National Climate Assessment

‘Like Putting a Flat Earther in Charge of NASA’: Trump Appoints Climate Denier to Key Climate Post

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Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Demonstrators gather outside Trump Tower on 5th Ave to raise awareness about climate change during an Earth Day Protest in New York City on April 22, 2026.
 (Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Putting an “utterly unqualified” person like Matthew Wielicki in charge of the National Climate Assessment, said one critic, “would jeopardize the integrity of one of the nation’s most important climate science resources.”

The Trump White House has quietly reconstituted the US Global Change Research Program—but that doesn’t mean the administration has turned over a new leaf on combating the climate crisis.

According to a Thursday report from Politico, the administration decided to bring the USGCRP, which tracks the impact of manmade climate change and produces the country’s National Climate Assessment report, back to life just a little more than a year after terminating its funding.

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But there’s a twist: A source has confirmed to Politico that the USGCRP is now being headed by Matthew Wielicki, a former University of Alabama geochemist and self-described “professor in exile” who frequently attacks climate science in social media posts.

In his role, Wielicki will be in charge of writing the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report outlining the impacts that climate change is having on US infrastructure and the economy.

In an interview with Politico, Wielicki revealed that he’s been soliciting ideas for what to include in the next National Climate Assessment from X, the social media website owned by Elon Musk that is notorious for being awash in right-wing propaganda and scientific misinformation.

In the past, noted Politico, Wielicki dismissed climate research entirely, arguing that a “significant portion of the climate science literature is nothing more than stamp collecting,” while suggesting that scientists are fabricating data to give a false impression of a warming planet.

Dr. Carlos Martinez, senior climate scientist for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wasted no time blasting Wielicki’s appointment.

“Reconstituting the UCSGCRP only to place the National Climate Assessment under the auspices of an utterly unqualified climate science denier,” Martinez said, “would jeopardize the integrity of one of the nation’s most important climate science resources.”

Martinez emphasized that the National Climate Assessment “is not a political document” and is “supposed to be developed through a rigorous, transparent, multi-agency scientific process involving federal experts, external scientists, extensive review—including by the National Academies—and public input.”

Ryan Katz-Rosene, professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, said Wielicki’s appointment “sadly… is not a joke,” and that it was “like putting a Flat Earther in charge of NASA.”

Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
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 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.
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Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
Continue Reading‘Like Putting a Flat Earther in Charge of NASA’: Trump Appoints Climate Denier to Key Climate Post

‘Downright Orwellian’: In Midst of Planetary Emergency, Trump Admin Takes Down Website Hosting Influential US Climate Report

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

People watch the smoke and flames from the Palisades Fire in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood on January 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. 
(Photo: Tiffany Rose/Getty Images)

“This is the modern version of book burning,” said one scientist.

Amidst an ever-worsening climate emergency, the Trump administration this week took down the website hosting the U.S. government’s preeminent climate assessment, sparking outcry from experts who have worked previous versions of the report.

Considered the definitive body of research about how planetary warming is transforming the nation, the National Climate Assessment—which is required by Congress to be published every few years—gives a rundown of how global warming is impacting different sectors of the economy, ecosystems, and communities.

The five assessments that have been published so far were previously available through the website globalchange.gov, but the address stopped working Monday afternoon, according to The New York Times. As of Wednesday morning the website was still down.

However, it is still possible to access some of the climate research. The fifth assessment is available through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. An archived version of the fifth assessment is also available via Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. According to a NASA spokesperson who spoke to NPR, all five editions of the assessment will also be available on NASA’s website, though it’s not clear when.

“It’s critical for decision-makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is. That is the most reliable and well-reviewed source of information about climate that exists for the United States,” Kathy Jacobs, a University of Arizona climate scientist who coordinated the 2014 version of the assessment, toldThe Associated Press.

“This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts,” she added.

“They’re public documents. It’s scientific censorship at its worst,” said Peter Gleick, a California water and climate scientist who worked on the version of the assessment published in 2000, toldThe Los Angeles Times. “This is the modern version of book burning.”

Howard Crystal, legal director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program, said in a statement on Tuesday that “it’s downright Orwellian for the Trump administration to take the nation’s premier climate reports and just yank them offline.”

“Hiding these congressionally mandated reports won’t make climate change go away, but it will leave Americans uninformed and unprepared,” he said.

Earlier in April, the Trump administration enacted cuts to the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which oversees the production of the National Climate Assessment, and later that month dismissed hundreds of scientists and experts working on the next version of the report, the 6th National Climate Assessment.

Meanwhile, a new budget document outlining fiscal year 2026 spending for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) details deep cuts to climate research at the agency, including the elimination of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, though some of its activities would be transferred to the National Ocean Service and the National Weather Service.

The budget proposal “eliminates all funding for climate, weather, and ocean Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes. It also does not fund Regional Climate Data and Information, Climate Competitive Research, the National Sea Grant College Program, Sea Grant Aquaculture Research, or the National Oceanographic Partnership Program,” according to the document.

With the termination of Climate Competitive Research, which funds academic institutions to do climate-related research, “NOAA will no longer support climate research grants,” the document also states.

“That’s it—with that statement, the administration signals its intent to have NOAA, arguably the world’s leading oceanic and atmospheric governmental organization, completely abandon climate science,” wrote Alan Gerard, a meteorologist who previously worked for NOAA.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Continue Reading‘Downright Orwellian’: In Midst of Planetary Emergency, Trump Admin Takes Down Website Hosting Influential US Climate Report