I’d like to report a murder. Trump’s fossil lobby wants to strangle American climate science. You can’t even talk about it. We track the worst with Romany Webb from the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, and reporter Bob Berwyn from Inside Climate News. Officially now: wildfires, floods, and freaky weather are just a hoax.
Listen to or download this Radio Ecoshock show in CD Quality (57 MB) or Lo-Fi (14 MB)
President Donald Trump on global warming:
“Well, first of all, I’m not a believer in global warming. I’m not a believer in man made global warming. It could be warming, and it’s gonna start to cool at some point. And, you know, in the early in the nineteen twenties, people talked about global cooling. I don’t know if you know that or not.
They thought the Earth was cooling. Now it’s global warming. So I am not a believer, and I will unless somebody can prove something to me. I believe there’s weather. I believe there’s change, and I believe it goes up and it goes down and it goes up again.”
Listen to or download this show theme song: “Flying in the Dark” (Lyrics Alex Smith, music AI, Creative Commons free for non-profit use) – 3 minute .mp3
THE AI TAKEOVER HAS ALREADY HAPPENED
Remember when we worried Artificial Intelligence could run the U.S. Government? Stop worrying. It has already begun. Buried in the rush of news dismantling the former American government, this detail: a senior staffer for Elon Musk created a special AI chatbot for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. That explains a lot.
Defunding and deleting climate science and information is so broad, and runs so deep, no human could track it all. That is part of the point. But we know Donald Trump has no idea of the plans and details. Elon Musk is too busy with his chainsaw appearances and endless social media posts to be handling all this, even with lots of Ketamine. The 23-year-olds sending dismissal letters don’t comprehend what and who they are deleting. Instead, AI helps develop the language used in climate change and related fields, scans vast data collected by raids on most government agencies, and then recommends suitable targets. If it finds the word “Transition” in a program for mentally challenged adults, or for cities seeking clean energy, it’s all the same, just cut it all.
No doubt the DOGE team are using the latest AI model released by Musk’s XAI venture. But it is still dumb. The Chatbot knows what words humans expect, but cannot know what the words actually mean. This is the worst of early attempts at artificial intelligence let loose in an experiment with the lives of millions of people, in America, and around the world.
Here are some of the low-lights in just the last week or so. As Bob Berwyn reported, there is “‘an All-Out War on Science and Scientists’ by the Trump Administration”. It starts with the data, climate information that has for decades been the backbone for other scientists, journalists and the public for reliable climate data. The word “climate” has been removed from NASA’s prime web site url. Thousands of links now go to “404: Page not found.” Even the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) web pages have been scrubbed. From the Departments of Defense, State, Agriculture or Transportation climate change no longer exists.
Watchdog Groups Anticipate ‘an All-Out War on Science and Scientists’ by the Trump Administration
Typical and only possible with Artificial Intelligence, this Trump climate purge goes amazingly deep, into every nook and cranny of the former Federal system. The gang even suspended five billion dollars allocated to fill in gaps of electric chargers in the highway system. You would think Elon would spare those, with his electric car business. The orders are to slash and delete, including databases of information carefully collected by scientists for a couple of decades. Sure there may be copies somewhere, on a server in Finland, but the rest of us will never find it.
After they came for the data, they came for the scientists who study climate and look for ways to adapt. Thousands of grants to scholars and experts have been suspended or dumped. Postdoctoral experts with assured grants are left in limbo and afraid to talk to the press. Scientists with Fulbright Grants are told to remove the words “climate change” from their titles or work. The Federal Government is now like the State of Florida, where the law forbids employees even mentioning “climate” – in a state wracked by extreme storms, harsh heat and unstoppable rising seas.
Climate and Environmental Justice Programs Stalled by Trump Freeze, Despite Court Orders
Oliver Milman at the Guardian newspaper discovered that even “Course materials at the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center at the University of Hawaii will delete mentions of ’climate change’” leaked emails show. Just months ago, a young person entering University could see a bright future in climate science and renewable energy. We may lose a generation of new scientists we badly need. Already there is a brain drain of the best and brightest seeking positions in Europe or Australia. Canada may not be safe. The Universities need a climate defense plan.
American Diplomacy is now all fossil-fuels all the time. You know Trump immediately withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords. The U.S. just pulled it’s delegation from the United Nations climate science meeting in China. The largest polluter of the atmosphere in history, and still a contender for worst polluter, ain’t talking about it any more. They will not just pretend it away. They will do what Canada did around 2010 [Smithsonian link, may be removed] with Prime Minister Stephen Harper: become the oil, gas and coal representatives, water down wording of everything and work to make sure there is no global agreement to save us from the worst of climate change. The industry doesn’t have to send hundreds of lobbyists: Donald Trump is their man. He is a blatant and vocal cheer-leader for climate wrecking industries.
Trump Moves Again to Exit the Paris Agreement. Here’s What That Means
Meanwhile cities are still burning and flooding more often because climate has been destabilized. The next disasters may hit people harder, because the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA, has been slashed to satisfy Internet rumor mongers. Hundreds of FEMA staff were just fired with an email and no severance. I see a coming clash between reality and propaganda, even for Trump voters, but then it will be too late to stop the climate shift.
The Environmental Protection Agency sustained the deepest cuts with a $900 million reduction to its climate programs effective February 31. This eliminated the Climate Change Research Fellowship Program. That supported 47 postdoctoral researchers, while terminating grants to 33 university-based climate modeling initiatives. The Trump/Musk attack reaches right out into the Universities. I expect Him to directly threaten Universities who research climate change, as He did for the diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI programs.
There is no bottom to how insidious this gets. For example, Abrahm Lustgarten at Propublica finds “Trump Order Shifts the Financial Burden of Climate Change Onto Individuals”. Quoting Lustgarten:
“One of President Donald Trump’s most damaging strikes at the foundation of U.S. climate policy is buried deep in a sweeping Inauguration Day executive order focused on “Unleashing American Energy.” Half way through the lengthy document is a directive that would obliterate an obscure but critically important calculation the government uses to gauge the real-world costs that climate change is imposing on the U.S. economy.
Getting rid of the measure, called the “social cost of carbon,” would upend energy and environmental regulations meant to address climate change and could have the long-term effect of shifting costs from polluting industries directly onto Americans as the expenses of climate change rise.” [quote from Propublica.]
While the New York Times and most mainstream media put a brave face and kinder words to all this, the best and almost last uncensored work on the Trump attacks are at Propublica.org, with Wired magazine close behind.
For a brief time, people recognized fossil fuels are causing massive damages, close to knocking out the insurance industry and maybe banking too. Lawsuits for damages caused by other deadly products like tobacco and opioids have been successful. ExxonMobil, BP and all the giants feared they were next. Their man in the White House is trying to protect the energy industry from any liability for damage from their products.
That Executive Order, and so many statements by Trump make clear the goal: climate mitigation gets in the way of profits for fossil fuel companies. That is why climate science has to go. America suffered an energy coup, like a corpse of the failing civilization trying to rise one more time to feed on human blood.
Let’s get to our guests.
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Radio Ecoshock is not funded by any government. Trump/Musk cannot fire me. No corporation tells me what you should hear. I do not belong to any political party. Simply put, nineteen years ago I dedicated my life to communicating climate science and advocating for all living things on this planet. I have not missed a week on radio since. With over 100 radio stations, at least a million downloads of large audio files from the Ecoshock server, etc., etc., – producing and distributing this program costs far more than I can afford. My personal income and lifestyle is pretty humble. Keeping this going definitely depends on the support and generosity of you, the listener. Please take a minute to give what you can to keep this vital voice of science going. Thank you.
– Alex
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REPORTING CLIMATE SILENCING
BOB BERWYN
Who can keep track of the wild attacks on every aspect of climate science in the United States. For that we need a real reporter on the beat – who is not afraid to speak out. Bob Berwyn is a European-based journalist with Inside Climate News.
Bob’s work is published all over – from Mother Jones and Grist to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In December 2024, Radio Ecoshock played 13 minutes of Bob covering harsh rules against climate activism at the COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. [That was courtesy of SeaChange Radio]. Now we don’t need to go that far. The attempted murder of American climate science is happening right at home.
Listen to or download this half hour interview with Bob Berwyn in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
Canadians lived through a lot of this around 2011 with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He literally represented the Alberta oil-patch. To get an interview with a Canadian climate scientist, the government demanded I first send questions to the Prime Minister’s Office. Weeks later, after the story passed, I might or might not get a reply. I wonder if Trump’s people took a page from the Canadians.
Perhaps we should have expected this. In 2017, in the first week of the first Trump Administration, the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency came under a media blackout and a temporary freeze on grants and contracts. Why does this real estate developer and failed casino operator has such an urgent hate for scientists and climate science?
Strangely, as of Feb 26th, the central government web site climate.gov is still visible. A clever propagandist would slowly change all the language and tone at that site to fool us – or they could keep it as a honey pot to see who wants climate info. But these guys aren’t that bright. I predict they will just wipe the site away with it’s thousands of links from documents all over the world. It’s on a Death Watch. Download anything you may need now.
This is not happening just on the Net. The new Administration is freezing or canceling all kinds of funding for anything even remotely sounding like climate change. That means real scientists with years of hard-to-develop expertise are suddenly out of a job. Research programs built over decades just crashed in a week. This is not just about money. It translates into people’s lives in the real world.
There are all kinds of postings in social media from scientists who just lost years of work or their first dream job. Families may have to move. Other universities may have to close off any new admissions for their Doctoral programs due to funding cuts. Some of the brightest will probably go overseas, a climate and energy science brain drain that will hurt America for a long time.
Even U.S. weather forecasters have to get official clearance to talk to their Canadian counterparts. The same goes for scientists on either side of the Great Lakes. My studio is in Canada, so that is an international contact. I guess some flackster in the Trump Administration would have to approve my interviews with NASA or NOAA experts. Ditto the BBC. America has been a climate science leader since the late 1980’s with James Hansen. Now Trump is trying to make all that go dark. Will he succeed?
A couple of weeks ago, Radio Ecoshock ran an interview with our FIRST ANONYMOUS SCIENTIST. We’ve never done that before, and did not need to. More reporting will contain “a source who cannot be named”. This Trump science attack is warping climate journalism in America. Who knows what leverage will be applied against media and reporters? For some, death threats are already a fearsome normal.
A couple of weeks ago, the Federal Emergency Management Agency managed to withdraw $80 million in federal funding from a bank account belonging to New York City. Just last week the Feds tried to get the US Attorney’s Office in DC to send banks a notice to authorize returning money from other accounts, granted by the Inflation Reduction Act. The pretext would be a supposed criminal investigation that did not exist. Long-time top criminal prosecutor in the DC Office, Denise Cheung refused and resigned. No bank account is safe, and a government contract isn’t a contract. Where does this lead?
Trump Administration Claws Back $80 Million Sent to NYC to House Migrants
This whole purge reminds me of Senator McCarthy finding Communists in ever government office in the 1950’s. It is so heavy handed. Under the guise of using “artificial intelligence” Elon Musk’s team are just searching for climate keywords and hitting the delete button. I guess research into a “climate of fear” among gun owners could be canceled, just for the words used. All kinds of agencies are changing wording to evade the algorithms. Is this the 1984 world George Orwell described?
Meanwhile cities are still burning and flooding more often because climate has been destabilized. The next disasters may hit people harder, because the Federal Emergency Management Administration, FEMA, has been slashed to satisfy Internet rumor mongers. Hundreds of FEMA staff were just fired with an email and no severance. Do you see a coming clash between reality and propaganda, even for Trump voters?
AGENCIES NEUTERED
As we nervously watch a record hot Arctic and low sea ice, the administration dissolved NOAA’s Arctic Research Commission, terminating 14 ongoing studies on permafrost thaw dynamics. That sounds like inviting disaster, including fast-moving methane emissions from the far North.
How about this: a February 10 memorandum slashed $600 million from DOE’s climate-related research, including complete defunding of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Climate, known as ARPA-C. This eliminated 22 carbon capture demonstration projects and halted development of next-generation climate simulation supercomputers. At the National Park Service, February 1 staffing changes removed 37 climate adaptation specialists who developed wildfire mitigation plans for Western states. It is like the climate monster is coming, so we leave the door open and wait to get hit. It’s like a death-wish.
AMERICAN CLIMATE CORPS IS NO MORE
Dana R. Fisher, the “Apocalyptic Optimist” will appear on Radio Ecoshock in a couple of weeks. She spotted this: “the American Climate Corps, a Biden-era program to deploy people into jobs related to fighting climate change, blinked out of existence after Trump took office.”
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“SILENCING SCIENCE TRACKER”
ROMANY WEBB
It seems impossible to track the horrors of deconstructing climate science in the United States. Elon’s algorithms scan vast government databases, many confidential, to find any mention of words like climate change, warming, or extreme weather. They are hunting down – like criminals – climate people and projects to defund, fire, and delete them. Not since McCarthy, has repression of academia and science hit these abysmal lows. It may go lower.
Romany Webb is Deputy Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Romany is a Research Scholar at Columbia Law School. She is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Climate, and Senior Advisor on Climate Science at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. [Romany served on Committees for the America Bar Association, the National Academy of Sciences, and United Nations Assessments.
Listen to or download this 18 minute interview with Romany Webb in CD Quality or Lo-Fi
The Sabin Center has all sorts of useful tools for any activist, journalist or academic. For example, they maintain a database of all those news reports that disappear in time – about science and scientists being silenced. It’s called the “Silencing Science Tracker”.
Romany specializes in environmental law. As we speak, the new Administration is rampaging past all sorts of barriers, moving faster than legal recourse through the courts. It feels like America has entered a period of lawlessness. Is the law still relevant – and capable of defending people and the environment?
According to Reuters, newly appointed Administrator of the EPA Lee Zeldin “seeks to claw back $20 billion in climate funding.” A lot of that comes through the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It turns out, the Sabin Center set up a tracker for the IRA billions. You can see where the money was supposed to go.
Emil Bove, the Acting Deputy Attorney General, and Ed Martin, Trump’s nominee for DC US Attorney, ordered the US Attorney’s Office to open an investigation. They wanted a justification to grab back money from private bank accounts. To her credit, long-time top criminal prosecutor in the DC Office, Denise Cheung refused and resigned. This case is important for the civil liberties of all Americans.
Radio Ecoshock interviewed dozens of scientists from big government agencies like NASA and NOAA. Now I’m afraid to email them in case that helps the cut. With my studio in Canada, scientists now have to go through a puzzling set of hoops to get permission to speak on radio. It looks like our listeners will have to depend on scientists from Canada, Europe, and the rest of the world. Is America going dark on climate change? Get ready for a lot of expert voices from the UK, Australia, Europe, Canada – anywhere climate sanity manages to continue.
WILL LAWYERS HIT THE STREETS IN PROTEST?
Frankly, a lot of us have given up on the law. The Supreme Court is stacked in favor of almost anything Trump does. The Justice Department, the Attorney General and the FBI seem to be in Trump’s pocket. How will thousands of other American lawyers who care, try to save what we can?
Trump, Musk and his followers have criticized the courts. In the past, countries attacked their own lawyers and judiciary. Lawyers have been jailed, disappeared or killed in China, Turkey, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia. If the U.S. legal system gets in the way, is it far-fetched to think the whole legal system might be attacked by the new government?
I recall the Lawyers Movement in Pakistan. Thousands of lawyers, clerks and judges closed the courts and marched in the streets, in their black robes, to protest the suspension of the chief justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, by Army dictator Pervez Musharraf. Over a million lawyers are listed by the American Bar Association. At what point do lawyers gather to protect science, medicine, and the rule of law – against a would-be sovereign President? I look forward to the lawyers movement, Judges for climate action, and all that.
SEE ALSO:
How to find climate data and science the Trump administration doesn’t want you to see
Published: February 14, 2025
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MORE GREAT REPORTING ON THIS AMERICAN SCIENCE DISASTER
Here is some great reporting from Politico by Benjamin Storrow and Jean Chemnick – a must read: “Viciousness’ of Trump’s climate attacks stuns even his critics – President Donald Trump has attacked nearly every aspect of the U.S. effort to confront rising temperatures.”
Storrow and Chemnick write:
“His cost-cutting orders have led to the firings of thousands of people from the Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Energy and the Interior, with even deeper slashing on the way. He’s dammed the flow of billions of federal dollars for energy rebates, low-income solar installations, electric vehicle chargers and more — sometimes flouting courts that ordered the money reinstated….
…The White House did not respond to a request for comment. But Energy Secretary Chris Wright expressed the administration’s view of climate change this week when he described efforts to zero out greenhouse gases as a malevolent goal of governments to acquire power.
“Net Zero 2050 is a sinister goal,” Wright told conservative leaders attending a conference in London. “It’s a terrible goal. It’s both unachievable by any practical means, but the aggressive pursuit of it — and you’re sitting in a country that has aggressively pursued this goal — has not delivered any benefits, but it’s delivered tremendous costs…”
“…Trump left little mystery about his intentions during the presidential campaign, railing against electric vehicles, wind turbines and what he called Biden’s “Green New Scam” at rally after rally. He has long ridiculed climate science, joking last year that rising temperatures would lead to more oceanfront property.”
“The State Department rescinded $4 billion in pledged funding to the United Nations Green Climate Fund. The Treasury Department ditched a group that studied the financial risks of climate change because it was organized to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement, of which the U.S. is no longer a part.
And a host of climate-related programs at USAID have been halted or terminated amid Trump’s attempt to close the agency. They include installing solar panels on hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa, and to alert farmers in Central America of impending extreme weather events, so they can cover their crops.”
MORE MUST-READ NEWS OF THE GREAT SILENCING
Trump Order Shifts the Financial Burden of Climate Change Onto Individuals
by Abrahm Lustgarten
Feb. 21, 2025
Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’
US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety
Oliver Milman Fri 21 Feb 2025
Climate and Environmental Justice Programs Stalled by Trump Freeze, Despite Court Orders
Climate and Environmental Justice Programs Stalled by Trump Freeze, Despite Court Orders
EPA’s chief is also trying to claw back $20 billion, implying wrongdoing. Attorneys call it an evidence-free tactic to get around judges’ orders.
By Marianne Lavelle, Dylan Baddour, Lisa Sorg, Nicholas Kusnetz
February 16, 2025
Trump administration pauses $3 billion marked for electric vehicle charging stations
February 7, 2025 [NPR]
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We are out of time. I’m Alex Smith. Thank you for listening, and caring what is going on in this crazy world.
Fascinating! We’ve known for years, decades really, that the collapse of our civilization would be ugly. Truly terrifying to think that this is just the start.
Find a place where it may still be possible to become at least partially self-sufficient (yes, it takes a village) and start building “lifeboats”.
You’re gonna need them.