Researchers prepare to deploy a glider instrument into the ocean. (Photo by Rebecca Travis/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
“Blinding the public to climate change won’t make it go away. It will only accelerate its profound consequences.”
In what a number of scientists suggested was the Trump administration’s latest effort to stop tracking the changing climate in hopes of convincing the public that the climate emergency isn’t happening, the National Science Foundation announced Monday that it was dismantling a crucial deep-ocean monitoring system that for years has helped researchers understand the impacts of the crisis on the world’s oceans.
The NSF said it plans to send ships this month to remove more than 900 instruments, part of a project called the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The project collects data on temperatures, currents, and the ocean’s absorption of carbon dioxide off the coasts of Oregon, Alaska, Washington, and North Carolina, as well as in the Irminger Sea between Iceland and Greenland.
A spokesperson for NSF told The New York Times that the dismantling of the initiative will help the NSF in “prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”
The reasoning given for the shuttering of the project, said Tara Blume, a journalist at Oklahoma City NBC affiliate KFOR, was “a master class in obfuscation and doublespeak.”
Genevieve Guenther of the group End Climate Silence shared her own interpretation of why the $368 million ocean observation system is being discontinued, despite the fact that it had been set to collect data for 25 years.
“We need to track ocean currents to assess how close we are to climate tipping points that will essentially destroy the world as we know it,” said Guenther. “The GOP doesn’t want us to be able to do that. That’s why they’re dismantling ocean monitoring.”
"By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership." https://t.co/TSKsORuTX9
Scientists have used data gathered by moorings, robotic vehicles, and other instruments that transmit the information to research laboratories, to study changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current (AMOC), a current system that moves warm water northward and cools the Arctic and Northern Atlantic regions while absorbing carbon dioxide deep into the ocean and keeping it out of the atmosphere.
Data gathered at the observation station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding AMOC, which scientists fear is gradually weakening due to planetary heating and could ultimately collapse, likely causing major global weather changes.
“This is absolutely crazy,” said David Doniger, a senior strategist and attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s climate and energy department. “Wouldn’t you want to know if the ocean currents are changing? Wouldn’t you want to know ocean temperatures? These things affect everything from fishing to hurricanes.”
Following the announcement that the stations will be dismantled in the coming weeks, said Blume, “science gasps for breath.”
President Donald Trump has attempted several times to shut down or drastically reduce the budget of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, which costs $48 million annually to run. Congress has restored the program’s funding.
The dismantling of the program comes months after the Environmental Protection Agencyrepealed the “endangerment finding,” which for years had underpinned the department’s environmental regulations; after the administration closed down the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which had gathered data on hurricanes and extreme weather to help improve forecasts; and after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration released a statement on record-breaking temperatures in 2024 and 2025—without any mention of the climate crisis or climate change.
“Blinding the public to climate change won’t make it go away. It will only accelerate its profound consequences,” said clinical researcher Iris Gorfinkel.
According to the Trump administration, said historian Nick Kapur, “apparently climate change doesn’t exist if you prevent scientists from measuring it.”
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
New York Attorney General Letitia James leads a news conference in Albany, New York on Monday, March 16, 2026. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
“We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy,” said New York AG Letitia James.
A group of state attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Tuesday, in an effort to block an unprecedented deal it made to pay an energy company to abandon a pair of large East Coast wind energy projects and invest in more polluting fossil fuel infrastructure instead.
As part of efforts to unilaterally block private wind power construction across the US while revving up fossil fuel production, the Interior Department agreed to pay $928 million in taxpayer funds to the French energy company TotalEnergies to scrap construction plans for a large wind project off the coast of New York and another off North Carolina, the leases for which had been approved back in 2022.
In exchange, the company agreed to halt any future development of clean power in the US and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas projects instead.
On Tuesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that she was leading a coalition of seven northeastern state AGs—from New Jersey, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont—in a lawsuit seeking to block the agreement.
James described the deal as an unlawful attempt to get around a previous court rejection of President Donald Trump’s Day One executive order halting all wind energy development in the US.
“The Trump administration is once again trying to kill clean energy projects and destroy good-paying jobs for New Yorkers,” James said. “After repeatedly losing in court, this administration cooked up a sham deal to pay a foreign energy company hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to abandon offshore wind and invest in oil and gas instead. We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy.”
The canceled New York project was expected to produce up to 1.4 gigawatts of energy for the state, powering more than 700,000 homes annually. According to a press release from James’ office, it was projected to save New Yorkers $10 billion over its 25-year lifespan.
Another section of the Bight construction lease was slated for a wind farm projected to provide about 1.3 gigawatts to homes in New Jersey, powering 650,000 homes and generating $3 billion in economic benefits, according to state officials.
The other project set for North Carolina was projected by TotalEnergies to generate more than 1 gigawatt of power, enough for 300,000 homes.
The Oceantic Network, a nonprofit that supports the construction of offshore wind projects, estimated that the cancellation of a single 1-gigawatt offshore wind project costs between $8.5-9.5 billion in US economic output and about 3,350 construction jobs, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages.
Liz Burdock, the president and CEO of Oceantic, commended the states attempting to stop the Trump administration from killing the projects at a time when oil and gas costs are skyrocketing, largely due to Trump’s war with Iran.
“For more than a year, offshore wind has faced an unprecedented and unrelenting campaign of political interference despite billions in private investment, state commitments, and court rulings,” Burdock said. “These continued attacks on offshore wind are not just an assault on a single industry—they are an attack on American workers, energy affordability, national security, and the states’ right to shape their own energy future.”
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage campaigning in Wales. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
Welsh Reform labelled a “retirement home for failed Conservatives”.
The majority of Reform UK’s shadow cabinet in Wales is made up of former Conservative Party politicians, including its leader, chief whip, and shadow economy minister, DeSmog can reveal.
Nigel Farage’s radical right-wing party – which campaigns against climate policies and supports dramatically increased fossil fuel production – became the second largest group in the Senedd following elections on 7 May.
Reform has presented itself as an outsider force and an alternative to the established parties.
However, DeSmog’s analysis finds that almost two thirds (64.2 percent) of Reform’s shadow cabinet posts in Wales are held by individuals who have previously served or stood for the Tories.
That amounts to nine out of Reform’s 14 shadow cabinet members, and includes Reform’s leader in Wales, Dan Thomas, who was Conservative leader of Barnet Council in London before defecting to Farage’s party in June last year.
It also includes the party’s chief whip, Llŷr Powell, a former Tory council candidate, and shadow economy minister Jason O’Connell, a former Tory councillor.
In total, 12 of Reform’s 34 Senedd members are former Conservative politicians – amounting to 35 percent of the party’s representation in the assembly.
A spokesperson for the Wales Green Party said: “In the election campaign, Reform presented themselves as an insurgent anti-establishment party, but it’s looking more like they’re just a retirement home for failed Conservatives.”
Reform’s central party is also replete with ex-Tories. Six of Reform’s eight members of UK Parliament defected from the Conservatives, five while they were serving MPs. This includes Robert Jenrick, a former Tory minister and Reform’s current economic spokesperson, and former Conservative home secretary Suella Braverman, both of whom defected in January.
Of the remaining two – Farage and his deputy Richard Tice – the latter is a former Tory party member and donor.
In Scotland, at least four of Reform’s members of the Scottish Parliament are former Tory politicians, including Max Bannerman in the Highlands and Islands, Thomas Kerr and Kim Schmulian in Glasgow, and Graham Simpson in Central Scot and Lothians West.
Reform’s biggest donor, Thailand-based crypto and jet fuel billionaire Christopher Harborne, was previously a donor to the Conservative Party, giving £1.5 million between 2018 and 2022.
Harborne has donated £22 million to Reform, and gave Farage a £5 million gift in 2024 prior to him reclaiming the Reform leadership and standing for Parliament. Farage did not declare this sum when he was elected as an MP, and it is now the subject of a parliamentary standards investigation.
The Roster
Llŷr Powell, Reform’s chief whip and business manager in Wales, was a Conservative Party candidate for local government in 2022, and supportedKemi Badenoch for Tory leader the same year.
Powell, who was Reform’s unsuccessful candidate in the October 2025 Caerphilly Senedd by-election, used to work for Nathan Gill, the party’s former Welsh leader. Gill is currently serving a 10 and a half year prison sentence for accepting bribes from an agent of the Russian government during his time as a Member of European Parliament (MEP) for the Brexit Party (Reform’s forerunner).
Powell has said he didn’t work for Gill when he committed these offences, and had no knowledge of his crimes, but has refused to say the exact dates when he served under Farage’s former MEP.
James Evans, Reform’s shadow minister for health, prevention and sport, was elected as the Senedd member for Brecon and Radnorshire in 2021 as a Conservative. Before that, he served in Welsh local government as a Tory.
Laura Anne Jones, Reform’s shadow minister for food, farming and rural affairs, was previously a Conservative Senedd member for South Wales East.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Welsh leader Dan Thomas campaigning in Wales.
Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
Sarah Cooper-Lesadd, the party’s shadow minister for children, young people and skills, was a Conservative candidate for Coventry East in the 2024 general election. From 2022 to 2024 she was also a parliamentary assistant to Vicky Ford, Tory MP for Chelmsford.
Louise Emery, Reform’s shadow minister for culture, tourism and hospitality, was elected in 2017 and 2022 as a Conservative councillor in Conwy.
Francesca O’Brien, shadow minister for local government, housing and planning, was a Tory councillor for the Mumbles elected in 2017.
Adrian Mason, Reform’s shadow Counsel General and shadow minister for the constitution, was a Tory council candidate in Wales in 2017.
Jason O’Connell, shadow minister for economy and transport, was briefly a Welsh Conservative councillor in 2018, having been elected as an independent.
Outside of the shadow cabinet, Reform Welsh Senedd members Iain McIntosh and Tom Montgomery were elected to local government in Wales as Conservatives in 2022, while Stephen Senior stood as a Tory in 2022 and 2023.
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Heartland UK-Europe executive director Lois Perry speaking to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on his GB News show. Credit: GB News / YouTube
Lois Perry, who helps to run Reform Friends of Israel, is one of the figures behind a new Heartland Institute branch in central Europe.
A close ally of Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has helped to launch the central European offshoot of a U.S. climate denial group alongside far-right figures.
Lois Perry – executive director of Heartland UK-Europe – claimed on social media last week that she was “In Poland to launch [the] Heartland Institute Central Europe”.
The U.S.-based Heartland Institute has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”, and has strong ties to U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
At the launch of the new branch in Warsaw on 13 May, Perry appeared alongside Mariusz Zagórski, a speechwriter for Poland’s former president Andrzej Duda of the national conservative Law and Justice Party. Zagórski, who will be the branch’s official representative, told DeSmog it would “propose solutions” on energy costs and “evaluate climate policy”.
The Heartland Institute’s U.S. president James Taylor was also in attendance. Taylor is a Trump ally who has dismissed what he calls the “mythical global warming crisis”.
They were joined by representatives from Law and Justice, the far-right Confederation Party, and unnamed “guests from the U.S., Great Britain, and Austria”. The event was hosted by the Stanczyk Club, a space co-owned by the influential conservative legal advocacy group Ordo Iuris, which campaigns to restrict LGBT and abortion rights, and has co-authored a plan to dismantle the EU.
As revealed by DeSmog, the Heartland Institute has been working with far-right parties in recent years to oppose EU climate legislation, while Farage helped to launch Heartland UK-Europe in December 2024. The group didn’t respond to DeSmog’s requests for comment but previously said that it “stands resolute in its mission to advance sound science, economic prosperity, and individual liberty”.
Perry – a former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader who ran the anti-net zero lobby group CAR26 – is the strategy director of Reform Friends of Israel, a group affiliated with the party that officially launched in February.
Perry has repeatedly claimed to be advising Reform on its climate and energy policy, and told a conservative Polish TV channel this week that she has an “unofficial but very close role” in the party. Perry has said it’s her “personal belief” that climate change “is happening” but “is not man made”. In reality, the world’s foremost climate science body, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has said that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
Raphaël Kergueno of Transparency International EU told DeSmog that the Heartland Institute’s growing presence in Europe was “emblematic” of “lobbying efforts in Brussels” from pro-Trump groups.
“This European Parliament mandate has seen a notable uptick in lobbying by MAGA-affiliated organisations, including by the Heartland Institute,” he said.
Kenneth Haar, a researcher and campaigner at the transparency watchdog Corporate Europe Observatory, added: “All over Europe we see climate policies under pressure from corporate interests, and from the political right. Views that were regarded as absurd and fringe only a few years ago are now part of the debate.”
Poland Plans
According to Zagórski, the keynote address at the Warsaw event was delivered by Szymon Sikorski of Kraków Agricultural University, who said that climate change is “not necessarily caused by humans”, but is the result of “more complex and long-term effects.”
Zagórski told DeSmog after the event that Heartland wants to do for Poland and central Europe what it does in the U.S. — draft energy policy for politicians.
“The Heartland Institute has been evaluating the availability of various energy sources in different U.S. states,” he said, pointing to a report adopted by lawmakers in Louisiana. Zagórski added: “We want to prepare similar reports for countries in our region, to propose such solutions to our decision-makers.”
Zagórski, who sits on the advisory board of Poland’s farmers’ union Solidarity, told DeSmog he would work closely with Perry in London and Heartland’s base in Chicago to create a political nucleus in Poland.
“Warsaw is a hub for many strong conservative groups, farmers’ unions, and organisations that criticise or perhaps evaluate climate policy,” he said – adding that the launch event proved that “Warsaw can be a hub from which these activities can be organised.”
Speaking at the launch, Tomasz Sakiewicz, the head of right-wing Polish broadcaster TV Republika said: “For years, I’ve been advocating for the creation of think tanks, as they have them in the U.S.” – adding that the Heartland Institute could “inspire” Poland with “certain blueprints” modelled on America.
Farage, Perry, and Heartland
In September 2024, Farage spoke at a fundraiser for the Heartland Institute in Chicago, where he called for the group to set up a branch “across the Pond”.
Three months later, the Reform leader was the star speaker at the launch of Heartland UK-Europe in London. Perry, who reportedly first met Farage on his GB News show, was appointed its executive director.
At Reform’s annual conference in September 2025, at which Heartland hosted an event on energy policy, Perry told Politico that she had “held conversations with policymakers within Reform” and was advising the party.
Farage also joined Heartland at a gathering in January this year at a Mayfair club, with attendees including former Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Reform, which is leading UK-wide polls and won 14 councils in this month’s local elections, campaigns to scrap climate policies and dramatically increase the UK’s fossil fuel production.
The Heartland Institute, which was founded in 1984 and originally worked with tobacco giant Philip Morris to deny the harms caused by smoking, received at least $676,000 (around £500,800) between 1998 and 2007 from U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil.
Heartland previously told DeSmog that its “support comes from a diverse array of individuals and organisations who share our vision for a freer, more prosperous world.”
Heartland UK-Europe executive director Lois Perry speaking on Polish podcast 13 Piętro in May 2026.
Credit: 13 Piętro / YouTube
As DeSmog revealed, Reform has received £24 million from donors with fossil fuel interests – more than two thirds of its total income since being founded in 2019.
A number of senior Reform figures deny the scientifically established contribution of carbon dioxide to climate change. Farage himself has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant.
On her recent trip to Poland, Perry promoted Reform’s political agenda. In an interview with 13 Piętro, a podcast on TV Republika – an outlet close to the Law and Justice Party – Perry described net zero as “the deliberate de-industrialisation of the United Kingdom”, adding: “We’re going to abolish it on day one. No more subsidies, no more net zero.”
Perry added: “I did a conference recently with a bunch of woke net zero fanatics. And I stood up and said, ‘I advise Nigel Farage on all net zero policy, and I advise all of you guys to go think about getting another job, because the money is being switched off.’”
Reform was contacted for comment.
MAGA World
Perry has also claimed that the Heartland Institute “has been extremely influential in helping to shape policy at the highest level” in the Trump administration.
In May, she and Taylor attended CPAC events in Hungary and Poland alongside key Trump supporters – including Kristi Noem, the U.S. government’s then head of Homeland Security.
Taylor claimed that he “met with some very influential people at the top of the Law and Justice party” during CPAC Poland, while Perry said they “made some extraordinary progress in Poland and Hungary and some massive connections”.
Poland’s current President Karol Nawrocki, a Law and Justice Party ally who was elected last May, is a Trump supporter and earlier this month floated the idea of a national referendum on the EU’s climate policies.
In May 2025, days before Poland’s presidential election, Trump’s allies gathered at CPAC Poland to rally support for Nawrocki. Noem used the event to promise U.S. military assistance if Nawrocki won the vote.
However, last week, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth unexpectedly cancelled a planned deployment of 4,000 troops to the country.
The U.S. State Department is reportedly seeking to fund ideological allies in Europe, while Trump acolytes have campaigned across the continent in support of far-right parties.
However, they lost an ally with the defeat of Viktor Orbán in last month’s Hungarian elections, despite U.S. Vice President JD Vance campaigning for the now former Hungarian prime minister ahead of the vote.
Orbán’s government had significant ties to Reform, with senior figure Matthew Goodwin receiving direct funds from the Hungarian state, and Reform politicians including Farage publicly praising Orbán’s regime as a model for the UK.
“The recent change in government in Hungary has made it much more difficult to launch alt-right initiatives in that country today,” said political and disinformation analyst Anna Mierzynska. “That is why they are trying in Poland.”
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Nigel Farage has claimed that ‘foreign state actors’, most likely serving Moscow, accessed his phone. Photograph: Ryan Jenkinson/Getty Images
Anna Turley gives Reform leader 24 hours to report Russian hacking claim in ‘public and national interest’
The Labour chair has given Nigel Farage 24 hours to report to security services the claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors or the party will do it for him.
In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Anna Turley said it was “in the public and national interest” to ensure that a suspected overseas hack of a senior politician’s phone by a hostile state was properly investigated.
A Reform spokesperson said the incident had been reported to “the relevant authorities”, without saying who these were.
In her letter, Turley asked Farage, who has largely avoided media scrutiny in recent weeks, to set out why Harborne gave him the money, in the run-up to the 2024 general election. Farage initially said the sum was intended to pay for his security, but later characterised it as a reward for his campaigning on Brexit.
…
On Monday, Ciaran Martin, the former head of the National Cyber Security Centre, called Farage’s version of events “an entirely unsubstantiated claim and one without any merit”, saying it would be difficult to conclude the involvement of Russia based on the examination of a phone.
Martin said given the seriousness of the matter, Farage should formally report what happened to the authorities.
