[LINK] Trump's attack on science

[Antony Barry]

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>From - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/21/trump-scientific-research-climate?utm_term=67c053d794fbaa3ecc6fd23f4854c25b&utm_campaign=DownToEarth&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=greenlight_email


The Trump administration<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration> is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”

The US government is withdrawing grants and other support for research that even references the climate crisis, academics have said, amid Donald Trump’s blitzkrieg upon environmental regulations<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/19/trump-fossil-fuel-climate> and clean-energy development<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/17/red-states-solar-trump-funding-freeze>.

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Researchers said work mentioning climate is being particularly targeted. One environmental scientist working in the western US who did not want to be named said their previously awarded grant from the Department of Transportation for climate-adaption research had been withdrawn, until they retitled it to remove the word “climate”.


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“Specifically, references to ‘climate change’ and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) have been removed or revised to align with the new priorities,” an administrator at the center wrote. “Please exercise caution when referencing these topics during instruction.”

The administration’s animus towards climate research has even extended overseas via the US’s Fulbright exchange program, which offers about 8,000 grants a year to American and foreign teachers and scholars.

Kaarle Hämeri, chancellor of the University of Helsinki in Finland, said the descriptions for Fulbright grants had been changed to remove or alter the words “climate change”, as well as “equitable society”, “inclusive societies” and “women in society”.


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At the National Science Foundation (NSF), a $9bn federal agency that supports research in science and engineering, teams have been combing through active projects looking<https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025/02/04/national-science-foundation-trump-executive-orders-words/> for dozens of words, including “women”, “biased” and “equality” that may violate Trump’s ban on certain grants.

The NSF, which has just fired<https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/nx-s1-5301049/national-science-foundation-fires-roughly-10-of-its-workforce> about 10% of its workforce, did not respond to questions over whether climate is also on the banned list. Regardless, grants supporting an array of scientific work have been frozen amid this zealous mission to install a newspeak among scientists, despite a court order demanding the freeze be reversed.

“[The] NSF is working expeditiously to conduct a comprehensive review of our projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders,” a foundation spokesperson said.

The freeze on grants has upended scientific work across federal agencies, hospitals and universities, placing the future of hundreds of millions of dollars’ of research into question.

“The people most vulnerable in our society in terms of health and public safety are now even further at risk,” said Jennifer Jones, director of the center for science and democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

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