by Daniel Brouse
July 17 2025
The Trump administration on Monday took yet another step to make it harder for Americans to find major, legally mandated scientific assessments detailing how climate change is endangering the nation and its people.
Earlier this month, official government websites that hosted the authoritative, peer-reviewed National Climate Assessments went dark. These sites provide critical information to state and local governments and the public about what to expect in their communities from a warming world and how best to adapt. At the time, the White House claimed NASA would host the reports to comply with the 1990 law requiring their publication, and NASA initially said it would comply.
On Monday, however, NASA abruptly reversed course, announcing it would no longer host the reports.
“The USGCRP [the government program that oversees and used to host the report] met its statutory requirements by presenting its reports to Congress. NASA has no legal obligations to host globalchange.gov’s data,”
— NASA Press Secretary Bethany Stevens, in an email.
This means no data from the National Climate Assessment or the government science office that coordinated the work will be available on NASA’s website.
This reversal is particularly striking because, on July 3, NASA publicly stated:
“All preexisting reports will be hosted on the NASA website, ensuring continuity of reporting.”
Now, that promise has been broken.
“This document was written for the American people, paid for by taxpayers, and it contains vital information we need to keep ourselves safe in a changing climate, as the disasters that continue to mount demonstrate so tragically and clearly,” said Katharine Hayhoe, Texas Tech climate scientist, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and co-author of several National Climate Assessments.
By systematically removing public access to critical climate data, the Trump administration is not only ignoring scientific reality but actively undermining the tools Americans need to protect themselves from worsening climate impacts. This calculated opacity comes at a time when the frequency of extreme weather, floods, wildfires, and heatwaves is escalating rapidly, making timely, science-based adaptation planning more essential than ever.
The Great Race Against Time: Trump vs. Mother Nature
- The Decline of Economic Power and the Ascent of Environmental Reality
- Deviation, Cracked Fractals, Climate, and Economics
- The Destructive Legacy of Trump’s Climate and Economic Policies
- The Persistence of Climate Change Denial: Impact and Consequences
- Politicians Hinder Fight Against Climate Change
- Trump’s War on Climate Science: Shuttering NASA’s GISS and Silencing the Truth
Donald Trump has consistently dismissed the science of climate change, calling it a hoax and dismissing policies aimed at addressing it as “The Green New Scam.” His repeated use of the phrase “Drill, Baby, Drill” symbolizes an energy policy that prioritizes fossil fuel extraction over sustainable alternatives. These policies have only intensified the climate crisis, posing severe risks not only to the environment but to the global economy as well. If left unchecked, Donald Trump’s economic and environmental policies will render the planet uninhabitable for future generations.
The evidence is irrefutable: climate change is accelerating at an alarming pace, and the associated costs—both economic and human—are rising exponentially. Immediate, decisive action is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prevent further environmental collapse. Our updated climate model, now grounded in chaos theory and incorporating complex social-ecological factors within a dynamic, non-linear framework, predicts that global temperatures could increase by up to 9°C this century—far surpassing the previous estimate of a 4°C rise over the next thousand years. Such extreme warming will render large portions of the planet uninhabitable within this century, threatening the stability of ecosystems and human societies alike.