Climate change, driven by rising heat-trapping emissions, is already causing significant harm to people’s health and well-being and to vital ecosystems. Those harms will worsen rapidly as global warming emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, increase.

This blatant attempt to do an end-run around scientific evidence deserves to fail.

What is the Endangerment Finding?

Back in 2007, the Supreme Court reached a landmark judgment in Massachusetts et al. v. Environmental Protection Agency et al. establishing that heat-trapping emissions (or greenhouse gas emissions) are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act. The court further mandated that, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set protective standards for global warming pollutants if the agency found them to be harmful to human health and welfare.

The 2007 case was brought by petitioners (which included several state attorney generals and NGOs, including the Union of Concerned Scientists) in the context of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles.

The EPA subsequently undertook an extensive process, including hearings and a public comment period, and concluded that a vast body of scientific evidence showed that heat-trapping pollutants do indeed harm public health and welfare and that motor vehicles contribute to that pollution.

In 2009, the agency issued the Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases, summarized below:

• Endangerment Finding: The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.
• Cause or Contribute Finding: The Administrator finds that the combined emissions of these well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare.

The findings have subsequently been extended to other major sources of heat-trapping emissions, including power plants and oil and gas operations, and have been upheld in court.

For more on the legal and political twists and turns in the history of the Endangerment Finding, please check out this blogpost: Endangered Science: Why Global Warming Emissions Are Covered by the Clean Air Act.

What is Zeldin being directed to do?

President Trump’s Day 1 executive order directs the EPA administrator to work with other relevant agencies to submit recommendations, within 30 days, to the director of the OMB on the “legality and continuing applicability” of the agency’s Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under the Clean Air Act.

Opponents of climate action have long understood the power of the Endangerment Finding and tried unsuccessfully to dismantle it during the first Trump administration. Project 2025 also includes a call to “Establish a system, with an appropriate deadline, to update the 2009 endangerment finding.”

With a new more dangerous Trump administration, thoroughly corrupted by fossil fuel interests—and with the architect of Project 2025, Russell Vought, now confirmed as OMB Director—this time the risk to the Endangerment Finding is definitely greater. Gutting the Endangerment Finding would completely undermine EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and put a stop to all of EPA’s regulations to limit global warming pollution, a gift to the fossil fuel industry.

But getting rid of the Endangerment Finding is not going to be easy and is by no means a foregone conclusion, as even Lee Zeldin knows. It would require such a brazen effort to lie about climate science evidence that it’s hard to imagine courts going along with that even if the EPA were to take that unwise route.

The latest climate science is clear and alarming

There’s no question that this is a bad faith effort to try to find ways to undercut EPA’s responsibility and authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions under the Clean Air Act. The fact remains that any science-based update to the Endangerment Finding would conclusively demonstrate that the actual harms and projected risks from climate change have only grown grimmer since the 2009 endangerment finding was issued.

As heat-trapping emissions, primarily from burning fossil fuels, continue to rise, global average temperatures too continue their relentless climb with 2024 once again the hottest year on record. Extreme climate-related disasters—including heatwaves, storms, droughts, wildfires and flooding—are worsening, taking a fearsome toll on people, the economy and ecosystems. Accelerating sea level rise, ocean acidification and loss of major ice sheets also continue apace, with profound consequences for the planet.

If Lee Zeldin is looking for a recent authoritative assessment of the science, he should turn to the 2023 Fifth US National Climate Assessment, produced under the direction of the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The Global Change Research Act of 1990 mandates that the USGCRP—which collaborates across 15 federal agencies—deliver a report to Congress and the President at least every four years.

Here’s the headline from the NCA5:

The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across every region of the United States. Rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions can limit future warming and associated increases in many risks. Across the country, efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce emissions have expanded since 2018, and US emissions have fallen since peaking in 2007. However, without deeper cuts in global net greenhouse gas emissions and accelerated adaptation efforts, severe climate risks to the United States will continue to grow.

Another valuable source is the IPCC sixth assessment report, which reflects the work of thousands of scientists around the world—including many from the United States—in assessing the latest climate science, impacts, and opportunities to cut heat-trapping emissions and adapt to climate change.

The National Academy of Sciences would also be a good source of information. Here, for example, is a handy booklet on the evidence for and causes of climate change.

NOAA and NASA, premier federal science agencies, also closely monitor and track global climate change and its impacts. (And hopefully will continue to do so—although recent attacks on NOAA, foreshadowed in the Project 2025 manifesto, do not bode well.)

An anti-science pro-fossil fuel administration

Barely a month into the term of this second Trump administration, it’s clear that the President and his cabinet are hell-bent on doing everything they can to boost fossil fuels and shred climate and clean energy policies, catering to deep-pocketed fossil fuel interests.

They clearly intend to use every means at their disposal (lawful or not) to roll back regulations to help address global warming pollution. Those actions will be rightfully challenged in court, and it takes time to undo regulations in a legal way. However, any delay in implementing strong standards is harmful when the climate crisis is so acute. If the Trump administration succeeds in weakening or stopping EPA’s efforts to cut heat-trapping emissions, that will just leave people bearing the costs while fossil fuel polluters rake in profits.

Revisiting the endangerment and cause or contribute findings is just one more backdoor way to try to advance that harmful agenda. This directive shouldn’t fool anyone. It’s not a genuine effort to engage with scientific facts and listen to climate scientists. After all, the President has called climate change a hoax and many of his cabinet are climate science deniers.

The question for Lee Zeldin is whether he will just pander to that destructive agenda, or will he actually defend the mission of the agency he leads, which is to protect public health and the environment. He has already overseen a series of harmful actions at the EPA—including firing staff, cutting budgets, gutting its environmental justice work, and illegally freezing already-allocated funds for clean energy. So, I doubt we can count on a courageous defense of the endangerment finding from him.

Regardless of how Zeldin responds to President Trump’s directive, this administration cannot hide the reality of climate change. Undoing the Endangerment Finding is such an extremist anti-science endeavor, it is hard to imagine how it could succeed.

But we live in a country today where many previously unimaginable things are happening.

This post was co-authored by Dr. Astrid Caldas

What is your morning routine? Wake up, maybe make coffee, tea, or other morning beverage or meal, check the weather. It is something most people do in the US—office workers, outdoor workers, farmers, fishermen, stay-at-home folks. No matter what one’s life is like, most of us are going to go outside, and most of us check the weather. This is how we, at least partially, assess how our day will go, what we’re going to wear, what activities we will be able to perform, how easy or dreary the commute will be, etc.

This is true for days with uneventful weather, but when extreme weather is in the forecast for the next few days or weeks, weather information becomes critical—even life-saving. Your morning newscasters or social media feeds typically give you “stay cool” tips in advance of a heat wave, or a hurricane warning for your coastal city may show you maps or list areas under mandatory evacuation order due to projected dangerous storm surge.  

But the reliance on that straightforward, taken-for-granted information may be imperiled. President Trump and unelected individuals designated by him are taking aim at scientists and illegally taking over infrastructure responsible for creating and issuing weather conditions and alerts—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The blueprint for many of the Trump administration’s actions, Project 2025, calls for dismantling and privatizing some of its essential services.  

Is having extreme weather information critical? Absolutely. Do we know what happened in the days before modern weather information systems were available to warn the public about extreme weather? We sure do. The Great Blizzard of 1888, for example, dropped as much as 58 inches of snow and “paralyzed the East Coast from the Chesapeake Bay to Maine to the Atlantic provinces of Canada.” Transportation via cars, trains, and boats was severely impacted, more than 400 people died, and melting snow after the storm severely flooded areas of the US Northeast. Having advance information about the location and magnitude of an extreme weather event is an essential component of strategies to stay safe, from households to first responders to businesses, to government at all levels.  

The prospect of dismantling the systems and jobs that make this information available is alarming on many fronts. The impacts could be so far-reaching that it is hard to understand why such a move is even being considered. Below are just a few things that will be impacted if the Trump administration follows through with the plans laid out in Project 2025 for dismantling NOAA. 

Extreme weather alerts and forecasts

Without NOAA’s freely-available data for all who currently use it to create daily and multi-day forecasts, everyday people will find themselves at a loss about preparing for weather. With extreme weather becoming more extreme due to human-caused climate change, it is essential that communities know what is coming in order to prepare adequately.  

Emergency response agencies, business owners, outdoor workers, farmers, fishermen, parents, caretakers, and everyday folks, all need to know what is coming so they can adjust their activities accordingly. How is your kids’ school principal supposed to know when it’s going to be too hot for children to play outside so they can plan to keep them indoors during a heatwave? What happens when a winter storm demands that roads are salted in anticipation of snowy and icy conditions—but transportation authorities can’t access information about when and how much ice, sleet, or snow will accumulate? How is a coastal community supposed to know what level of storm to prepare for or what areas to issue evacuation orders for? 

Hurricane forecasts

Due to climate change, hurricanes are more destructive: they’re stronger, they drop more rain, they hang around in one place for longer to do more damage from flooding and rain, and they intensify more rapidly, sometimes with horrifying speed.

To counter these impacts, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center provides data that saves lives and allows for preparedness at the local, regional and federal levels. Evacuations, shelters, infrastructure protections all depend on knowing with certainty the likelihood that a hurricane will make landfall. And NOAA’s forecasts and storm-tracking ability is getting better.

In 2022, NOAA assessed its forecasts and storm-tracking ability and found that since 2000, it had reduced its average 72-hour storm tracking error by 57%, while its error rate in predicting storm intensity had dropped by 40%. All these improvements would not be possible without proper funding and science, and without these improvements, forecasts would not be as confident as they are now, helping prevent loss of life and property across the United States. These forecasts were invaluable during the 2024 hurricane season, when NOAA’s accurate and early storm tracks for Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton prompted early evacuation orders and preparedness that saved lives and property.  

Rain, fire, drought

In addition to data for weather forecasts, the National Weather Service (a division of NOAA) provides data for daily wildfire, precipitation and drought outlooks for the entire United States. It also provides other severe weather outlooks and an overview of winter and tropical maritime conditions. The latter identifies current and expected activity in the Atlantic Ocean related to the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes. 

Fisheries

The information created by NOAA’s scientists goes beyond weather and the US borders, as it is used domestically and internationally to protect and project fisheries’ yields and determine legal catch sizes. This is done through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), whose goals are to maintain and protect ocean ecosystems for both natural ecosystem equilibrium and sustainable fishing. 

NOAA science also informs about escalating climate impacts

The plan to dismantle NOAA could not come at a more perilous time for people facing threats to their lives and property from extreme weather and climate change.

NOAA reported that during 2024, at least 568 lives were lost in 27 separate disasters that each cost at least $1 billion in the US, for a whopping total of at least $182.7 billion.  These costs continue to climb year after year as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves decimate communities across the country.

Whether you accept climate change science or not, you cannot erase your risk in a warmed and warming world (read here for ten signs of climate change). One of our most powerful tools against fierce, deadly weather is the ability to predict where it will affect us. That is what this administration threatens to take away.

 

Disasters with total economic losses of at least $1 billion dollars. Source: NOAA. NOAA is paid by the people, for the people, not special interests

Fishermen on the Eastern shore of Maryland are feeling the pressure of climate change impacts on their yield and seasons. Farmers across the Midwest are reeling from droughts and floods. Outdoor workers are dying from extreme heat. Schools are not letting children out to play on extremely hot days.

The number of billion-dollar weather and climate disasters keeps increasing: the 1980–2024 annual average is 9 events; the annual average for the most recent 5 years (2020–2024) is 23 events. The consequences of climate change and its impact on people, the economy, and infrastructure cannot be ignored by attacking an agency that actively helps prepare for said impacts with reliable, freely available data.  

NOAA is the go-to agency for scientifically-accurate global and regional atmospheric and oceanic conditions. The data collected by NOAA is used in forecasts and projections that save lives across the country.  

As we’ve said before, NOAA creates and advances climate science research to lay the unbiased, scientific bedrock of data and information for decision and policy-making that can deliver for us a climate-resilient future. We need to invest in and support—not dismantle—their mission to understand climate change to benefit current and future generations.  

NOAA belongs to us, is paid by us, and cannot be taken away from us. Why is Congress allowing an unelected billionaire to unleash his private army of tech goons on NOAA and illegally enter and usurp its functions and information technology systems? If Congress does not put a stop to this, one day we may wake up without extreme weather alert information. One day, we may wake up to a terrible storm we should have seen coming. 

Sea levels are rising, and science shows they will continue to rise for generations due to heat-trapping emissions that have already been released. This highlights a profound and enduring climate injustice: future generations will face the consequences of today’s decisions. The effects of these emissions are already unfolding, but the full extent of their impact—on coastlines, communities, and ecosystems—will play out over lifetimes to come.  

Understanding sea level rise as a long-term, multi-generational problem is essential to comprehending the scale of climate change and the need for bold action now. While this knowledge may be sobering, it underscores the importance of reducing emissions, holding major polluters accountable, and adapting to a changing world. Let’s explore what is driving this persistent rise and what it means for our collective future. 

What do we know about future sea level rise? 

Sea level rise is one of the most well-documented and predictable consequences of climate change, with models showing that average sea levels will increase over time, even in optimistic versions of the future. Scientists use computer models, such as climate models, ice sheet models, and sea level models, to make projections of future climate change. Projections of sea level rise, such as those contained in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report, give us an idea of what might happen in the future.  

These projections are usually based on a combination of two things: the heat-trapping emissions that have already occurred in the past and those that could occur in the future.  

The future trajectories are based on different scenarios, such as versions of the future where the world comes together to take action and phase out fossil fuels, or versions where fossil fuel production continues throughout this century. These different future scenarios, combined with what we already know happened in the past, give us a range of possible future sea levels.  

Most simulations focus on the near-term impacts by 2100, but some look forward multiple centuries to 2300, and occasionally some look even farther into the future, looking ahead 2,000 or even 10,000 years. 

Even in the most optimistic scenarios, where global average temperatures are kept below 1.5°C, model projections show that sea levels could still rise by approximately 11-22 inches higher than present by 2100. This would cause dramatic changes in island and coastal communities. Looking further into the future, the impact is even larger. Over the next 2,000 years we could see sea levels rising as much as 7.5-10 feet. Over the next 10,000 years, as much as 20-23 feet. If the world surpasses 1.5°C of warming and instead warms by 2°C the world could endure even worse outcomes with sea levels rising 7-20 feet over 2,000 years and 26-43 feet over 10,000 years. 

Looking at future sea level rise in this way gives us a combined look at the impact of both past and possible future emissions. But what if we want to know the impact of past emissions separated from the impact of future emissions? For that, we need to separate the impact of emissions that occurred over different time periods, and we need to understand the processes that make sea level rise such an enduring challenge. 

What causes sea level rise to persist for centuries?  

Because of the way the climate and ocean systems respond to heat-trapping emissions, sea levels will continue to rise even after air temperatures stabilize. This has been noted as a source of climate injustice, due to the profound impacts on future generations and low-lying coastal communities. 

The way air temperature responds after emissions cease is called the zero emissions commitment, or ZEC. Research with climate models in recent years shows that when carbon dioxide emissions stop, the rise in atmospheric temperatures will likely also stop. This means that there would be no additional warming of the atmosphere from carbon dioxide itself, but the many complex systems on Earth will continue to respond to the heat already trapped.  

So, even in a future scenario where the world achieves the stabilization of air temperatures, the Earth’s oceans and cryosphere (frozen regions like Antarctica) will continue to adjust. The oceans absorb much of the carbon dioxide lingering in the atmosphere, which contributes to ocean acidification. Meanwhile, increased atmospheric and ocean temperatures cause glaciers and ice sheets to melt and oceans to expand. 

The two dominant contributing factors to rising sea levels are: 

• Thermal Expansion: As the oceans absorb heat, the water expands, accounting for a significant portion of current sea level rise. 

• Melting Land Ice: When global mountain glaciers and the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica melt, they add mass to the ocean. The combined melt of all land ice is currently the dominant driver of sea level rise, and this trend is expected to continue into the future.  

Given that air temperatures stabilize when heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions stop, yet sea levels continue to rise, we might then ask, what is the zero emissions commitment for sea level rise? How much would sea levels rise in the future just due to the impact of heat-trapping emissions that have already occurred in the past? 

Delaying emissions reductions leads to higher long-term sea level rise 

Scientific answers to these questions are just beginning to emerge. A few studies give us insight into the committed sea level rise that can result just from emissions that have already occurred in the past. One team found that emissions just up until 2016 could lead to approximately 2.3–3.6 feet of sea level rise by 2300—even if no other emissions happened after 2016. For reference, averaged across the Earth, sea levels have risen about 8 inches since 1901, meaning the full impact of past emissions has yet to materialize in our oceans and that future sea level rise in the coming centuries just from emissions that occurred before 2016 will exceed what we’ve experienced to date.  

Another study looks at how delays in reducing heat-trapping emissions impact sea level rise across centuries. ​​They find that for every five years that the world delays the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, we commit the future to a median level of an additional 8 inches of sea level rise at 2300.   

Ice sheet tipping points: A critical threat 

Ice sheets have the potential to become the dominant factor in long-term sea level response. 

One of the biggest challenges with ice sheets is that they are considered tipping elements—meaning that they can pass a threshold beyond which large scale mass loss becomes effectively irreversible on human-relevant time scales. This is especially true for the marine-based ice sheets in Antarctica, which are undergoing ice loss due to warm temperatures in both the air and the ocean. While the precise warming threshold for ice sheet tipping points is still unclear, research on times in Earth’s history where the ice sheets underwent enormous changes tells us that it could happen even at a temperature rise of around 1.5-2°C above the preindustrial average.  

That’s why climate scientists are sounding the alarm—because global efforts under the Paris Agreement to keep warming below those levels are far off track. Current pledges countries have made under the Paris Agreement are projected to lead to around 3°C of atmospheric warming by the end of the century, which means we are at risk of triggering irreversible ice sheet tipping points.  

Understanding these processes underscores the critical need for immediate and sustained global action to reduce emissions. Strong action to reduce heat-trapping emissions now can protect the ice sheets and limit long-term sea level rise. But the longer we delay, the greater the risk of crossing irreversible tipping points and exacerbating the impacts of sea level rise for centuries to come. 

Act now to reduce impacts later 

The multi-century impacts of sea level rise underscore the urgency of phasing out fossil fuels and holding major polluters accountable for their role in driving climate change. While we cannot undo the impacts of past emissions, we can limit additional damage by taking bold action now. Understanding the science behind long-term sea level rise empowers policymakers, advocates, and communities to demand accountability and push for equitable solutions to this intergenerational crisis. 

This concept of long-term sea level response serves as the foundation for ongoing research that quantifies the multi-century impacts of emissions from specific industries, paving the way for informed decision-making and climate accountability. 

We already see coastal communities around the world struggling to cope with flooding, storm surges, and salty ocean water contaminating freshwater reservoirs. But as enormous as the burden to adapt to present problems is, these changes are small compared to the extent of adaptation that will be needed as sea levels continue to rise.  

People around the world are speaking up and calling for action. World’s Youth for Climate Justice has spoken out about the intergenerational issue of rising sea levels. The Alliance of Small Island States has been working diligently for 30 years to get the world to address the climate injustices of sea level rise.  

Court cases are being filed to demand action. This past summer, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued an Advisory Opinion stating that heat-trapping emissions constitute pollution of the marine environment which drives sea level rise. The court noted that nations have obligations under international law to reduce this pollution. Taking action to phase out fossil fuels is not only the right thing to do, it is a requirement under international law.  

We know that sea levels will continue to rise for hundreds to thousands of years, but to what degree is not yet set in stone. We know that heat-trapping emissions must decline and reach zero as soon as possible. And what we need now is for world leaders to fulfill their legal obligations and act now for the sake of future generations. 

On January 10, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released their annual analysis finding that 2024 was the hottest year on record globally and that global average temperatures likely surpassed an increase of 1.5° Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

On the same day, NOAA released its US Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters analysis for 2024 and found that last year an estimated 568 people in the US lost their lives to 27 weather and climate disasters that each had $1 billion in damages or more with a total tallied cost of $182.7 billion.

The same agencies have found that the 11 warmest years in the historical record have all occurred in the past decade, and that each of the last 6 decades was hotter than the last.

Human-caused climate change, driven primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, is contributing to the hotter climate and more severe disasters, which include extreme heat, wildfires, intensified storms, drought and flooding. More people living in risky areas and the higher costs of damages are also adding to the trend of increasing billion-dollar disasters. People’s lived experiences throughout these deadly and terrifying events are the reason communities are feeling a sense of whiplash when it comes to the frequency and intensity of climate disasters.

During these uncertain times, as President Trump is nominating individuals to lead federal agencies, if there is one agency that could truly benefit from a steady, experienced hand at the helm, it would be the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) whose sole mission is to help people before, during and after disasters.

 Here are five things the nation needs from the next FEMA Administrator:

1. Defend against mis- and disinformation about disasters

To have the US president spreading misinformation and disinformation when it comes to emergency management and disaster recovery is reckless and dangerous because it could literally be the difference between life and death. The next FEMA administrator will need to defend against a marathon of false information by President Trump who has a fondness for distorting facts when it comes to disaster response and recovery.

The president lied about the devastating Hurricanes Helene and Milton that created confusion among disaster survivors while local, state, and federal government officials took time and energy to repeatedly communicate the facts. The previous FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell said the level of disinformation is at a point that she’s “never seen before.”

Then, as if witnessing the horrific wreckage of the LA fires isn’t disturbing enough, President Trump and some members of Congress spread mis- and disinformation about the cause of the fire and firefighting efforts. 

As my colleague Astrid Caldas explains, misinformation is the unintentional spread of false information while disinformation is spreading false information to be deliberately misleading. Given the level of harmful disinformation in the news regarding the LA fires, California Governor Newsom created a webpage to set the record straight. My colleague Juliet Christian-Smith wrote Six Facts About Water and Wildfire in the West to correct some misconceptions about why the fires are so bad.

I’m unclear as to why President Trump has decided to punt FEMA into the political crosshairs but one thing that is clear is the rampant misinformation about what FEMA actually does. The fact is, that disaster assistance has generally been a bottom-up approach in the US. For example, local/state/territorial and tribal governments already take the lead on emergency response, period. FEMA comes in only after a state has requested a disaster declaration for those catastrophic events in which the state does not have the financial or staffing capacity to respond on its own.  When it comes to disaster response and recovery, the role of FEMA is to supplement not replace state/state/territorial and tribal efforts.

The next FEMA Administrator is going to have to navigate skillfully, follow the science, ignore the bluster coming from the White House, and work overtime to overcome the public skepticism it creates. Lives and livelihoods will hang in the balance.

2. Defend the Stafford Act and ensure disaster relief is equitable and bipartisan 

The new FEMA head will have their work cut out for them to ensure that all states, localities, territories, and tribes are treated equally when disasters hit.

Adding salt to L.A.’s wounds, both President Trump, Congress and House Speaker Mike Johnson have been politicizing FEMA disaster assistance by suggesting that they support putting conditions on federal aid to help the victims of the Los Angeles wildfires.

Under President Trump’s first term, investigative reports found that President Trump initially refused to provide California disaster aid after the deadly wildfires in 2018 because of the state’s Democratic leadership. They also found that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) head, Russell Vought, delayed disaster aid to Puerto Rico for months after the Hurricane Maria devastation. Vought, a co-author of the dangerous Project 2025, is Trump’s pick again to lead OMB.

The notion of withholding disaster assistance unless a state or jurisdiction passes certain policies is simply against constitutional law according to Berkley Law expert Dan Farber.  As Mr. Farber points out, while the president does have broad discretion, Congress does not and must guide the use of executive discretion. Congress clearly notes this guidance in the first section of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Management Act (“the Stafford Act”) which is “to provide an orderly and continuing means of assistance by the Federal Government to State and local governments in carrying out their responsibilities to alleviate the suffering and damage which result from such disasters…”. 

If the president blatantly ignores the law, who knows what will happen to communities suffering as they try to recover and get their lives back after a disaster? The next FEMA Administrator must help set the record straight on FEMA’s mission and the Stafford Act to ensure the president provides disaster assistance to everyone who needs it, regardless of whether they live in a red or blue state.

3. Advocate for robust funding for FEMA, the Disaster Relief Fund, and preparedness

The next FEMA administrator should work to make the case to Congress and the White House for robust appropriations for the agency, its staffing (currently experiencing a 35% gap), the Disaster Relief Fund, and preparedness and risk reduction measures.

According to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the US averaged 25 major disaster declarations a year from 1979 to 1988 (the first decade of FEMA’s existence). That average rose to 63 over the last ten years, an increase of approximately 150%.

The same CRS analysis finds that in 2020, obligations from the Disaster Relief Fund exceeded an estimated $40 billion for the first time and have consistently reached that level every year since. While the “major disasters” portion of the Fund was initially expected to last into the middle of Danger Season (May through October), recent emergency funding was approved prior to the LA wildfires, the costs of which will be enormous.

The science is clear, as the planet continues to warm, we will see greater risks of chronic impacts, including higher rising seas, killer heat, and hurricanes that are dumping heavier rainfall.

Although FEMA and Congress have supported more funding for risk mitigation it’s not close to what is needed. The Fifth National Climate Assessment finds that the scale of adaptation (reducing risks and preparing for future risks) must accelerate dramatically given the unprecedented rate of climate change.

Currently FEMA spends 7x more on disaster response and recovery than on mitigating disaster risk even though data show the cost savings to FEMA (in addition to preventing the loss of life and disruptions to daily life) of reducing risk totals roughly $700 million annually. The next FEMA Administrator must advocate for funding levels necessary for both the ounce of prevention andthe pound of cure.

4. Play defense and offense: defend against Project 2025’s proposals and hold firm on climate science and integrity

We will need the next FEMA administrator to fend off Project 2025’s anti-science playbook. Project 2025 is the policy agenda put forth by the Heritage Foundation that has been described as an authoritarian playbook. My colleague Rachel Cleetus wrote passionately on the impacts of the agenda when it comes to climate action and disasters:

“Anyone sobered by the relentless rise in global average temperatures and the spate of devastating and costly extreme weather and climate disasters we’ve been experiencing, anyone who thinks policies to benefit the public should be informed by robust, independent science, should take this threat very, very seriously.”

The two page section on FEMA (see p. 153) explains how it would essentially gut the agency’s mission, reduce disaster assistance and resilience funding to state and local governments, and bury the agency within a different department from where it currently sits under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The FEMA Administrator should strive to leave the agency stronger, not weaker, than they find it and oppose Project 2025’s proposals. Instead, the new agency lead should embrace and advance the great strides accomplished by the office of Resilience including issuing guidance reports including its 2022-2026 strategic plan, Response and Recovery Climate Change Planning Guidance, adaptation planning, and alliances for climate action as well as training and tools such as the Resilience Analysis and Planning Tool (RAPT).  

5. Understand the inequities of fossil-fueled climate disasters and prioritize equitable preparedness

The next FEMA administrator must understand that fossil fueled, climate-related disasters and extreme weather do not discriminate when it comes to political boundaries or affiliations. They have to know that climate impacts aren’t distributed equally among underserved and marginalized communities who regularly face disproportionately worse impacts from these events.

Over the years, FEMA has worked to make their grant programs more equitable. The most visible effort has been through the implementation of the Justice40 program that set the goal for federal agencies to target at least 40% of certain federal resources to benefit historically disadvantaged communities.

In one broad brush stroke, President Trump rescinded 78 Biden-era executive orders, including the Executive Order 14008 “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” which established the Justice40 program. Both FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) and Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) fall under the Justice40 Initiative to meet environmental justice and equity goals. FEMA announced in July 2024 that they exceeded that 40% goal for BRIC by 67% for the sub-applications and 70% for the national competition.

The FEMA mitigation grant programs, particularly the BRIC program, are continuously oversubscribed —for example, in 2024, FEMA received 1,234 sub-applications requesting $5.66 billion in federal cost share, yet FEMA had funding to award funding to 656 sub-applicants, that totaled more than $882.6 million in federal cost share.

Project 2025 put a target on environmental justice by proposing to eliminate the EPA Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and the Justice40 program, which President Trump did on his first day in office with his Executive Order entitled Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.

Given the daunting risks and impacts of the climate crisis and the overwhelming need for risk mitigation and preparedness resources, the next FEMA administrator must make the case for robust funding for these pre-disaster mitigation grant programs and for the processes in place that make the distribution of these resources more equitable.

There is good news for advocates of just disaster relief

As the nation recently celebrated the life of President Jimmy Carter, one achievement of his that may have been overlooked is his establishment of FEMA 46 years ago. Since that time, FEMA has gone through many changes. But over the years, one hopeful note is that most former FEMA administrators have had considerable backgrounds in emergency management.

In normal times when we could rely on the adage that if the past is prologue, we could rest assured that the next FEMA administrator nominee will have an emergency management background. This is especially true given that the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006 (see p. 245) law requires that the administrator shall have demonstrated emergency management and homeland security knowledge and background and have a minimum of 5 years of executive leadership and management experience in the public or private sector.

Unfortunately, President Trump has nominated inexperienced, anti-science and extremists to run cabinet level positions, see for example nominees for US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Energy and the Department of Justice, that pose great dangers to the missions of these departments and the communities and business they support. In a similar fashion, President Trump has nominated an inexperienced interim FEMA acting director, Mr. Cameron Hamilton, a former navy seal who has no disaster management experience.

However, an early report suggested that President Trump may pick the Florida Division of Emergency Management Executive Director Kevin Guthrie to run FEMA. Mr. Guthrie has been with with the Florida Division of Emergency management for over six years and has an additional ten years of emergency management experience. So while he certainly holds a limited resume in the emergency management field, he understands the field and has been working in a state in which from experienced 19 disasters from 2023 to 2024 that each cost over a billion dollars.

Here’s hoping the President Trump follows the law and the next FEMA nominee has an emergency management background.

Editor’s note: Updates first paragraph for clarity

In late 2024, as part of a bipartisan funding bill, Congress authorized $110 billion in disaster recovery funds across federal agencies. Following Congress’ appropriation, The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced how their $12 billion tranche of disaster recovery funding would be divided among disaster-impacted communities at the city, county, and state levels. This funding, known as Community Development Block Grants for Disaster Recovery or CDBG-DR is intended to be flexible and allow recipients to design programs that respond to the local post-disaster needs. Usually CDBG-DR programs fall into one of three categories: housing, infrastructure repair, or economic revitalization.   

Disasters and the complicated process of recovering from them can deepen pre-existing inequality–a study of FEMA disaster aid on a county level found that awards exacerbated the racial wealth gap. The longer communities must wait for disaster funds to flow, the greater the financial and emotional strain on households.

Now that CDBG-DR funds have been allocated, there’s an enormous opportunity across 23 states and one territory not just to rebuild, but to create more equitable and resilient communities in the face of growing risk.  

What climate leaders and program administrators can do  

Following years of pressure by disaster survivors and advocates, HUD recently changed its program requirements to make disaster recovery more equitable. As cities, counties, and states that received CDBG-DR allocations create their required action plans to submit to the federal government, they should keep in mind the following recommendations alongside input from disaster survivors.    

Stick to 70%  

Federal rules around CDBG-DR funding require that 70% of funds be spent on activities that benefit low-to-moderate income households who find it harder to recover from increasingly severe and frequent disasters. Recipients of CDBG-DR funds can request to have that threshold lowered to 51%. An audit of CDBG-DR programs from 2001-2019 found that 137 of 193 grantees reviewed had reduced their requirement to 51%. At a time when more and more Americans are experiencing damage and displacement from extreme weather as a pocketbook issue, it’s critical that public officials from local governments all the way up to HUD staff honor the 70% requirement.   

Dovetail and Accommodate to Deepen Impact  

Disasters don’t occur in a vacuum–those that struggle to access long-term recovery assistance are often facing multiple challenges, something program administrators acknowledge, but find difficult to address.  In order to design and implement impactful long-term recovery, investments should be made in accommodations that ensure equitable access to recovery resources like providing transportation and home visit options for mobility-impaired residents and ensuring language accessible program materials.    

In addition to providing accommodations, administrators should also dovetail disaster recovery applications with trusted local programs that already reach vulnerable populations to deepen impact. A key challenge when homes are damaged or lost during a disaster is to ensure that eligibility requirements are inclusive and don’t worsen disparities. 

Take for example, the residents of heirs’ properties–where homes are passed down through generations without legal title. Heirs’ property is a common practice in Black communities born out of discrimination by lending institutions and the government and can make navigating disaster recovery programs especially difficult.

Following years of advocacy, including a lawsuit by disaster survivors in North Carolina, the federal government now requires programs to allow for alternate means of demonstrating ownership. After identifying heirs’ properties through disaster recovery efforts, survivors could be “funneled” into legal clinics to resolve their title issues and safeguard family wealth. Administrative pipelines between disaster programs and other services for populations that struggle to access aid hold enormous potential to improve public health outcomes and advance economic and racial justice.  

Remember Renters 

Across the country, more people rent their homes than ever before.  Despite a long-term trend in increased rentership and heightened political urgency around the affordable housing crisis, renters receive less initial disaster aid compared with homeowners. In the days and weeks after a disaster, renters may face dubious evictions and illegal price gouging when trying to secure alternative housing. 

While long-term recovery programs can’t prevent these costly and stressful experiences, they can be designed to be more responsive to renters’ needs. This might look like increasing the supply of meaningfully affordable housing by deepening subsidies for new development, repairing or providing resilience upgrades to existing affordable housing without pricing out tenants, preserving long-term affordability by transferring rental properties into a community land trust or investing in legal services for renters.   

A drop in the resilience bucket  

CDBG-DR funds will not meet all the resilience or housing needs of disaster impacted communities.  Other parts of the $110 billion disaster spending package passed will address different types of recovery efforts–from improving water systems to repairing public facilities and supporting agricultural recovery.

Still, this funding is a drop in the bucket.  Communities across the country deserve proactive and equitable investment in the face of growing climate risk and an affordable housing crisis. Until there’s the political will to make those life-saving investments–and to curb emissions to limit how much worse fossil-fueled climate disasters get–every drop in the resilience bucket counts and should be invested in ways that have the most equitable impact.

While watching the latest disaster movie is a pastime for many, living through extreme weather and climate disasters is painfully difficult for the people affected. It is made more difficult by a President who scorns disaster victims, as President Trump did to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria, and spreads disinformation, as he did to Californians during the recent Los Angeles wildfires.

Now President Trump has revoked Executive Order 13985 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government) and Executive Order 14008 (Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad), with far-reaching implications for people in disaster areas, including how racial equity is addressed in disaster relief and recovery. Revoking these orders sends the US in the wrong direction as we face increasing danger from extreme events, such as Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

Watching the administration unravel racial equity programs at federal agencies is its own disaster-in-the-making, on top of disasters guaranteed to come—like a disaster movie layered on a horror flick that the entire country will eventually experience.

If this was a movie, here is how it would play out.

(Spoiler alert: ignoring racial equity in disaster resilience will cost all of us more and lead to increasingly unfair burdens on already underserved communities.)

THE PREQUEL: Ignorance is not bliss

One important job of the federal government is to distribute billions of dollars to address the impacts of climate and other disasters. This function will be even more important with new executive orders that promote fossil fuels and end policies that reduce heat trapping emissions to limit the impacts of climate change.

To ensure the most effective use of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars for disaster response, recovery, and resilience, it makes sense to pre-position resources in the areas of highest need. Some communities—such as low-wealth communities or communities of color—are disproportionately impacted by disasters, in part because of historical or systemic disparities. A laser-like focus on assessing social inequities is thus essential for understanding where the highest areas of need are and to evaluate whether they are being assisted adequately. In short, matching disaster policy to social needs requires assessment of racial equity.

SCENE 1: The inequity avalanche

When racial equity is ignored, disaster policies exacerbate existing inequities. Policies based solely on “merit” fail to recognize the steeper hill being climbed by historically underserved communities granted less access to resources, information, and decision processes.

After Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, Black residents returned to the city more slowly than White residents. Research by Elizabeth Fussell and her colleagues suggests that the racial disparity was explained by housing damage, rather than by socioeconomic status or other demographic characteristics. Put plainly, Black residents’ delayed return occurred because they suffered more severe housing damage, which occurred because they tended to live in areas that experienced greater flooding. A higher concentration of Black residents in the lower-lying parts of the city exists because of historical patterns of land development and residential segregation that resulted from the racist system of redlining. Without a focus on racial equity, disaster policies don’t just leave these communities behind, they in fact compound the health, environmental, and economic challenges being faced.

SCENE 2: The communication breakdown

Effective risk communication is crucial for disaster resilience. However, when racial equity is censored, communication efforts fall flat. Without a deep understanding of the social, economic, health, environmental, and cultural context in which a disaster is unfolding, critical information may not reach those who need it most. We saw this recently in Los Angeles with fire evacuation notices not reaching the unhoused population.

Not including racial equity considerations in the planning and implementation of risk communications ignores basic science, which in turn costs lives and money. The latest resilience research and practice emphasizes a multifaceted, “adaptive systems” approach to risk communication and decision making. This approach recognizes diverse perspectives, experiences, education levels, languages, and technological skills and the need for evidence-based deliberations before, during, and after disasters. We must first acknowledge and understand this diversity to be able to highlight the most effective pathways to disaster mitigation and resilience.

SCENE 3: The phantom of the funding

When federal funds for disaster resilience are distributed based on formulas that do not account for unique challenges, an uneven distribution of resources results, with some communities receiving more support than others. One example is FEMA’s flood mitigation grant program, which requires a cost-share by the community applying for the grant. Low-income neighborhoods and communities of color are less able to meet the match requirement, so FEMA has invested significantly more in wealthier, White neighborhoods (which reduces insurance costs and increases property values in those areas). If the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint is implemented, the cost-share requirement for communities will climb steeply.

Analyses of OpenFEMA data has found that disaster assistance funds are often distributed inequitably (controlling for total damages), such that as the percentage of racial and ethnic minority populations increase, the amount of assistance decreases. This disparity is set to increase with the new administration’s revocation of environmental justice directives.

SCENE 4: The resilience mirage

When racial equity is not integrated into disaster resilience policies, the concept of resilience itself becomes a mirage—an illusion of safety and preparedness that doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

True resilience includes everyone, particularly those who have been historically marginalized. The pattern of impacts from events such as Hurricane Katrina reveal that response strategies that may seem comprehensive on paper, in fact leave certain groups disproportionately affected. Integrating racial equity into disaster resilience policies is essential to ensure that all communities are genuinely supported and protected in times of crisis.

GRAND FINALE: A call to action

So, what’s the moral of this cautionary tale? Integrating racial equity considerations into disaster resilience policymaking is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. By addressing the systemic inequalities that contribute to the disproportionate burdens borne by already underserved communities, we can develop policies that enhance resilience for everyone.

To our decision makers: It’s time to embrace the robust scientific evidence already available and ensure that disaster resilience efforts are inclusive, fair, and effective.

And to our readers: Stay informed, stay engaged, and keep reminding your elected officials that you care about the use of sound science in policymaking.

As part of his wide-ranging first-week activities, President Trump issued a barrage of executive orders specifically intended to boost the fortunes of the fossil fuel industry.   

Not for the betterment of the US public, as these actions would freeze, repeal, or actively undermine critical public health and environmental protections. 

Not for the betterment of the US economy, as these actions would undermine billions of dollars of forward-looking investments, cede leadership in innovation, and spike household energy bills. 

Not for the betterment of US energy abundance, as these actions sideline critical clean energy resources and threaten to stall the deployment of more.  

Not for the betterment of US global standing, as these actions would aggravate areas of escalating geopolitical risk and spurn areas of productive geopolitical coordination.  

Not for the betterment of anything beyond boosting the bottom line for a select polluting few.  

Now, there’s a yawning gap between President Trump’s bold pronouncements and his actual ability to see many of these things through. Much of it will simply amount to hot air.  

Still, there’s a roadmap here. And if not by executive order, this administration has made clear from the jump that it will try anything to deliver for fossil fuel interests, no matter the public cost.  

That makes understanding the what and the why critical, to be prepared for all the attacks to come. So here: a look at the Trump administration’s first moves in its whole-of-government approach to selling out the nation. 

A whole-of-government approach to selling the nation out 

The fossil fuel industry’s wish-list is sprawling. So too is the range of new executive orders designed to be to the industry’s benefit.  

On Day 1 alone, President Trump issued executive orders declaring a national energy emergency, exiting the Paris Agreement, halting offshore—and some onshore—wind development, “unleashing” American (fossil) energy, and expanding fossil fuel production in Alaska. These occurred alongside other executive orders striking down large numbers of cross-cutting federal initiatives, including those coordinating climate, environmental justice, and public health protections.  

President Trump has framed these early actions as intended to improve the nation’s economy by lowering energy costs—but the claim is immediately, preposterously undone by the logical incoherence of his actions.  

For at the exact same time President Trump declared an energy emergency, he simultaneously attempted to derail new offshore wind development, which would undermine reliability, and directed agencies to take actions that would decrease the efficiency with which we use energy, which would drive up consumer energy costs. He also froze funding specifically intended to spur the deployment of new energy resources across the country, as well as infrastructure intended to boost energy reliability, resilience, and access.  

Some way to solve a “crisis.” 

When you peel back the rhetoric, it’s clear there’s only one throughline here: actions that would boost the profits of fossil fuel companies, with the costs borne by everyone else. 

And that strategy makes sense when remembering that this is an administration that pledged fealty to fossil fuel executives so long as they opened their wallets during campaign season—which they did. Because ultimately, fossil fuel executives don’t want to drive down energy prices. They want higher earnings, achieved by lowering their costs of doing business while locking in long-term demand for fossil fuels. 

How the executive orders advance fossil fuel interests 

The executive orders attempt to advance fossil fuel interests through two main approaches: first, by making it easier to extract and transport fossil fuels, and second, by making it easier to use fossil fuels—including by making it harder to use clean energy resources instead.  

Making it easier to extract and transport fossil fuels. US fossil fuel production is at record highs. There is no shortage of fossil fuel production, nor—problematically, to our eye—is there any shortage of opportunities for future expansion. But fossil fuel companies object to any constraints on their ability to extract fossil fuels, wherever and however they want.  

Moreover, fossil fuel pipelines crisscross the nation and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals extend the reach of gas transmission from within the country to around the globe. New pipelines, and new LNG terminals, are actively under construction—the latter of which are already projected to nearly double LNG capacity by 2028. But fossil fuel companies object to standards and accountability around where, how, and to what end those pipelines are constructed, as well as commonsense evaluations of the harmful economic, climate, and health implications of unfettered LNG expansion.  

The Trump Day 1 orders attempt to appease fossil fuels interests on these fronts by opening more areas for leasing; attempting to shortcut the permitting process for fossil fuel infrastructure—both by claiming an energy emergency to sidestep regulatory requirements and by attempting to unwind decades-old permitting processes and requirements; pushing the Department of Energy to advance LNG approvals; and directing agencies to review (and, implied, weaken or fully rescind) regulations governing pollution associated with fossil fuel extraction, processing, and transport.  

Making it easier to use fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are intertwined throughout the US economy—but less so every day. Renewable resources and energy storage are rapidly displacing coal-fired power plants and edging out gas-fired generation. Moreover, people are increasingly pivoting away from fossil fuel-burning end uses, such as vehicles, stoves, and furnaces, to electrified alternatives, such as electric vehicles (EVs), induction cooktops, and heat pumps. This existential threat of obsolescence means that even if fossil fuel extraction and transmission were fully unencumbered, if nobody wants what fossil fuel companies are selling, there’s nothing left to prop up. Queue the out-of-the-gate attempts to force ongoing fossil fuel consumption, following a two-pronged approach.  

First, President Trump directed agencies to discount, ignore, and potentially even outright reject the premise of, the harms of fossil fuel use to public health and the climate, thereby attempting to create a route to justify the weakening of pollution standards—which he also directed agencies like the EPA to reconsider. He also initiated the process of once more pulling out of the Paris Agreement, in so doing pivoting away from the single greatest commitment to global climate action. 

Second, President Trump attempted to derail the competitors to fossil fuel use, namely renewable resources like wind, solar, and storage, as well as energy end uses like EVs and heat pumps that run on electricity or, even, just more efficient use of fossil fuels. This included freezing federal leasing and permitting of offshore wind; freezing the disbursement of funds intended to support the clean energy transition at the individual, community, state, and national levels; and freezing the disbursement of funds loaned to companies investing billions of dollars in new US manufacturing facilities to advance innovative clean energy technologies.  

What comes next 

With these executive orders, alongside a slew of fossil fuel-friendly agency nominees, the Trump administration has made clear who’s once again calling their energy shots.  

However, vanishingly little of what’s been proposed thus far is at all guaranteed of coming to pass. Indeed, the overwhelming majority is directional at best, with no follow-through required. And even where there is follow-through, actual changes resulting from these orders will face substantial hurdles. 

When it comes to unwinding regulations, agencies like EPA will have to justify their actions—and that means actually looking at the science. The Trump administration immediately leapt to undermine that very science on Day 1, too, but even with these bald-faced instructions to outright deny reality, agencies will still have to contend with the facts, as well as the long and winding processes associated with administrative procedures.  

When it comes to halting the disbursement of funds from policies that have already been passed into law, such as those via the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, that means halting the disbursement of funds that are legally owed. To change the flow of funds, Congress must pass new laws—or the president risks outright violating the constitution. 

Finally, when it comes to popular buy-in, the administration will have to contend with the fact that people overwhelmingly favor clean air and commonsense standards; that people support innovation and advancement of clean energy technologies; and that people want real solutions to the devastating, escalating, staggeringly costly impacts of climate change.  

And those solutions? They sure aren’t this. 

Dear Colleagues,

We are living in an era where we must prepare for another dramatic pendulum swing in public policy. For those of you in federal government this is a known anxiety-provoker.

I worked at the EPA through multiple presidential transitions, including from President Obama to President Trump in 2017, and again the transition to President Biden in 2021. In this second Trump administration we know to expect attacks on federal science and federal scientists thanks to the President’s track record and his second campaign’s promises. Plus, there is the Project 2025 manifesto that lays out the plans of the new administration to repeal the gains made over the past four years and halt efforts to combat human-caused climate change and environmental damages alongside their inherent social inequities.

One of the pillars of the cynical Project 2025 agenda is to attack the underpinnings of federally funded science. Another is to attack the very people who work in regulatory programs of administrative agencies. I recall experiencing that jarring shift eight years ago. I wondered anxiously just how I might make it through. Many of my work friends in federal government found other work during the following years. I somehow stuck it out and have many lessons learned from that period.

What’s best for you is a very individual decision, but here are seven lessons I learned over the years as a federal employee.

1. Know you have allies in the NGO community who are cheering you on.

During the first Trump administration, I recall receiving postcards from random strangers thanking me for my public service. I realize now those postcard campaigns were organized by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) like UCS. I also remember seeing small First Amendment-protected acts, such as signs hanging in individual’s office space that said, “No Sides in Science.” The signs came from a Save Science rally organized by the NGO community. Seeing these cheered me up.

2. Tune out the noise and don’t overreact to the hype.

Much of the hype in the mainstream media is exactly that. Even if you get your information from independent media or social media, it can be deafening to consume too much. One lesson from the prior Trump administration is how much bluster there was that didn’t come to pass. Do not despair pre-emptively.

3. Understand the motivations of political appointees in your agency.

Each political appointee will have some power and an ego to satisfy. They will need to negotiate with other appointees who have their own interests and levers of power. While there will be memos from on-high, such as orders to reduce staff, agency appointees will also have to make good on requests by stakeholders with influence in the political context of your agency. We know, for example, that during the first Trump administration some industries needed permits issued, so those industries argued in favor of keeping relevant staff at EPA. Also, local businesses supported maintaining programs that offered community redevelopment opportunities, including brownfields and Superfund site cleanup. After all, it does take a clean, healthy, thriving environment to run a successful business. And, thriving local economies make good news.

4. Don’t be a mind-reader.

If there is a mandate from above, it should come in writing. Based on what I saw in the last go-around, agency leaders will try to avoid written records. If they don’t send a memo or email instruction, you have the power to send a summary of their instructions via email and make a note for the record. 

5. Use the rules to your advantage.

There are laws that lay out the protocols and steps that government functions, including regulatory decisionmaking, should take. For example, government analyses need to be documented for the administrative record. And, many governmental functions require involved officials to adhere to ethics rules. Be it the Federal Advisory Committee Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, the Information Quality Act, or the Evidence Act—all those laws were created to keep meticulous account of the work of government. This is important for the long game and in cases where the Freedom of Information Act could be used to demonstrate instances of political interference or censorship.

6. Know the union resources and support that are available to you.

Much of the bluster we are hearing is about attacks on staff through changes to workplace conditions. Use your union contacts, even if you aren’t part of the union, to understand what is within bounds and what flexibilities you have. Demand those flexibilities before giving up on your job in the federal government.

7. Know your labor rights.

You have rights under federal labor laws. Make sure you understand those rights and your agency’s policies, including equal employment opportunity protections based on race, national origin, gender, and sexual orientation. There are organizations, like the Government Accountability Project, with lawyers on standby to support individuals who expect targeting.

I hope these seven lessons may be of some comfort to you during the coming months and years. In addition, here at UCS we have compiled this list of resources for federal science workers and have launched our Save Science, Save Lives campaign. We are actively working to ensure that senators ask President Trump’s cabinet nominees during their confirmation hearings about their plans for protecting science and scientific integrity. You can urge your senator to do so today.

I moved on from federal government two years ago. I continue to recognize the deep value of federal science and the system of regulations that were set up to protect those most vulnerable to the excesses of our socio-political system. This new administration has a particular view that is expected to attack the foundation of scientific integrity. We at UCS know this, and we stand ready to support those of you who want to keep your position in federal institutions. Not everyone may. We understand and respect that choice as well.

In solidarity,

Chitra

As the known drinking water nerd amongst my friend group, I have been informally fielding questions about whether their water is safe to use near the wildfires in Southern California. Some common questions I’ve heard include: How do I know if I can drink the tap water? Can I shower with it? When will it be safe? Beyond more generally getting the facts right on the water and wildfire issues in California, as this Guardian headline suggests, it’s smart to assume the worst about the safety of drinking water in and throughout the immediate aftermath of devastating disasters like the Los Angeles fires.

Why be concerned about the safety of your drinking water after a major fire?

As colleagues so comprehensively explained in their “Wildfire and Water Supply in California” report, there are a lot of pathways by which a wildfire can make your tap water unsafe (and a lot of great ideas on how to adapt to this growing challenge). In Northern California, the Tubbs Fire’s effects on Santa Rosa in 2017 and the Camp Fire, which burned the entire town of Paradise only a year later, were among the first wildfires known to cause widespread drinking water contamination in cities.

Wildfires in forests and wildfires in urban areas have different consequences. Alarmingly, after the Tubbs and Camp Fires, researchers found evidence of post-fire contamination from volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, which is carcinogenic, and also from heavy metals, microbes and other contaminants that pose both immediate and long term public health risks. As fossil-fueled fires get worse, tap water contamination concern grows. Drinking water may not be safe for months, depending on the severity of the damage.

To name a few ways water can be contaminated post-fire:

• Incineration of urban infrastructure—houses, buildings, electric wires, etc.—leaches toxic chemicals not only into our air but when hot enough, can melt the underground pipe network that deliver drinking water.
  
• Toxic runoff from the combination of burnt infrastructure, any fire retardant that has been dropped and water to fight the fires, infiltrates into the ground and any stormwater system.
  
• Any disconnection or disruption to an otherwise closed loop treated drinking water distribution system creates risks of contamination.
  
• Distribution network depressurization may also allow for contaminant transport between differently impacted parts of the distribution system.

I live in or near a fire-impacted community, what should I do?

Figure out who your water provider is if you don’t know. Community water systems provide drinking water for most Californians, and there are a few tools to consult to identify your water system:

• The Community Water Center’s Drinking Water Tool, features an address-based search tool available in Spanish or English.
  
• For residents of LA County, the UCLA LA County Water System Governance Map, shows the service areas for more than 200 systems in the county, and is available in Spanish or English.
  
• The state regulatory agency for drinking water maintains a Human Right to Water Portal, which is also address based and includes not only community systems, but also the schools and daycares responsible for complying with safe drinking water standards.  

Then, check your water provider’s website for any advisories like “do not use”, “boil water”, or “‘do not drink”’ notices. (Learn more from the CDC about the difference between them). Depending on the contamination issue, and unless advised by your water provider, it’s unlikely that you can self-treat the water to make it safe by boiling, filtering, adding chlorine or other disinfectants etc.

Check out the LAist Cheat Sheet which compiled thorough FAQ for LA area residents, including how to understand different advisory types, where to get replacement bottled water and your local water provider’s phone number to get your questions answers.

Areas affected by Do-Not-Drink-Water notifications and other water advisories are dynamic. Large water providers like Pasadena Water and Power and LA Department of Water and Power are actively testing and working to get water back to regulatory standards. Smaller systems may have a harder time recovering.

The above concerns and suggested steps are focused on the safety of the tap water being delivered to your house and do not address very real concerns due to on-site contamination from damaged infrastructure on private property. Always review official resources for those impacted by the LA Fires: https://www.ca.gov/LAfires/.

I have a domestic well, what should I do?

If you are not in the service area of a community water system, your house may have a private domestic well. All the fire-related toxic substances infiltrate the soil and reach our groundwater, they contaminate it with dangerous substances that any added chlorine or household point-of-use filters may not remove. That translates to a higher level of pollutants in our tap water, especially when fires occur near a drinking water well.

Domestic well owners are responsible for managing their own water quality, even when impacted by events outside their control. While a brand new law now requires landlords to ensure their rental properties’ wells are tested, there is no state agency that regulates domestic well water quality they way they do for water systems.

Some ideas on how to learn about the safety of your tap water:

• Assess your well if impacted by wildfire, considering using the CDC’s rapid assessment form
  
• Review the SWRCB’s Guide for Well Owners and Well Testing Program Directory, and search by your county to see if which programs are available in your area.
  
• Follow the CDC’s checklist depending on issues experienced from loss of power, to loss of pressure and hire licensed professionals to repair or replace damaged components.
  
• If your house also has a septic tank, check for any signs of damage that could cause issues for indoor plumbing or domestic well contamination.
  
• Review official state resources for those impacted by the LA Fires: https://www.ca.gov/LAfires/

Not impacted by the fires, but want to help? Fire recovery will be a long process, and donations of critical supplies like bottled water will be needed long after the media moves on from this disaster. Find a trusted local organization, like the Pasadena Jobs Center, an organization coordinating volunteers on the ground and recommended by a friend who grow up in Altadena and lost their family home in the Eaton fire. Consider directly supporting mutual aid groups now and in the coming months.

President-elect Trump’s threats to swiftly implement a policy of mass deportation for immigrants in the United States without legal status, as well as end programs that provide lawful temporary protected status for many immigrants, are inhumane. Immigrant rights groups and legal experts have rightly sounded the alarm and are working actively to fight back and resist these actions, which could be announced on Day 1 of the Trump presidency. All of us—whether we or our families, friends and community members are directly impacted or not—have a stake in understanding why these policies are so harmful, morally reprehensible, and have no place in a democracy.

We in the US are part of a country whose history and present-day social and economic realities are deeply intertwined with and built on the experiences of immigrants, enslaved African Americans, and Indigenous peoples. Owning that history—the good and the bad—is a crucial part of what it means to be an American. And it’s the first step in charting a path to a better, fairer future for our country.

The current US system of immigration is clearly broken, and across the political spectrum there is a recognition that reforms are urgently needed. I am not an immigration expert so I will not opine here on the details of those reforms.

What is clear—or should be clear—to all of us is that if we arbitrarily judge some immigrants to be “better” than others, we will inevitably risk reinforcing a system that is based on biased and unequal power and economic structures that are pervasive in the world today. All too often, current legal pathways to immigration privilege a subset of people while shutting out many who work equally hard and are equally deserving.

As my colleague Karen Perry Stillerman points out, in addition to being morally repugnant, mass deportation programs would have a significant negative impact on our nation’s food system, which could not function without the labor of immigrants.

As another example, as extreme weather and climate-related disasters mount across our nation, it is often immigrants who help to do the difficult and dangerous work of cleaning up debris and rebuilding homes and infrastructure as quickly as possible. As a recent news article points out:

“The fact is that the people who rebuild those areas—from Palisades to Malibu to Altadena—it’s immigrant construction crews,” said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “They’re the ones who are the second responders.”

Unfortunately, climate and fossil fuel-driven disasters are also contributing to a growing toll on people across the world, destabilizing economies, threatening livelihoods, health, water supplies, and food security. If we fail to sharply curtail heat-trapping emissions and invest in climate resilience, the numbers of people suffering harm will rise steeply, and many might even find themselves forcibly displaced both at home and abroad.

Rich nations like the United States (which is the leading historical contributor to global heat-trapping emissions) have the capacity and the responsibility to advance resilience at home and provide climate finance to help lower-income nations transition quickly to renewable energy and adapt to climate change. They also have a responsibility to help address climate loss and damage and displacement with a human rights-centered approach.

Hateful political rhetoric from President-elect Trump and his allies that demonizes and dehumanizes immigrants shows political leaders who are more interested in scoring cheap political points through fearmongering and fanning the flames of xenophobia, rather than acknowledging the basic humanity and incredible contributions of immigrants to our economy and our society.

This is not a new tactic. Across history, here in the United States and abroad, in uncertain economic times, extremists have often targeted immigrants and made harmful and deceptive claims blaming them for all the ills in society. Punching down, further marginalizing those who are fearful and may not have access to resources to defend themselves, is also a classic tactic of bullies and doesn’t solve the urgent problems facing our nation and our planet.

It’s up to all of us to stand up for the facts and stop allowing politicians to misuse the important issue of immigration policy to spew hateful lies as a convenient way to further their narrow interests. Mass detention and deportations will tear apart families, cause lasting trauma and harm, and set back health and education in immigrant communities especially for children, alongside undermining the the U.S. economy.  

We all know instinctively that leaving one’s familiar home and embarking on a dangerous journey to a faraway place, with very few resources and no guarantee of safety, is often an act of desperation—especially when bringing children. But for luck, this could be the plight of anyone in any country around the world.

Seeing our shared humanity and acting based on that principle is the best path forward on immigration and for our country of immigrants.  

Here are some resources to learn more. Please share them with anyone who needs them.

• American Civil Liberties Union: Know Your Rights/Immigrants’ Rights
• National Immigration Law Center: Know Your Rights: What to do if You Are Arrested or Detained by Immigration
• National Immigrant Justice Center: Know Your Rights: If You Encounter ICE

Scientists have a long-standing, and probably well-deserved, reputation as a jargon-prone bunch—and I am no exception (see my post on vapor pressure deficit, for one). Despite this reputation we actually use jargon to avoid confusion and be as precise as possible, ensuring our ideas are clearly understood. This seems straightforward enough for phrases like vapor pressure deficit, which needs to be distinguished from concepts like, for instance, relative humidity. But, scientists have also assigned specific meanings to otherwise ordinary words and phrases, that take on additional nuance and meaning when used in a scientific context.  

Take the word risk. Engineers might use it to mean the likelihood of a bridge collapsing. Economists might use it to mean a potential financial loss. An environmental scientist might use it to signal possible harm to a species of fish or vulnerable habitat. And in casual conversation, risk can mean a general concern or danger. Without specifying the context, the statement ‘The risks of addressing climate change are too large’ could justify almost any decision from reinforcing a bridge to withstand extreme heat to ignoring greenhouse gas emissions because of the financial losses that the fossil fuel industry would incur.  

In the case of the incoming administration, malicious actors use and create this confusion to exploit scientific illiteracy, justify inaction, and cultivate chaos, all of which cause harm to our communities, health and environment. This can take many forms: spreading disinformation, overemphasizing uncertainty, weaponizing ambiguity and nuance, or claiming that existing science is insufficient or incomplete, leading to harmful policies that distort science while maintaining a veneer of credibility. science while maintaining a veneer of credibility.  

In its first iteration, the Trump administration launched a coordinated assault on science and scientific integrity, and so far, all signs point to more of the same the second time around. To counter this, it’s critical to recognize and interrogate the language that will shape public discourse in the next administration. Here are three critical concepts that everyone who recognizes the essential value of science should know—and be prepared to defend against bad-faith attacks. 

What is “Best Available Science?” 

Best available science is the most reliable, valid, up-to-date, and relevant, empirical knowledge, and is referenced in laws, regulations, and court rulings, from the criteria for listing new species and developing recovery plans as part of the Endangered Species Act to the regulatory structure used in decision-making by the Food & Drug Administration for approvals and labels.  Science is dynamic and constantly evolving, meaning that the best available science builds on this on-going cycle of scientific inquiry as well as data and evidence from a range of sources. Inherently, best available science also relies on peer review, and draws on experts across disciplines.  

In the decision-making process of many government agencies, expert panels and advisory committees serve this critical function of analyzing existing evidence. These panels are composed of experienced researchers who are in the know about cutting edge research, the strengths and limitations of methodologies, and the latest debates on specific details. In the first Trump administration, we saw these panels and committees disbanded or downsized at the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Energy, and Department of Health and Human Services, among others. Last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning the Chevron doctrine further endangered the use of best available science in decision making by shifting power from experts within governmental agencies to the judiciary.  

Further, best available science also uses specific language (and, in some cases, jargon) to accurately describe scientific findings, like using specific forest type designations when calculating wildfire emissions or describing the consequences of rule changes on different orders of waterways. The first Trump administration, in some cases, blocked scientists’ ability to do this by, for instance, removing a term such as “climate change” from certain government communications.  

Outside the US, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea reaffirmed the importance of using the best available science in their unanimous advisory opinion outlining countries’ obligations to prevent, reduce, and control pollution in the marine environment, highlighting the importance of scientists engaging across all facets of decision-making.  

Scientific Consensus Explained 

The term “scientific consensus” refers to concepts that have broad agreement among scientists, based on multiple lines of evidence and extensive peer-reviewed research. Examples of where there is scientific consensus include: evolution as the driver of life on earth, the Big Bang as the origin of the universe; and that human activity, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, is the primary driver of climate change.  This does not signal absolute proof, unanimous agreement, or the end of the scientific process, but consensus does provide a foundation from which scientists can continue to build knowledge to better protect our health, environment and communities.   

In the case of climate change, scientific consensus has led to countless new research questions about how we can adapt to protect our communities from rising seas, intensifying wildfires, and extreme heat. It has also painted a clear picture of how to mitigate future climate change and protect those who are most vulnerable—a fair and fast phase out of fossil fuels.   

The Role of Uncertainty in Building Trustworthy Science 

Quantifying and communicating uncertainty is a key part of any scientific endeavor, and one that scientists go to great lengths to understand and explain. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, widely regarded as the world’s leading body on climate science, has developed an entire system for describing scientific uncertainty and confidence in key findings throughout their reports.   

As I wrote in a blog last year: “Conversationally, uncertainty means something you don’t know — like I’m uncertain what I’m going to have for lunch. But scientifically, uncertainty means how well we know something— more like a confidence range and usually visualized with confidence intervals or error bars depending on the data (I’m 90-95% confident that I’ll be having beans for lunch).” 

When reading a scientific study, the absence of confidence ranges, explanations of methodologies, or other descriptions of how the researchers dealt with uncertainty is a major red flag. While those outside the scientific community might assume that the absence of uncertainty signals unwavering confidence in a finding, to other scientists it signals that the conclusions deserve particularly focused scrutiny.  

In the first Trump administration, we saw the Department of Interior overemphasize uncertainty around climate change in several of its reports, in direct opposition to the scientific consensus.  

Defending Science and Scientific Integrity 

As the second Trump administration looms, protecting rigorous research and scientific integrity is more critical than ever. When key scientific principles like transparency, accountability and continuous inquiry are compromised, as they were during Trump’s first term, the consequences ripple far beyond the scientific community, affecting public health, environmental sustainability, and the resilience of democratic institutions. The deliberate manipulation of scientific findings, whether by suppressing inconvenient truths, overemphasizing uncertainty, or distorting conclusions to fit a narrative, means that the best available science is absent from decision making.  

This erosion of public trust in science creates fertile ground for disinformation campaigns, stalls progress on urgent issues, and prioritizes political or economic agendas over the public good. During the first Trump administration, we saw these tactics in action, from the removal of climate change terminology from government reports to the systematic dismantling of advisory panels critical to applying the best available science to policy decisions.  

Defending science is not just the responsibility of scientists—it requires collective action by policymakers, educators, advocates, and the public. Together, we can ensure that science continues to serve the public good, guiding decision makers in a defensible and robust way toward a healthy, safe, and just future.  

L. Delta Merner, Lead Scientist for the Science Hub for Climate Litigation, contributed to this post. 

President-elect Trump has nominated Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright to be US Energy Secretary, confirming the fossil fuel industry’s outsized and undue influence in shaping and implementing the Trump Administration’s agenda. Liberty is a leading producer of methane gas through fracking and according to ABC News, Wright donated almost $230,000 to the President-elect’s joint fundraising committee. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is expected to hold a hearing on Wright’s nomination tomorrow. 

In videos and Congressional testimony, Wright portrays himself as a “truth teller,” while falsely  claiming that climate scientists and renewable energy advocates are deceptive. These performances are textbook examples of disinformation, employing the exact tactics Mr. Wright decries.  

These are dangerous deceptions for someone potentially charged with leading the Department of Energy (DOE), an agency specifically tasked with informing the nation’s energy transition. Should Mr. Wright engage in such tactics during his confirmation hearing, Senators on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee must not allow him to get away with this ploy.  

The motivation to engage in disinformation comes when accurate information is threatening. Here are the facts. 

The human-caused, fossil fuel-driven, Climate Crisis is here. 

NASA’s Climate Evidence webpage leads with this headline: “There is unequivocal evidence that Earth is warming at an unprecedented rate.” The Fifth National Climate Assessment is equally clear: “Human activities are changing the climate . . . primarily because humans have burned and continue to burn fossil fuels for transportation and energy generation.” 

While Wright acknowledges the reality of climate change, he deliberately misrepresents climate data and research to downplay the seriousness of the problem and to undermine proven solutions including transitioning away from fossil fuels and accelerating the transition to clean energy. He adopts a purposefully shortsighted view when describing the impacts of burning fossil fuels on the world, focusing on profits over people.  

Yes, nations need energy for economic development, but that energy can and should come from clean resources, not dirty fossil fuels. Air and water pollution from fossil fuels is a major public health challenge and catastrophic climate impacts are setting back sustainable development and anti-poverty efforts, especially in lower income nations. The fact that fossil fuel companies have reaped enormous profits in the process is not an argument for more drilling. 

Wright’s frequent focus on the relatively recent past is purposely misleading. As NASA explains, over most of the last 800,000 years, until humans started burning fossil fuels, atmospheric CO2 concentrations basically never went below 180ppm and never went above 280ppm. That 100ppm difference, though, was the difference between glacial and interglacial periods. During glacial periods, much of the northern half of North America was covered in an ice sheet a mile thick. That .01% change in CO2 concentration is the difference between a planet humans can live on, and one we cannot. 

Primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels, the CO2 concentration has increased to more than 420ppm. For roughly every 10ppm increase in CO2 concentrations, we see about 0.1C (nearly 0.2F) of warming. In the last sixty years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has grown 100 times faster than it did at the close of the last ice age. These are the numbers that must motivate our future energy policy, not the profits generated by the post-World War II oil boom.  

Climate change is making extreme weather more intense and more frequent. 

Leading independent global and U.S. scientific assessments, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the National Climate Assessment, show that climate change is already having significant real-world impacts, and these will worsen as heat-trapping emissions rise. Advances in attribution science also show that climate change is contributing to worsening some types of extreme weather. For example, warmer air and oceans are contributing to more intense hurricanes, with record-breaking amounts of rain and rapidly intensifying windspeeds. 

Wright denies that people are experiencing the extreme weather that they are, in fact, experiencing, and misrepresents the IPCC in the process. In reality, the IPCC (a body comprised of thousands of experts from around the world who synthesize the most recent developments in climate science) writes in their Sixth Assessment Report, Chapter 11 of Working Group 1 on Weather and Climate Extreme Events in a Changing Climate: “It is an established fact that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial time, in particular for temperature extremes.”  

Real-world observations conducted by NOAA show the dramatic increase in billion-dollar extreme weather and climate-related disaster events in the US since 1980. Climate change has contributed to worsening several of these kinds of disasters—including floods, droughts, and wildfires—alongside growing development in risky areas.  

In 2024, at least 568 lives were lost in 27 separate disasters that each reported damages of $1 billion or more, with a total economic cost of at least $182.7 billion. 2025 is already off to a sobering start, with early estimates on the California wildfires ranging as high as $150 billion in damages. 

Wright’s false claims are shameful and should be particularly difficult to defend during hearings before a Committee which includes Senators Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, whose constituents suffered through the 2023 wildfires; Alex Padilla of California, whose constituents in Los Angeles are losing lives and homes as I write; and other lawmakers representing millions of Americans living through or recovering from disasters made worse by climate change. 

The US can meet its climate targets. 

Wright cites the persistent high price of oil, record profits for fossil fuel companies, and even his own personal wealth as evidence that a transition to renewable energy is not happening. His claim that a transition to a cleaner energy system is impossible because Wright and his allies have succeeded in delaying it is nonsense.  

UCS has documented that a transition to a cleaner energy system is feasible and would result in significant, long-term public health and economic benefits. By rapidly phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to clean energy, the United States can meet its climate targets with lower near-term energy costs and only modest long-term costs. UCS modeling has found enormous economic, health, and climate benefits to transforming the energy system—including more than $800 billion in annual public health savings, and nearly $1.3 trillion in avoided climate damages by 2050. 

Clean, renewable energy contributes to reliability. 

In addition to dirty air and dirty water, the industry that made Wright wealthy also has a dirty secret: it’s unreliable. The recent failures of the gas system, including gas plants, under extreme weather conditions have led to rolling blackouts, with serious safety and health consequences for communities left without power during critical times of need. Looking closely at recent extreme winter weather events, a UCS analysis found that gas plants were disproportionately vulnerable to failure. By contrast, renewable energy sources can be more reliable during challenging weather conditions. 

Carbon pollution is pollution. 

Wright argues that rising CO2 levels are not dangerous. The EPA has found the current (or any increasing) mix of atmospheric concentrations of six greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, poses a threat to human health. The EPA engaged in a public process that took more than two years and included exhaustive review of the scientific literature to reach this finding. And while Wright claims labelling CO2 as pollution is a “marketing” tactic, it was the U.S. Supreme Court, not the wind or solar industries, that forced the EPA to act on the basis of existing law, the Clean Air Act. 

Wind and solar are clean energy. 

While all energy sources have impacts, wind and solar are much cleaner than fossil fuels. Wright’s frequent, narrow focus on the use of fossil fuels in the manufacturing and construction of wind turbines and solar panels is highly misleading and doesn’t tell the whole story.  

The heat-trapping emissions from these activities are minor compared to the lifecycle emissions from the combustion of fossil fuels. In fact, overall lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from generating electricity from methane gas and coal are 11-23 times higher than solar and 37-77 higher than wind, respectively, according to data from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). And unlike fossil fuels, electricity generated by wind and solar does not use water or produce any emissions or wastes that can contaminate the air, land, or waterways. 

Defining the energy produced by wind, solar, and other renewable sources as “clean” is a factual description of what that energy does to our world when we use it, compared to burning dirty coal, oil, and methane. It is obvious why someone who has made a fortune in the business of dirty energy might not like that label, but if the dirty shoe fits . . .   

The Questions Senators Need to Ask. 

Again, the motivation to engage in disinformation comes when accurate information is threatening. For example, when people say, “this is not about the money,” you can be sure it is absolutely about the money. 

A Senate confirmation hearing should provide Senators and the public an accurate picture of the nominees’ views and fitness for public service. President-elect Trump has selected Chris Wright for the Department of Energy because he will double down on the production and use of the same old, dirty energy resources that have made him wealthy; wealth that Wright and other industry figures have used to fund the Trump campaign. (My colleagues have also shared insightful advice that should guide Senators’ approach in evaluating these nominees.) 

Rather than engaging in deceptive claims designed to turn facts on their heads, Wright should simply be honest about his views and let the Senate—and the public—decide whether he is the right person to set US energy policy for the next four years.  

As the climate crisis deepens, so does the urgency to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for decades of deception. Governments representing more than a quarter of the US population have filed lawsuits against major corporations including ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP, seeking justice for the harm caused by their lies about the dangers of their products. And especially on the cusp of a new Presidential administration that has vowed to support the fossil fuel industry and nominated appointees with a blatant disregard for science, the courts will become an integral arena to advance climate justice—and a pivotal space for scientists of all disciplines to make an impact. 

These lawsuits hinge on the best available science to uncover the truth and inform the courts. UCS is already working with social scientists and economists, civil engineers and health practitioners who can bring extensive expertise to multi-faceted litigation. As the fossil fuel industry spares no expense to obscure these truths, the work of scientists who engage with climate litigation is increasingly vital. They bring clarity, evidence, and credibility to a high-stakes fight where lives—and the planet—are on the line. 

To help scientists of all disciplines who are thinking about getting engaged, but might not know where to start, I turned to Delta Merner, Lead Scientist for UCS’s Science Hub for Climate Litigation. Merner’s research and expertise has informed climate litigation across the globe, as she connects legal teams with technical experts and leads trainings for scientists working at the intersection of climate science and law.  

AAS: What would you say to scientists who feel they don’t have the expertise or understanding to participate in climate litigation?  

DM: In many ways, climate litigation isn’t actually that different from the work scientists are used to doing. At its core, we’re still asking robust questions, conducting thorough research to assess those questions, and drafting compelling documents to communicate our findings. The fundamental process remains the same—it’s just a different format and audience. 

In some ways, for example, my PhD defense did prepare me with skills that translate well to the courtroom. After all, you quickly learn to stay calm and back up your claims when you have to stand in a room full of brilliant, critical people ready to poke holes in your every word. 

In both cases, you’re making a claim, presenting evidence, and responding to questions or criticism. The key difference is the audience. Instead of speaking to other scientists, you’re addressing a legal community that operates with its own rules of argumentation, unique citation methods, and a distinct language for making claims. 

So, while the tools and processes are familiar, adapting to this new audience requires an additional layer of thoughtfulness. You’re not just presenting facts— you’re translating complex scientific evidence into a form that meets the legal system’s standards of argumentation, while upholding scientific rigor and independence. That intersection between science and law is what makes this work so fascinating and impactful.

AAS: What was that transition into the legal arena like for you? Who did you look to for guidance and to learn from?  

DM: My first time testifying in court was during my PhD program, and honestly, I had very little guidance. I didn’t fully understand how different it would be to communicate my research to a legal audience. I knew my research inside and out, and I thought that would be enough—but it quickly became clear that presenting in this context is a skill in itself. It requires not only expertise in your subject matter but also the ability to convey that knowledge in a way that resonates with the specific needs and expectations of the court. 

This realization pushed me to seek guidance and learn from others. There are experts who have been doing this work for years, and generally speaking, science has been presented in US courts for a long time. For me, working through the courts felt like an opportunity to apply my research to create real-world change, but to do that effectively, I needed to broaden my perspective. I’ve learned a great deal from science communicators, organizers, researchers, and litigators who understand how to bridge the gap between science and law. Each has contributed to shaping how I approach this work and helped me find my voice in the courtroom.  

Historically, however, it can be difficult to find spaces to meet and work with others in this field–that’s why UCS started the Science Hub for Climate Litigation. The Science Hub for Climate Litigation has developed a valuable community of peers where scientists, communicators, and legal experts can learn from each other—whether it’s gaining insights from those with courtroom experience or collaborating to refine how we present complex evidence to drive meaningful change. 

AAS: UCS scientists often provide their scientific expertise to help inform policies. You’ve said that informing legal cases is just as critical as informing the formation of policy. Can you talk a little more about that? 

DM: That’s a great question, and it’s one that gets to the heart of our work. At UCS, we see climate litigation, informed by science, as one of the most impactful tools we have to address climate change—and the evidence is clear that it’s working. The last IPCC report stated that climate-related litigation “has influenced the outcome and ambition of climate governance.” It also highlighted that “outside the formal climate policy processes, climate litigation is an important arena for various actors to confront and interact over how climate change should be governed.” In short, climate litigation is actively shaping climate action today. 

Scientists have a critical role to play in this space. We can conduct robust, timely, and litigation-relevant research. We can help inform the courts through amicus briefs or other legal interventions designed to provide judges with the evidence they need to make informed decisions. And we can even step into the courtroom as expert witnesses. But engaging in litigation isn’t necessarily intuitive or straightforward for most scientists. That’s where the Science Hub for Climate Litigation comes in.  

The Science Hub focuses on four key areas: catalyzing legally relevant scientific research, expanding the community of scientists and legal experts informing litigation, making robust science widely accessible, and connecting legal teams with experts. Together, these efforts create a pathway for scientists to bring their expertise into the legal arena and make a tangible impact on climate action. 

AAS: First and foremost, like many of our readers, you are a researcher. Can you tell us a little more about those existing gaps in current scientific research that, if addressed, could further support climate litigation? 

DM: As a researcher, I see significant opportunities for science to further inform climate litigation by addressing critical gaps. Our recent report on research areas for climate litigation highlights several key needs. For instance, attribution science remains a priority—establishing causal links between emissions, climate impacts, and specific events is essential for many cases. However, there’s a pressing need to expand this research to underrepresented regions, particularly in the Global South, where baseline data is often lacking. Developing new methods to suit these contexts can help ensure justice is accessible to all communities impacted by climate change. 

We also identified the connections between climate change and human health as another priority. Cases that focus on health impacts, such as those related to extreme heat or air quality, require more robust data, particularly for vulnerable populations like children, older adults, and pregnant people. Similarly, economic research that quantifies the costs of climate impacts and the benefits of mitigation is vital for informing remedies in legal cases. Addressing these issues demonstrates how expertise from diverse disciplines—whether in public health, economics, or social science—can play an important role to inform climate litigation. You don’t need to be a climate scientist to make a meaningful impact. 

Beyond these priorities, our work highlights strategic areas like disinformation and greenwashing, emissions accounting, and fair share analysis for corporate and national accountability. Each of these areas presents opportunities for science to fill evidence gaps that are critical to informing litigation.  

By addressing these gaps, scientists can play a role in informing the evolving landscape of climate litigation and ensure that courts have the best available science to inform their decisions. 

AAS: In a recent blog post, you mentioned the opportunities to expand the scope of climate litigation in 2025. Could you elaborate on the stakes of what’s on the docket this year? 

DM: This year’s climate litigation docket has high stakes, with cases that could set major precedents for how we address the climate crisis. On the international stage, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is working on an advisory opinion to clarify what responsibilities countries have under international law to combat climate change. (UCS actually helped a number of states in the Global South to prepare draft their written submissions.) While this opinion won’t be legally binding, it could influence future cases and push governments to take stronger climate action. Similarly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights is considering how climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations, linking climate action to fundamental human rights. 

In the US, more than a quarter of people now live in places that are suing  major fossil fuel corporations for deceiving people about climate change and for the damage they knew their oil, gas, and coal products would cause. These cases aim to hold companies accountable for the disinformation that has blocked climate action and slowed the transition to clean energy. ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel corporations have employed numerous procedural tactics to delay progress of these lawsuits (some of which have been ongoing for more than seven years), preventing them from being heard in courtrooms across the country. 

We’re also seeing more lawsuits following climate-related disasters, like the Maui wildfires and severe flooding in North Carolina. These cases often focus on holding governments or companies accountable for not doing enough to prepare for foreseeable climate risks, like stronger storms or longer droughts. They highlight the very real human and financial costs of climate inaction and aim to drive systemic change. 

This wave of litigation shows that courts are becoming a critical arena for climate action, especially as political systems struggle to keep up with the urgency of the crisis. By combining evidence from science, law, and lived experience, these cases have the power to bring about accountability and push for meaningful solutions. 

AAS: And I’ll close with this: it’s a new year, a fresh start, and folks are making resolutions. What is something concrete that you’re working on?  

DM: This year, I’m focusing on communicating the value and potential impact of scientists informing climate litigation. It’s crucial for scientists to understand that this work is about ensuring that courts have access to accurate, robust evidence to make informed decisions. Upholding the integrity of our research while making it actionable is essential to bridging the gap between science and justice. 

At the same time, I want to increase engagement among scientists to help them recognize the critical role they can play in legal processes. Whether it’s providing expert testimony, contributing to amicus briefs, or making their findings more accessible to legal teams, there are so many ways to contribute. By supporting scientists in these efforts, we can create a stronger connection between science and the legal system, and empower courts to drive meaningful change. 

→ Learn more and join the UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation today 

While deaths and destruction are mounting and tens of thousands flee a devastating inferno in Los Angeles, the President-Elect has used the catastrophic wildfires to spread misinformation, offer false solutions, and disrespect the suffering of people and the hard work of first responders. Here, we provide the facts and avoid the fiction.  

Fact 1: reservoirs are full

Due to a relatively wet winter in Northern California, almost every reservoir in Southern California is at or above its historical average. There is ample water available in reservoirs to fight fires. The challenge is getting the water from the reservoir to the fire fighters. 

Fact 2: California’s water system is a patchwork  

California, like most states, has thousands of water systems. Federal, state, municipal, regional, and private water systems co-exist. Some are connected to each other, some aren’t. What happens hundreds of miles away in one system does not necessarily have an impact on your local supply. In other words, decisions about federal water in one part of the state don’t automatically increase or decrease how much water your local utility has available.  

Fact 3: City water systems are not designed to suppress massive wildfires 

Cities build infrastructure to meet demands without being unnecessarily expensive. For example, water systems are designed for the capacity to deliver enough water to serve customers’ normal household water needs and to provide a limited amount of “fire flow,” or excess capacity for fire suppression. During the initial hours of the Palisades fire, the LA Department of Water and Power experienced unprecedented water demand — four times the normal water use for 15 hours straight. This incredibly high, sustained level of water demand outstripped the ability of the system to keep the water flowing. It was water use, not water supply, that led to a temporary shortage for fire flows.   

Fact 4: Fire fighters often rely on air support to contain rapidly burning fires 

The Palisades fire ignited during some of the worst Santa Ana winds, gusting at more than100 miles per hour at times. This made air support dangerous and unreliable during the critical first few days of the fire, placing a larger burden on the municipal water system.   

Fact: Wildfires are worsening due to climate change 

At a basic level, the connection between wildfires and water is intuitive: fires start more easily, burn more intensely, and spread faster when it’s dry and hot. That’s bad news, because climate change is increasing temperatures and the risk of drought in many regions. It’s particularly pronounced in the western United States, where heatwaves and megadroughts are priming us for wildfire. In fact, western landscapes are now roughly 50 percent drier due to climate change. 

Fact: Fossil fuel companies are privatizing profit and socializing costs of climate change 

Emissions from the products of fossil fuel companies and cement manufacturers have fundamentally reshaped the climate of western North America and left behind a scarred, charred landscape in which people, communities, and the ecosystems that enable their existence are suffering. To-date, taxpayers and victims have been footing the bill for worsening wildfires.  

However, UCS’s new analysis quantifies the contribution of fossil fuel companies to fire conditions. Federal, state, and local governments have the power to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for the costs of climate change impacts. And they should.