Latest reports suggest that the President Donald Trump administration in the United States has dismissed all the scientists and other authors working on the next authoritative look at how climate change is affecting the United States.
It is expected that the latest move will allow the administration to either skip the congressionally mandated report altogether, or pursue an alternative, potentially far more skeptical take on what is otherwise widely accepted climate science. The latter would fly in the face of the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing to the threats global warming poses to the US.
It will be recalled that the last National Climate Assessment came out in 2023. It found that climate change is already transforming every region of the country, with more frequent and intense extreme weather events and a slew of other costly and harmful effects.
During the first Trump administration, the Fourth Assessment came out after being worked on mainly under the Obama White House. Trump officials sought to deep-six the findings by publishing it the day after Thanksgiving.
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Congress mandated these reports — conducted by a mix of federal and outside scientists under the US Global Change Research Program — be produced every four years. The next is due by 2027.
Before the dismissal of about 400 authors slated to work on the next iteration, NASA had already canceled a key contract with the consulting firm ICF to support the US Global Change Research Program, which produces the reports.
This was an early indication of trouble in the assessment process. Climate scientists told CNN the reports are uniquely valuable for officials at the regional, state and local levels, and expressed concern over the potential for an alternative report featuring fringe scientific views.
“Losing this report makes us less prepared for extreme weather, wildfire, sea level rise and other important changes we face on a warming planet,” said Dustin Mulvaney, a professor at San Jose State University who was slated to be a contributing author to the sixth assessment report.
Story was adapted from CNN.
