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UN climate talks will be ‘uphill battle’ amid Trump rollbacks, says Cop30 chair
by Evelyn Reynolds 29 April 2025, 18:59
Crucial United Nations climate talks this year will be a “slightly uphill battle” due to economic turmoil and Donald Trump’s removal of the US from the effort to tackle global heating, the chair of the upcoming summit has admitted.Governments from around the world will gather in Belem, Brazil, in November for the Cop30 meeting, where they will be expected to announce new plans to deal with the climate crisis and slash greenhouse gas emissions. Very few countries have done so yet, however, and the world remains well off track to remain within agreed temperature limits designed to avert the worst consequences of climate breakdown.It is not clear what, if any, presence the US will have at the talks after Trump, who calls climate change “a giant hoax”, removed the world’s leading economic power from the Paris climate agreement and set about demolishing environmental regulations at home. A trade war triggered by Trump has also caused concerns over a global economic downturn, further distracting leaders from the task of cutting emissions.This backdrop will make the Cop talks challenging, its president, André Corrêa do Lago, conceded. “I think it’s going to be a slightly uphill battle,” the Brazilian diplomat said in New York on Tuesday. “Let’s say that the international context could help a little more.”View image in fullscreenAsked about the fear that other countries will also scale back their plans to address the climate crisis, Corrêa do Lago said that none had said they would do so officially. “But there is obviously some that say, ‘God, how am I going to convince my people that I have to try to lower emissions if the richest country in the world is not doing the same?,’” he said. Corrêa do Lago said that invites had yet to be sent to the US, so he did not know who will attend from the Trump administration.The focus at Cop, Corrêa do Lago said, would be on highlighting how the shift to cleaner energy and protecting forests provide tangible economic benefits to people. “That’s why we wanted to be a Cop of solutions, a Cop of action, and not so much a Cop in which you’re going to negotiate documents that you don’t know if they’re going to be implemented,” he said.“We negotiated so many things under the Paris accord, including about renewables, about energy efficiency, about transitioning away from fossil fuels, about ending deforestation. I believe that there are enough agreements on those things, now we have to translate that into the economy and into people’s lives.”Countries will again discuss climate finance at Cop30 but there remains a “very strong divide” between developed and developing countries on this issue, Corrêa do Lago said, with poorer nations urging those countries most responsible for the climate crisis to provide more funding to help deal with the impact of flooding, heatwaves, droughts and other mounting disasters. Small Pacific island states also recently called for rich countries to hurry up and submit their new climate plans.China, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, is “demonstrating an absolute conviction that it’s the right way to go and to incorporate climate into their economic growth”, according to Corrêa do Lago. Xi Jinping, China’s president, has said that his country will “not slow down its climate actions” despite Trump’s backtracking on cutting carbon pollution.Corrêa do Lago was speaking at a BloombergNEF event which featured several gloomy comments from speakers about the US’s retreat from dealing with the climate crisis and the uncertainty this has caused for clean energy developers.States, cities and businesses within the US are still pushing ahead with the energy transition despite Trump’s actions, insisted Gina McCarthy, Joe Biden’s top climate adviser.“Yes we need to recognize that we have a president who wants to deny climate, yes we have tremendous challenges moving forward but we have incredible opportunities,” McCarthy said.“Clean energy is not gone, it may have gone quiet but businesses are still jumping in to make the investments to protect our future and our kids. That is what gives me hope.” More
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Trump administration’s budget cuts endanger Meals on Wheels: ‘Life and death implications’
by Evelyn Reynolds 28 April 2025, 15:00
The Trump administration’s slashes to the Department of Health and Human Services is threatening Meals on Wheels, the popular program dedicated to combatting senior hunger and isolation. Despite decades of bipartisan support, Meals on Wheels now faces attacks from Republicans whose budget blueprint paves the way for deep cuts to nutrition and other social safety-net programs as a way to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.It’s a move anti-hunger advocates and policy experts warn could have disastrous ramifications for the millions of older Americans who rely on the program to eat each day.“It’s not hyperbolic to say that we’re going to be leaving people hungry and that this literally has life and death implications,” said Nicole Jorwic, the chief of advocacy and campaigns at Caring Across Generations, a non-profit that advocates for ageing Americans, disabled people and their caregivers. “This is not just about a nice-to-have program. These programs are necessities in the lives of seniors all over this country.”While it is still unknown exactly what will be slashed, the blueprint sets the stage for the potential elimination of the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), a key source of funding for local Meals on Wheels programs in 37 states, and serious cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) and Medicaid, which would increase food insecurity and hardship and steeply increase demand for Meals on Wheels services. The entire staff who oversaw SSBG have already been fired, according to reports.If Congress takes away SSBG funding and weakens other programs, seniors who rely on in-home deliveries or meals in community and senior centers to survive would receive less help as Meals on Wheels community providers would be forced to reduce services, add people to waitlists or turn seniors facing hunger away altogether. Some program operators who are already making tough choices about who to serve due to strained budgets and rising need have said it feels as though they are “playing God”.“We’re talking about lives here so it’s worrisome to me,” said Ellie Hollander, the president and CEO of Meals on Wheels America. “Some of our programs are already operating on razor-thin budgets and are pulling from their reserves. [If funding goes away], it could result in some programs having to close their doors.”In the US one in four Americans is over the age of 60 and nearly 13 million seniors are threatened by or experience hunger. Meals on Wheels America, a network of 5,000 community-based programs that feeds more than 2 million older Americans each year, has been a successful public-private partnership for more than 50 years. The Urban Institute estimates that the number of seniors in the US will more than double over the next 40 years.The Older Americans Act (OAA) nutrition program, which supports the health and wellbeing of seniors through nutrition services, is the network’s primary source of federal funding, covering 37% of what it takes to serve more than 250m meals each year. The exact mix of local, state, federal and private funding of Meals on Wheels’ thousands of on-the-ground community programs varies from provider to provider.Under the orders of the Elon Musk-led unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, 20,000 people at HHS have lost their jobs in recent weeks, including at least 40% of the staff at the Administration for Community Living, which coordinates federal policy on ageing and disability. Since many of those staffers helped fulfill critical functions to serving older Americans through the OAA, some Meals on Wheels programs are worried about funding disbursements, reporting data and the loss of institutional knowledge and expertise.HHS has said it will reorganize the ACL into other HHS agencies, although how that would happen is unclear. The co-chairs of the Disability and Aging Collaborative, composed of 62 member organizations that focus in part on ageing and disability, said in a recent statement: “This disruptive change threatens to increase rates of institutionalization, homelessness and long-lasting economic hardships.”Since experiencing multiple strokes that left her cognitively impaired and at risk for falls, Dierdre Mayes has relied on Meals on Wheels Yolo County to deliver meals that are the 64-year-old’s primary source of nutrition. “I’m really thriving off of the meals I get,” said Mayes, a Woodland, California, resident who also receives $20 a month in food stamps, which she uses to purchase cases of water. “The best part about it is I don’t have to go anywhere to get them.” For Mayes and other homebound older Americans, the program is a lifeline.The uncertainty around Meals on Wheels’ future is causing stress for seniors who are worried about how federal cuts, layoffs and tariffs will impact their daily deliveries. The non-profit FeedMore WNY, which serves homebound older adults in New York’s Erie and Niagara counties, said they’ve been hearing from fearful older clients as word of other recent cuts circulated in the news.Catherine Shick, the public relations manager for FeedMore WNY, said they served 4,775 unique Meals on Wheels clients last year and that demand for their feeding programs increased by 16% from 2023 to 2024, a trend they expect to continue. “Any cut to any funding has a direct impact on the individuals who rely on us for food assistance and any cuts are coming at a time when we know that food insecurity is on the rise,” she said. “We need the continued support of all levels of government, as well as the community, to be able to fulfill our mission.”In addition to delivering healthy, nutritious food, Meals on Wheels drivers, who are primarily volunteers, provide a host of other valuable services: they can look for signs of cognitive or other health changes. They can also address safety hazards in the home or provide pet support services, as well as offer crucial social connections since drivers are often the only person a senior may see in a given day or week.Deliveries have been shown to help keep seniors healthy and in their own homes and communities and out of costly institutional settings. Republicans in the House and Senate have said their goal is to reduce federal spending, but experts say cutting programs that help fund organizations such as Meals on Wheels would instead increase federal spending for healthcare and long-term care expenses for older Americans.“If people can’t stay in their own homes, they’re going to be ‘high flyers’ in hospitals and admitted prematurely into nursing homes,” said Hollander, “all of which cost taxpayers billions of dollars annually versus providing Meals on Wheels for one year to a senior for the same cost of being in the hospital for one day or 10 days in a nursing home.”Experts agree that even before the cuts, Meals on Wheels has been underfunded. Advocates and researchers say OAA hasn’t kept up with the rapid growth of the senior population, rising food costs or inflation. One in three local programs already have waiting lists with many programs already feeling stretched to their limits. For more than 60% of Meals on Wheels providers across the country, federal funding represents half or more of their total revenue, underscoring the serious damage that could be done if cuts or policy changes are made in any capacity.“It feels like a continuous slew of attacks on the programs that seniors rely on to be safe, independent and healthy in their own homes,” said Jorwic of Caring Across Generations. “Everything from cuts to Meals on Wheels to cuts to Medicaid, all these things that are being proposed and actively worked on being implemented, are a real threat to the security of aging Americans.” More
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How a solar storm could lead to a US nuclear disaster worse than Chornobyl | Mark Leyse
by Evelyn Reynolds 28 April 2025, 10:00
On 14 May 1921, a powerful solar storm – called the New York Railroad storm – caused the northern lights to illuminate New York City’s night sky. On Broadway, crowds lingered, enjoying “flaring skies” that remained undimmed by city lights. The following morning, excess electric currents shut down the New York Central Railroad’s signal and switching system in Manhattan, stopping trains. A fire broke out in a railroad control tower that was located at Park Avenue and 57th Street. Smoke filled the air. Along a stretch of Park Avenue, residents “were coughing and choking from the suffocating vapors which spread for blocks”.When a solar storm’s electrically charged particles envelop Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms that generate electric fields in the ground, inducing electric currents in power grids. Solar storms as intense as the 1921 superstorm have the potential to cause a nightmare scenario in which modern power grids, communication systems, and other infrastructures collapse for months. Such a collapse of power grids would likely also lead to nuclear power plant accidents, whose radioactive emissions would aggravate the overall catastrophe.Scientists estimate that solar storms powerful enough to collapse portions of modern power grids for months may hit Earth more often than once in a century. In July 2012, a solar superstorm, estimated to have been more intense than the New York Railroad storm, crossed Earth’s orbit, missing the planet by one week’s time.The east coast states, upper midwest, and Pacific north-west have geological characteristics – not predominant in other regions of the United States – that increase the vulnerability of power-grid infrastructures to solar storms. Unfortunately, the majority of the commercial nuclear power plants in the United States are located in east coast states and the upper midwest, two of the US regions that are most vulnerable to solar storm-induced blackouts.In a months-long blackout, nuclear plants would lose their supply of offsite electricity, which is necessary for their safe operation. Emergency diesel generators, which provide backup electricity, are designed to power cooling pumps for a number of days – not months. No nuclear plant in the United States has ever lost offsite electricity for longer than a week. In 2012, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission stated that an extreme solar storm could collapse power grids and potentially lead to reactor core damage at multiple nuclear plants.Storage pools at nuclear plants that house spent fuel assemblies, encasing nuclear waste, are also vulnerable to accidents. Spent fuel assemblies can overheat and catch fire, dispersing radioactive material into the environment, if a storage pool’s coolant water is lost.Spent fuel assemblies are so thermally hot and radioactive that they must be submerged in circulating water and cooled in a storage pool for years. Storage pools at US nuclear plants typically contain about six reactor core loads of nuclear fuel and are almost as densely packed with fuel assemblies as operating reactors – hazards that vastly increase the odds of a major accident.A spent fuel fire in an exposed, densely packed storage pool could potentially release 10 times as much caesium-137 as the Chornobyl accident is estimated to have released. Such a disaster could contaminate thousands of square miles of land and expose millions of people to large doses of ionizing radiation, many of whom might die from early or latent cancer.By contrast, if a thinly packed storage pool were deprived of coolant water, its spent fuel would likely release about 1% of the radioactive material estimated to be released by a spent fuel fire at a densely packed pool.Sufficiently cooled spent fuel assemblies can be transferred from a storage pool to dry cask storage; that is, passively cooled, liquid-free containers of steel and concrete that shield people from ionizing radiation. The inevitability of a nationwide power grid collapse that would lead to multiple nuclear disasters and untold human suffering emphasizes the need to transfer spent fuel assemblies to dry cask storage as quickly as possible.Promptly transferring the nationwide inventories of spent fuel assemblies that have been cooled for at least five years from US storage pools to dry cask storage would be “relatively inexpensive” – less than a total of $5.5bn. The economic cost of losing vast tracts of urban and rural land for generations to come because of radioactive contamination would be far more expensive.Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts introduced the Dry Cask Storage Act in 2014, calling to outlaw the practice of overloading spent fuel pools. The act, which Markey has reintroduced in subsequent congressional sessions, has not passed into law. The nuclear industry’s mismanagement of spent fuel must stop. Congress needs to pass legislation requiring the owners of nuclear plants to swiftly thin out spent fuel pools.
Mark Leyse is a nuclear power safety advocate More
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Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety
by Evelyn Reynolds 24 April 2025, 08:00
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format(“truetype”);font-weight:700;font-style:normal}.gv-hr{background-color:var(–secondary-pillar);margin-bottom:5px;margin-left:0;max-width:620px;width:100%}.gv-sub sup{color:var(–secondary-pillar);font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:unset;vertical-align:unset;line-height:1;top:unset}.gv-h2{font-family:Guardian Headline,Guardian Egyptian Web,Guardian Headline Full,Georgia,serif;font-size:28px;line-height:1.15;margin-bottom:25px}.gv-normal{color:#999}body.ios .prose hr.gv-hr,body.android .prose hr.gv-hr{background-color:var(–secondary-pillar)}body.ios .prose p.gv-sub,body.android .prose p.gv-sub{margin-top:5px}body.ios .prose h2.gv-h2,body.android .prose h2.gv-h2{font-weight:unset;margin-bottom:25px;margin-top:10px}
/**
* Data font stack
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Serif font stack
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Headline font stack
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Sans serif text font stack
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Sans serif headline font stack
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Default font scale settings
* See font-scale.html and font-scale.png for visual representations
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Grab all levels of a font the font-scale
*
* @param {String} $name – Name of the font-scale matrix (eg: headline)
* @param {Map} $font-scale ($font-scale)
*
* @example
* font-size: get-scale(header);
*
* @requires {variable} $font-scale
*
* @return {Map}
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Grab info for a particular level of a font-scale
*
* @param {String} $name – Name of the font-scale in the matrix (eg: headline)
* @param {Number} $level – Level in the matrix
* @param {Map} $font-scale ($font-scale)
*
* @example
* font-size: get-scale-level(header, 1);
*
* @requires {variable} $font-scale
* @requires {function} get-scale
*
* @return {Map}
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Get a font-size for a level in the font-scale matrix
*
* @param {String} $name – Name of the font-scale in the matrix (eg: headline)
* @param {Number} $level – Level in the matrix
* @param {Map} $font-scale – Configuration
*
* @example
* font-size: get-font-size(header, 3);
*
* @requires {variable} $font-scale
* @requires {function} convert-to-px
* @requires {function} get-scale-level
*
* @return {Number}
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Get a line-height for a level in the font-scale matrix
*
* @param {String} $name – Name of the font-scale in the matrix (eg: headline)
* @param {Number} $level – Level in the matrix
* @param {Map} $font-scale – Configuration
*
* @example
* font-size: get-line-height(header, 3);
*
* @requires {variable} $font-scale
* @requires {function} convert-to-px
* @requires {function} get-scale-level
*
* @return {Number}
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Turn any value into pixels
*
* @param {Number} $value
*
* @example
* font-size: convert-to-px(14); // 14px
*
* @return {Number}
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Default typography settings, to be included as soon as possible in the HTML
* 1. Make type rendering look crisper
* 2. Set relative line spacing to 1.5 (16px * 1.5 = 24px)
*
* @param {String} $font-family ($f-serif-text) – Default global font
*
* @requires {variable} $f-serif-text
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Font-size and line-height shorthand
*
* @param {Number} $size
* @param {Number} $line-height ($size)
*
* @example
* @include font-size(18, 24);
*
* @requires {function} convert-to-px
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Font styling shorthand
* Note: prefer the usage of the font-scale mixins to stick to the font scale
*
* @param {String} $family
* @param {String} $weight
* @param {Number} $size
* @param {Number} $line-height ($size)
*
* @example
* @include font(arial, bold, 18, 24);
*
* @requires {mixin} font-size
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Header family and weight properties.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-serif-headline
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Header typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family, weight)
* @include fs-header(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-header(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-header
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Healdine family and weight properties.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-serif-headline
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Headline typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family, weight)
* @include fs-headline(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-headline(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-headline
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Body Heading family and weight properties.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-serif-text
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Body Heading typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family, weight)
* @include fs-bodyHeading(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-bodyHeading(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-bodyHeading
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Body Copy family property.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-serif-text
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Body Copy typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family)
* @include fs-bodyCopy(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-bodyCopy(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-bodyCopy
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Data family property.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-data
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Data typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family)
* @include fs-data(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-data(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-data
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Text Sans family property.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-sans-serif-text
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Text Sans typography settings.
*
* @param {Number} $level
* @param {Boolean} $size-only
*
* @example
* // Output all properties (font-size, line-height, family)
* @include fs-textSans(3);
*
* // Output font-size and line-height only
* @include fs-textSans(3, $size-only: true);
*
* @requires {function} get-font-size
* @requires {function} get-line-height
* @requires {mixin} font-size
* @requires {mixin} f-textSans
*
* @group typography
*/
/**
* Headline Sans family property.
* Is not currently integrated into our font scale matrix,
* hence no `fs-` mixin; currently we’re just using it as a
* replacement font in a few places.
*
* @requires {variable} $f-sans-serif-headline
*
* @group typography
*/
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Light.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:normal;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-LightItalic.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:300;font-style:italic;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Regular.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:normal;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-RegularItalic.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:400;font-style:italic;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Medium.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:normal;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-MediumItalic.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:500;font-style:italic;
}
@font-face {font-family:”Guardian Headline Full”;src:url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff2”) format(“woff2”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.woff”) format(“woff”), url(“https://assets.guim.co.uk/static/frontend/fonts/guardian-headline/noalts-not-hinted/GHGuardianHeadline-Semibold.ttf”) format(“truetype”);font-weight:600;font-style:normal;
}
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Trump administration has set Noaa on ‘non-science trajectory’, workers warn
by Evelyn Reynolds 23 April 2025, 15:58
The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”.Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.“The problems are still there. We still have harmful algal blooms, we still have fisheries that are collapsing, waters you can’t swim in. These problems don’t go away because we fired all the people who were trying to solve a problem,” said one Noaa veteran, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “How do you save the arms and legs or the feet and hands when the core is dying?”The longtime research scientist with more than 20 years at Noaa has taken early retirement. “I left because it was just so demoralizing and fearful and scary,” they said.Trump administration officials are seeking to abolish the scientific research division at Noaa, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (Oar) office. It is the latest of a series of cuts at the agency that began the second Trump administration with 12,000 employees around the world, including more than 6,700 engineers and scientists.The cuts are disrupting the collection of data sets, including recordings of global temperatures in the air and ocean, and that data cannot be replaced, said the Noaa veteran.The dismantling of Noaa, they said, would harm work in many areas, from finding solutions to combat harmful algae and improving sustainable fisheries to work on new medicines and industrial products and collecting information for disaster preparation.“We can look at other countries that are actively making these mistakes, where they have air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable,” they said. “I think it’s done. I think this is done. The enemies are in the gate. I don’t see any indication so far of anyone stopping it. They’re just letting it burn. I honestly don’t understand how US science will recover.”More than 800 probationary employees at the agency were fired, reinstated, then refired this month. Employees have reported having their firings backdated and having their health insurance canceled even though premiums were being taken out of their paychecks.Rachel Brittin, worked as the federal deputy director of external affairs at Noaa before she was fired, then reinstated, then fired again as a probationary employee, with just a few months left on her two-year probation.“The whole situation is a mess,” she said. “How is Noaa going to be able to keep up with the services it provides? I don’t know. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but it’s very scary to me. The loss of anybody at Noaa is directly connected to services lost by every individual in the United States.”Contractors for the agency have been furloughed as all Noaa contracts over $100,000 have to now be approved by Trump’s Department of Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.Doge has slated 31 offices and building leases at Noaa for termination around the US. Nearly $4m in funding to Princeton University as part of a cooperative agreement with Noaa was cancelled on 8 April.Fourteen Noaa data services on earthquakes, marine, coastal and estuary science at have been slated for decommissioning, more than twice as many as in 2024.Four regional climate centers providing weather analysis tools and data for 21 states in the US have gone dark after lapses in funding, with the remaining two covering the US set to face a funding lapse in June.A reduction in force plan to cut an additional 10% of the agency’s workforce is anticipated and at least several hundred workers have taken voluntary buyouts or early retirement according to Noaa workers interviewed by the Guardian, though Noaa and the Department of Commerce did not disclose the numbers.“It seems clear that the actions that have been taken have intentionally reduced our ability to do our jobs,” said a Noaa scientist who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “You’re not expected to get anything done.”They said due to firings, early retirements and resignations, scientific research teams around the agency have been left with gaps of expertise that can’t be replaced.“We are scrambling,” they added. “We are finding workarounds, but its becoming increasingly difficult.”Marty Kardos, a research molecular geneticist at the northwest fisheries science center at Noaa, decided to resign after the agency’s violations of their collective bargaining agreement with workers meant he would be forced to move from Montana to Seattle in a week or resign.“The agency is on a non-science trajectory,” Kardos said, speaking in a personal capacity. “All the plans for research we were making for the upcoming years are out of the window. Morale is extremely bad.”The attrition of scientists and management at Noaa is effectively undermining the agency’s ability to sustainably manage fisheries and identify and recover endangered species, he said.“The agency is essentially, openly hostile to their mission and their people,” Kardos added. “A lot of this seems to be related to deregulation. The agency is responsible for the Endangered Species Act for marine species and one way to hamstring the act without repealing it is to get rid of the scientists who help to implement it.”The cuts come as the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the Trump administration have installed allies in key positions at the agency.Neil Jacobs, the Trump nominee for Noaa administrator and acting head of Noaa in the first Trump administration, has yet to be confirmed. Jacobs was caught up in “Sharpiegate” – a bizarre 2019 incident when the White House was accused of altering a Noaa map of the predicted path of Hurricane Dorian with a black marker to support an incorrect claim by Trump that the Florida-bound storm would also hit Alabama.A staffer from Doge, Bryton Shang, announced this month he was appointed as a senior adviser to the Noaa administrator. Shang was one of the two Doge staffers who flew to Los Angeles during the wildfires in January, and attempted to open a large water pump system in California.Erik Noble, dubbed Trump’s “eyes and ears” at Noaa during his first administration, is back at the agency as deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere and is reviewing contracts at the agency with Keegan McLaughlin, a special assistant at the commerce department and former intern for the 2024 Trump campaign.Noaa was a target of Project 2025, the conservative roadmap for a second Trump administration. That document pushed to “break up NOAA” and labeled the agency “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry”.“Understanding things lets us make decisions that can put us on a track to things getting better. Knowing bad news doesn’t create the bad news. It lets you be prepared to take actions that may let you avoid the worst consequences,” the Noaa scientist at Oar added on the Trump appointees and the authority they are being given over scientific decisions.“Pretending that our resources are inexhaustible doesn’t make them inexhaustible,” they added. “I don’t think people understand the arrogance of thinking: ‘Hey, I think I understand this, even though I know nothing about it.’ This whole antithesis to experts, I don’t understand it. Would you want to do that with your own personal health? Why would you do it with any kind of complex system?”Noaa and the Department of Commerce did not respond to multiple requests for comment. More
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in Elections
How Maryland Hit Its 30×30 Goal
by Aurelia Butler 22 April 2025, 00:35
Nine states have set goals to conserve 30 percent of their land by 2030. Maryland got there first.The protected land includes a one-acre fish hatchery at Unicorn Lake in eastern Maryland and the sprawling Green Ridge State Forest in the west. It includes shorelines, farms and woods around Naval Air Station Patuxent River, and the Chesapeake Forest Lands, some 75,000 wooded acres that are home to species like bald eagles and the once-endangered Delmarva fox squirrel.None of it can be developed, and all of it has helped Maryland reach a landmark conservation goal six years ahead of schedule, before any other state that’s joined an effort known as “30 by 30.”The program is part of a global initiative to protect 30 percent of the Earth’s land and waters by 2030. In 2023, Maryland joined the effort and a year later, Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, announced that the goal had already been met. Nearly 1.9 million acres of land has been permanently protected from development, and the state has set a new target, to conserve 40 percent of its land by 2040. More
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The Trump administration is sabotaging your scientific data | Jonathan Gilmour
by Evelyn Reynolds 21 April 2025, 14:00
United States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel – it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don’t use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They’re stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger – so now we must advocate for these federal resources.That’s why we at the Public Environmental Data Partners are working to preserve critical environmental data. We are a coalition of non-profits, academic institutions, researchers and volunteers who work with federal data to support policy, research, advocacy and litigation work. We are one node in an expansive web of organizations fighting for the data American taxpayers have funded and that benefits us all. The first phase of our work has been to identify environmental justice tools and datasets at risk through conversations with environmental justice groups, current and former employees in local, state, and federal climate and environment offices, and researchers. To date, we have saved over a hundred priority datasets and have reproduced six tools.We’re not fighting for data for data’s sake; we’re fighting for data because it helps us make sense of the world.The utility of many of these datasets and tools comes from the fact that they are routinely updated. While our efforts ensure that we have snapshots of these critical data sources and tools, it will be a huge loss if these cease to be updated entirely. That’s why we are “life rafting” tools outside of government – standing up copies of them on publicly accessible, non-government pages – hoping that we can return them to a future administration that cares about human and environmental health and does not view science as a threat.The second phase is to develop these tools, advocate for better data infrastructure, and increase public engagement. There’s a question of scope – if the government stops sharing National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration data, we don’t have the resources to start monitoring and tracking hurricanes. For many of these critical data sources, the government is the only entity with the resources to collect and publish this data – think about the thousands of weather stations set up around the world or the global air pollution monitors or the spray of satellites orbiting the earth. On the other hand, we do have the expertise to build environmental justice tools that better serve the communities that have borne the brunt of environmental injustice, by co-creating with those communities and by building from what we have saved from the government – like the Council on Environmental Quality’s CEJST, the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability and Environmental Justice tools.A common refrain of the saboteurs is that if these functions that they are targeting are important enough, the states or the private sector will step in to fill the gap. While some of these functions of the federal government are replicable outside of government, privatization will render them less accessible, more expensive and subject to the whims of the markets. The states can also step in and fill some gaps – but many of the biggest challenges that we’re facing are best tackled by a strong federal government. Furthermore, many states are happily joining this anti-science crusade. The climate crisis and pandemics don’t stop politely at state borders. If data collection is left up to the states, the next pandemic will not leave a state untouched because it dismantled its public health department – but such actions will leave a gaping hole in our understanding of the risks to the residents of that state and its neighbors. What’s more, some states do not have the resources to stand up the infrastructure required to shoulder the burden of data collection. Coordination between federal and state governments is essential.Data is being stolen from us; our ability to understand the world is being stolen from us. Americans will die because the Trump administration is abdicating its responsibility to the people – this censorship regime will have dire consequences. That’s why we must stand up for science, we must be loud about the importance of federal data and we must put the brakes on Trump’s un-American agenda.
Jonathan Gilmour is a data scientist at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, a fellow at the Aspen Policy Academy, and coordinator at the Public Environmental Data Partners. More
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Fifteen years after Deepwater Horizon, Trump is setting the stage for disaster | Terry Garcia
by Evelyn Reynolds 20 April 2025, 12:00
Last month, I joined nearly 500 former and current employees of National Geographic, where I was executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years, urging the institution to take a public stance against the Trump administration’s reckless attacks on science. Our letter pointed out that the programs being dismantled are “imperative for the success of our country’s economy and are the foundation of our progress and wellbeing. They make us safer, stronger and more prosperous.” We warned that gutting them is a recipe for disaster.In the face of this danger, none of us can remain silent.I say this from the unique perspective of having been closely involved in the two most significant environmental disasters in US history: the Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon oil spills. Fifteen years ago this Sunday, an enormous explosion tore through the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and unleashed an environmental catastrophe that devastated the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion triggered the release of more than 3m barrels of oil that polluted 1,300 miles of coastline from Louisiana to Florida. Eleven lives were lost, ecosystems were ravaged and the economic toll soared into the billions.I served on the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, which investigated the root causes of the disaster, and before that I led the federal government’s implementation of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Restoration Plan. I have witnessed first-hand the human and economic toll exacted by these events. Men and women who, for generations, had made a living from the sea were suddenly confronted with the possibility that an entire way of life would be lost.Despite such painful lessons of the past, we find ourselves once again hurtling toward disaster. The Trump administration’s personnel and programmatic cuts at science, environmental and safety agencies, and the wholesale rollback of environmental regulations, threaten to unravel decades of progress in safeguarding our country. These actions aren’t just misguided – they’re a dangerous rejection of the hard-won knowledge gained from former crises and a gamble we cannot afford to take.Among the many alarming moves by the Trump administration are plans to weaken offshore drilling safety measures implemented in response to the Deepwater Horizon calamity, such as the reversal of the Biden administration’s ban on drilling in sensitive coastal areas, including the Arctic, and the closure of regional offices responsible for oil spill response. Eliminating these measures demonstrates a callous disregard for lessons learned at a staggering human and economic cost.Disturbingly, these actions are but a small part of a larger effort to weaken environmental regulation and oversight under the guise of restoring government efficiency. Take the recent rollback of dozens of Environmental Protection Agency health and safety regulations and the reported plan to eliminate the agency’s scientific research office. The administration claims these moves will unleash US energy and lower the cost of living, when in fact the only thing they’re guaranteed to achieve is undermining fundamental protections that keep our air and water clean. The mass layoffs and plans to dismember the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), where I was deputy administrator from 1997 to the end of 1999 and prior to that its general counsel, have nothing to do with cost savings – they’re an outright assault on science. Targeting programs that monitor ocean health, track ecosystem changes and study climate impacts – essential to understanding and mitigating looming threats – will leave us blind to and defenseless against the dangers ahead.Cuts to science funding amplify the harms, jeopardizing our ability to innovate solutions, assess risks and respond effectively to crises. In 2010, we lacked even basic data about ocean conditions in areas around the ruptured Deepwater Horizon well. This absence of critical knowledge hindered response and recovery efforts, including understanding the impacts of using oil dispersants in the deep ocean. After the spill, robust government support for science enabled researchers to develop new response and cleanup technologies, better understand long-term ecological impacts, and provide critical insights that helped shape environmental and safety policy. Without government support, these advances would have been impossible – and they will be impossible in the future as funding is slashed.The Trump administration’s insistence that its actions will reduce bureaucratic burdens or spur economic growth is false and deliberately misleading. It’s gaslighting on a national scale. The only sure result is that the burden of risk will be shifted on to communities, small businesses and ordinary Americans. The destruction of habitats and livelihoods is not an abstract consequence of environmental disasters. They devastate families, cripple economies, poison food supplies and leave communities struggling for decades. Businesses are boarded up, and community members suffer life-altering health consequences. After the Deepwater Horizon spill, losses in commercial and recreational fishing, tourism and property values amounted to tens of billions of dollars; cleanup and restoration costs exceeded $60bn – far surpassing what preventive measures would have required.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump and his industry allies will paint such an event as an unforeseeable tragedy, a terrible mishap, a sad accident. Don’t buy it.As we mark this somber anniversary, we cannot allow the cautionary tales of Exxon Valdez and Deepwater Horizon to fade into history, only to be repeated when the next horror strikes. Science and environmental protections are our first line of defense against catastrophe. Now is the time to demand that our government stop the madness and commit to strong environmental and safety regulations, rigorous scientific research, and adequate funding for the agencies tasked with protecting our health and shared resources. The price of ignoring science and dismantling regulations is far too high.
Terry Garcia was National Geographic’s executive vice-president and chief science and exploration officer for 17 years. He also served as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and deputy administrator of Noaa, as well as its general counsel More

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