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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Congressionally mandated climate reports disappeared from their federal
websites
By Seth Borenstein, AP
Updated:
12:02 PM EDT, Wed July 2, 2025
Source: AP
Legally mandated disappeared this week from the federal websites built
to display them, making it harder for state and local governments and
the public to learn what to expect in their backyards from a warming
world.
Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and
lives. Websites for the national assessments and the US Global Change
Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or
referrals elsewhere. The White House, which was responsible for the
assessments, said the information will be housed within NASA to comply
with the law, but gave no further details.
Searches for the assessments on NASA websites did not turn them up.
NASA did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the information in
the assessments, did not respond to repeated inquiries.
“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,” said University of Arizona climate
scientist Kathy Jacobs, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report.
“It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the
National Climate Assessment is no longer available,” Jacobs said.
“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.”
Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was President Obama’s
science advisor and whose office directed the assessments, said after
the 2014 edition he visited governors, mayors and other local officials
who told him how useful the 841-page report was. It helped them decide
whether to raise roads, build seawalls and even move hospital
generators from basements to roofs, he said.
“This is a government resource paid for by the taxpayer to provide
the information that really is the primary source of information for
any city, state or federal agency who’s trying to prepare for the
impacts of a changing climate,” said Texas Tech climate scientist
Katharine Hayhoe, who has been a volunteer author for several editions
of the report.
Copies of past reports are still squirreled away in NOAA’s library.
NASA’s open science data repository includes dead links to the
assessment site.
The most recent report, issued in 2023, included an interactive atlas
that zoomed down to the county level. It found that climate change is
affecting people’s security, health and livelihoods in every corner
of the country in different ways, with minority and Native American
communities often disproportionately at risk.
The 1990 Global Change Research Act requires a national climate
assessment every four years and directs the president to establish an
interagency United States Global Change Research Program.
In the spring, the Trump administration that their services weren’t
needed and ended the contract with the private firm that helps
coordinate the website and report. Days later, two of the biggest and
most reputable Earth science societies and pursue a collection of
reports in its place.
Additionally, NOAA’s main climate.gov website was recently forwarded
to a different NOAA website. Social media and blogs at NOAA and NASA
about climate impacts for the general public were cut or eliminated.
“It’s part of a horrifying big picture,” Holdren said. “It’s
just an appalling whole demolition of science infrastructure.”
The national assessments are more useful than international climate
reports put out by the United Nations every seven or so years because
they are more localized and more detailed, Hayhoe and Jacobs said.
The national reports are not only peer reviewed by other scientists,
but examined for accuracy by the National Academy of Sciences, federal
agencies, the staff and the public.
Hiding the reports would be censoring science, Jacobs said.
And it’s dangerous for the country, Hayhoe said, comparing it to
steering a car on a curving road by only looking through the rearview
mirror: “And now, more than ever, we need to be looking ahead to do
everything it takes to make it around that curve safely. It’s like
our windshield’s being painted over.”
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