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In 'Disservice to the Public', Trump Fires Content Team for Climate.Gov
"Hiding the impacts of climate change won't stop it from happening, it will just make us far less prepared when it does," one fired contractor said.
Jun 11, 2025
In its latest attack on climate science, the Trump administration has fired everyone who produced content for Climate.gov, the public-facing website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Program Office.
A former contractor who asked to be anonymous told The Guardian that their entire team had been let go from their government contract on May 31, the outlet reported Wednesday.
"It's targeted, I think it's clear," Tom Di Liberto, a former NOAA spokesperson who was fired earlier in the year, told The Guardian. "They only fired a handful of people, and it just so happened to be the entire content team for Climate.gov. I mean, that's a clear signal."
"I would hate to see it turn into a propaganda website for this administration, because that's not at all what it was."
The site's former program manager Rebecca Lindsey, who lost her job in the Trump administration's mass firing of probationary employees, agreed.
"It was a very deliberate, targeted attack," Lindsey told The Guardian, explaining that her former boss had told her that the orders came "from above" to cut the team's funding from a larger NOAA contract slated for renewal in May.
Climate.gov is currently well-respected for providing accurate, accessible information about the causes and consequences of the climate emergency.
"We were an extremely well-trusted source for climate information, misinformation, and disinformation because we actually, legitimately would answer misinformation questions," the anonymous contractor said. "We'd answer reader emails and try to combat disinformation on social media."
Oliver Milman, an environmental correspondent for The Guardian U.S. who did not break the news, described it as "one of world's leading sources of information on climate change."
Now, its ultimate fate is uncertain. The contractor said that a few pre-written pieces were scheduled to be posted on the site during June, but after that, it is unclear whether the site would continue to update or remain visible to the public.
There is also what Lindsey termed a more "sinister possibility": that the administration would use the site to publish false or misleading information dismissing the reality and risks of the climate emergency.
"I would hate to see it turn into a propaganda website for this administration, because that's not at all what it was," the contractor said.
The administration did keep two web developers on staff, which means it is possible it intends to keep the website running with new content.
In either case, however, the firing of the content team builds on a pattern in which President Donald Trump and his administration are making it harder for the public to access accurate scientific information, thereby impeding people from making informed decisions. It follows moves such as the dismissal of all of the scientists working on the National Climate Assessment and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's purging of a panel of vaccine experts.
"To me, climate is more broad than just climate change. It's also climate patterns like El Niño and La Niña," the contractor said. "Halting factual climate information is a disservice to the public. Hiding the impacts of climate change won't stop it from happening, it will just make us far less prepared when it does."
Outside scientists responded to the news with dismay.
"Sigh," wrote Robert Rohde, the chief scientist at Berkeley Earth.
Eliot Jacobson, a retired professor of mathematics and computer science, called the firings "your 'moment of kakistocracy' for today," referring to government by the least qualified.
The move comes amid other attacks on Americans' ability to prepare for and respond to the climate emergency and the many extreme weather events—from heatwaves to more extreme hurricanes—that it fuels.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned on Tuesday that the Trump administration's firings of heat experts at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the National Integrated Heat Health Information System would make it harder to respond to heatwaves—the deadliest type of extreme weather in the U.S.—as summer intersects with global heating to increase risk.
"Instead of investing in keeping people safe as temperatures spike, the Trump administration's staff and budget cuts to NOAA have left local weather service offices serving millions of people in hundreds of U.S. counties without the experienced leadership of meteorologists in charge. And firing federal heat health experts will further jeopardize protections for people," Juan Declet-Barreto, a bilingual senior social scientist for climate vulnerability at UCS, said in a statement.
"The president's proposed budget calls for more massive cuts to agencies like NOAA doing lifesaving work," Declet-Barreto continued. "And its regulatory rollbacks and cuts to climate and clean energy funding are aimed at increasing the use of fossil fuels, which are largely responsible for these rising temperatures. So, while the country suffers in what could be record-breaking temperatures, especially outdoor workers and vulnerable populations, fossil fuel executives will sit back in their air-conditioned offices watching President Trump do their bidding and grow their profits."
Meanwhile, Trump on Tuesday offered a timeline for winding down the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—which he has long threatened to eliminate.
"I'd say after the hurricane season we'll start phasing it out," Trump said, as NBC News reported. In the future, Trump said, more responsibility would fall with the states, any federal disaster relief would be dispersed directly from the president's office, and less money would be offered.
However, a FEMA higher-up toldCNN that the president's proposal was unrealistic.
"This is a complete misunderstanding of the role of the federal government in emergency management and disaster response and recovery, and it's an abdication of that role when a state is overwhelmed," they said. "It is clear from the president's remarks that their plan is to limp through hurricane season and then dismantle the agency."
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Trump Cares More About Growing Fossil Fuel Profits Than Shrinking Your Energy Bill
Many things the Trump administration does are simply designed to waste energy, because that is good for the incumbent producers, i.e. Big Oil.
May 20, 2025
It would be tempting to dismiss U.S. President Donald Trump’s many functionaries as idiots, because many of them are. Here, for instance, is a transcript of leaked audio from a recent staff meeting led by acting Federal Emergency Management Agency director David Richardson, a man with no experience in disaster management (but who did write what the reliable Kate Aronoff described as a bad autobiographical novel with the inspired title War Story). Anyway, put yourself in the place of the FEMA staff hearing this highly relatable anecdote:
The other day I was chatting with my girlfriend, she's from Texas. She's got like huge red hair. Like, she's from Texas. And I said something and she said, well, you know, oh, I know what it was. I said, how come it takes so long to drive 10 hours from Galveston to Amarillo? And she said, well, you know, Texas is bigger than Spain. I didn't know that. So I looked at the map. Texas is huge! I mean, if you put it in the middle of Europe, it takes up most of Europe up. However, they do disaster recovery very, very well, and so does Florida, okay. So, we should be able to take some lessons learned on how Florida and Texas do their disaster recovery, we’ve got to spread that around and get other folks do it some way. And there should be some budgeting things that they have, I bet. I bet Gov. [Greg] Abbott has a rainy day fund for fires and tornadoes and disasters such as hurricanes, and he doesn't spend it on something else.
But if there’s endless idiocy at work (some of it as cover—if I was taking flak for my $400 million flying bribe I’d start tweeting about Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen too), there’s also a kind of underlying feral cunning. All the stupid stuff heads in the same direction.
For example, the administration announced earlier this month it would get rid of the Energy Star program, which rates various appliances by their efficiency so that consumers (and landlords and building owners) can make wise choices.
“The Energy Star program and all the other climate work, outside of what’s required by statute, is being de-prioritized and eliminated,” Paul Gunning, the director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Atmospheric Protection, told employees during the meeting, according to the recording obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Gunning’s office itself is also slated for elimination.
This is a program begun by Republicans—former EPA administrator William K. Reilly wrote a fond reminiscence yesterday for The Washington Post, who pointed out that if you were actually worried about, say, waste, then this would be the last program to cut:
The program costs $32 million in annual federal outlays to administer but has saved consumers $200 billion in utility bills since 1992—$14 billion in 2024 alone. The averted air pollution, which was the EPA’s initial objective, has been considerable, equivalent to the emissions of hundreds of thousands of cars removed from the road.
But what if you wanted to burn more fossil fuel? What if you wanted to stretch out the transition to cheap, clean renewable energy? Well then it would make a lot of sense.
Or take last week’s news, from EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, who vowed that he would eliminate the “start-stop” technology in cars because “everyone hates it.” This feature keeps your car from idling at stoplights—when you tap the accelerator the car turns back on. It’s not mandatory for carmakers, and drivers can turn it off with a button. But, as Fox News points out,
The feature can improve fuel economy by between 4% and 5%, previous EPA estimates showed. It also eliminated nearly 10 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year as of 2023.
Meanwhile, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, according to excellent reporting in Heatmap News Friday, is taking federal money designed to convert a steel plant to electricity and hydrogen and instead using it to convert the steel plant to… the fossil fuel it’s already using. The company, its CEO explained, is working with the Department of Energy (DOE) to “explore changes in scope to better align with the administration’s energy priorities,” and those priorities, of course, are to use more energy.
Occam’s Razor, I think, would lead us to say that many things the Trump administration does are simply designed to waste energy, because that is good for the incumbent producers, i.e. Big Oil. That’s not a particularly sophisticated rule for understanding their actions, but remember: Trump was bankrolled by the fossil fuel industry, and that industry has always wanted us to waste energy. Remember all that endless Trump nonsense about low-flow shower heads? They cut the use of hot water by about 40%. Ditto incandescent bulbs, which use 75-90% more energy, and which Trump is trying to bring back. It’s strange to be pro-waste, but there you are. This administration is garbage in every way.
That all of this costs consumers money is obvious—but we don’t really pretend to care about consumers any more. Remember: two dolls and five pencils apiece. No, the ultimate customer for the Trump administration is the oil industry. And really for the GOP as a whole: It became increasingly clear this week that the Republican congressional majority is all too willing to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, even though that will come at a big price to consumers, in its effort to help Big Oil.
And Big Oil is in trouble. Power demand in New England hit an all time low in late April, because so many homes now have solar panels on top. In, um, Saudi Arabia solar arrays are springing up left and right. Bloomberg’s David Fickling chronicles the “relentless” switch toward spending on clean energy, albeit too slowly to hit the most important climate targets. A new global poll of business executives found that 97% were eager to make the switch to renewable energy for their companies, on the grounds that
Electricity is the most efficient form of energy, and renewables-generated electricity a value-add to businesses and economies. In many countries, fossil fuels, with their exposure to imports and volatility to geopolitical shocks, are a liability. For business, this isn’t just inconvenient. It’s dangerous. Volatility drives up costs, turns strategic planning into guesswork, and delays investment.
That’s how sensible people with sensible goals—like making their businesses work, think. But it’s exactly the opposite of how our government now imagines its role. The DOE put their strategy pretty plainly in a filing to the Federal Register last week: Their goal, they said, was “bolstering American energy dominance by increasing exports and subsequently the reliance of foreign nations on American energy.” If you’re a foreign government, that about sums it up: Either you can rely on the sun and wind which shine on your country, or you can rely on the incredibly unreliable U.S. China, meanwhile, is essentially exporting energy security, in the form of clean energy tech.
So the goal for the rest of us, as we resist Trump and resist climate change, is pretty clear: Do everything we can to speed up this transition to clean energy, here and everywhere. Solar works, solar is cheap, and solar is liberating.
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40+ Groups: Trump Admin Push to Dismantle FEMA a 'Direct Threat' to Millions
"Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits."
Apr 14, 2025
Over 40 organizations on Monday collectively rejected the Trump administration's threats to dismantle the Federal Emergency Management Agency and called on Congress to defend FEMA, which helps state, local, tribal, and territorial governments prepare for and recover from disasters.
The coalition's letter to Congress came in response to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's declaration last month that "we're going to eliminate FEMA," which echoed President Donald Trump saying during a January trip to disaster zones in North Carolina and California that "I think we're gonna recommend that FEMA go away."
FEMA was an independent agency from its formation in 1979 until 2003, when it became part of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth co-chair a council Trump created to review FEMA, which is set to send the president recommendations by late July. The administration has already started terminating agency staff as part of a broader effort to gut the federal government.
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them."
"The administration's calls to transfer the burden of disaster preparedness and response obligations to state and local governments by gutting FEMA or eliminating the agency altogether are dangerously out of step with reality," argued the dozens of climate, consumer protection, disaster recovery, environmental justice, housing, resilience, and science groups.
"Climate-driven extreme weather is ravaging our communities," the coalition noted. "From the deadly back-to-back Hurricanes Milton and Helene last fall, to this year's devastating LA wildfires, and recent historic heavy rainfall and extensive flooding across Southern and Midwest states, American communities need resources to prepare for and recover from more frequent and severe extreme weather."
Last year—the hottest in human history—the U.S. endured 27 weather disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion, figures expected to rise as the Trump administration further enables the climate-wrecking fossil fuel industry. The costliest event of 2024 was Helene, at $78.7 billion. The hurricane impacted several states but was particularly devastating for North Carolina.
Democratic North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein said last week that "I learned that FEMA refused our request to extend its 100% reimbursement period. I got this news while I was in Newland with families who lost their homes in the storm. The need in western North Carolina remains immense—people need debris removed, homes rebuilt, and roads restored."
"I am extremely disappointed and urge the president to reconsider FEMA's bad decision," Stein added on social media. "Six months later, the people of western North Carolina are working hard to get back on their feet; they need FEMA to help them get the job done."
The coalition warned Monday that "shifting the responsibility for disaster recovery to state governments—many of which are already under-resourced—is dangerous. States, especially smaller ones or those hit repeatedly by extreme weather, don't have the capacity and resources needed to respond to today's scale of climate-related disasters on their own."
"FEMA plays a vital role in stepping in to support state and local governments when hurricanes, wildfires, and floods overwhelm them, helping to repair roads and bridges, clear debris, and provide direct aid like food, shelter, and emergency assistance to survivors. The toll of increasingly severe climate disasters is stark," the coalition continued. "Without a well-resourced and functioning FEMA, communities will be left without the lifesaving resources they need when a major disaster hits."
The letter highlights the importance of FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), a program that helps people "strengthen infrastructure and mitigate the impacts of disasters," and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which "is the main—and sometimes only—flood insurance option available to most homeowners in flood-prone areas."
"FEMA remains one of the few federal lifelines for communities trying to recover and rebuild from extreme weather, climate-related impacts, natural hazards, and other events," the letter concludes. "Now is the time for Congress to stand against unjustified attacks against FEMA and reject senseless cuts that will leave communities defenseless when a catastrophic disaster hits. Dismantling federal emergency preparedness programs is a direct threat to the safety, stability, and recovery of millions of Americans."
Signatories include the Appalachian Citizens' Law Center, Consumer Federation of America, Friends of the Earth, Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, Greenpeace USA, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, New York Communities for Change, Presente.org, Public Citizen, Stand.earth, Turtle Island Restoration Network, and Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Calls to gut FEMA in the age of climate change are not just unthinkable—they're a slap in the face to communities across the country dealing with the impacts from severe thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, and wildfires," said Deanna Noel of Public Citizen's Climate Program in a statement. "The federal government's first responders to disasters are the employees from FEMA."
"Gutting the federal governments' emergency response essentially blindfolds officials from the suffering and frontline needs after major disasters strike," Noel added. "Our elected officials must stand up for their constituents, not bow to a dangerous agenda that abandons our communities when they are most vulnerable."
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