Climate Anxiety? Trump’s Solution: STOP Research

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode! Timeline of Main Events February 2025: The Trump administration initially fires more than 800 probationary workers at NOAA. March 2025: A federal court blocks the Trump administration's initial firing of NOAA workers, and they are reinstated. March 2025 (Late): The Trump administration begins cutting and withholding federal grants for several major universities, starting with $400 million in funding pulled from Columbia University. This is followed by a pause of $175 million in funding to the University of Pennsylvania and a review of roughly $9 billion in federal grants and contracts to Harvard. April 8, 2025: News reports about President Trump's NASA pick and their hearing for a top spot within the agency emerge. April 9, 2025: The Trump administration announces it is cutting nearly $4 million in federal funding for climate change research at Princeton University, citing "exaggerated and implausible climate threats" and increased "climate anxiety." This cut impacts the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System, a collaboration between NOAA and Princeton. April 10, 2025: The Trump administration informs NOAA workers that they are being fired again, following an appeals court overturning the earlier ruling that had blocked the terminations. This affects hundreds of climate and weather specialists. April 11, 2025:News breaks about President Trump's preliminary budget proposal to Congress, known as a "passback," which would cut NASA's science budget by nearly half. Details emerge that the proposed NASA cuts would severely impact astrophysics, heliophysics, Earth science, and planetary science, potentially terminating missions like the next major space telescope (including the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope) and the Mars Sample Return mission. The Hubble and Webb telescopes would remain supported. An internal budget document reveals the Trump administration's aim to end nearly all climate research conducted by NOAA. This includes eliminating NOAA's climate research centers, cutting hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists, and slashing funding for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR). The proposed NOAA budget cuts would also impact competitive climate research grants, regional climate data collection, the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, college and aquaculture sea grant programs, the National Ocean Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service. NOAA forecasters declare the end of La Niña.