Major print, broadcast, and cable outlets are providing substantially less climate change news coverage amid sweeping management changes and staff and news beat cutbacks. General audiences interested in climate increasingly are on their own to seek out responsible news coverage, seldom encountering it in their normal day-to-day routines.

It doesn’t take a sophisticated content analysis to recognize that the volume of news coverage – both column inches and airtime – of climate change science and impacts has declined significantly from levels of recent years.

That’s the case in particular for general audiences viewing or reading the so-called “legacy media” – those serving large urban areas or via traditional broadcasts or major cable outlets.

It’s not that climate coverage is unavailable. Academic researchers provide quantitative data and analysis of global warming/climate change trends, and useful overviews of climate coverage are provided by groups like those at the University of Colorado and Yale University. Also, those wanting to seek responsible coverage can find it through targeted, and usually online, outlets, often at little or no cost.

The important factor here is that the broad general public now is far less likely than in the past to casually or routinely “encounter” climate news coverage. Now more often they must take the initiative to seek out those news stories, rather than have the news providers routinely come to them. That’s a big deal.

Nor does the ongoing decline in major media coverage of climate change news stand apart from declining major media coverage of other important news. The fact is that vast “news deserts” are appearing across the country.

Subscribe now

At the turn of 2026 we in this Substack forecasted substantial changes in the mass media over the coming year. Truth is that many of those changes have come about, or are in process. For example, they have involved major long-lived news organizations such as national broadcast and cable networks, The Washington Post, and public radio.

Forecast for CNN: Cloudy

Take CNN. The roller-coastering “on again/off again/what now?” fight over CNN is the nation’s most closely watched and most important media merger story at this point. The $110 billion death-dance pits Skydance Media, the owner of Paramount, on one side and Warner Brothers Discovery on the other. The conflict over the potential merger, with the futures of CNN and HBO and more up for grabs, continues unabated.

Transfer of Warner properties to a Paramount group headed by the billionaires Larry and David Ellisons – both seen as Trump acolytes – is widely viewed in news circles as an effort to bring CNN, in particular, into President Trump’s corner. That is what media scholars say has happened at CBS since it was brought into the Paramount family. Such a move likely would lead to less frequent and less in-depth CNN coverage of climate change science and policy. The CNN newsroom is widely reported to be fearful of being muzzled and refrained from what they view as their responsibilities as independent and legitimate news journalists.

Recently a really big shoe fell – putting the whole transaction on hold. The parties agreed, at Paramount’s suggestion, to delay further action in light of antitrust lawsuits by 12 Democratic state attorneys general and unionized writers and editors. The on-hold standoff could last at least well into 2027, with still-unresolved differences being contested in litigation. One can only guess at the ultimate outcome.

The commercial TV news networks and PBS-NPR

The so-called “legacy” national television news networks – ABC and CBS, and to a somewhat lesser extent NBC, have undergone dramatic changes in the past few months. So too have public television and public radio.

CBS came under Skydance control when it was acquired by Paramount in 2025. That switch resulted in the selection of Bari Weiss to head CBS News, bringing widespread firings and fear of a pro-Trump bias in the legendary network’s news coverage.

Other legal pressure came more directly from the Administration. While not admitting to wrongdoing, CBS agreed to pay $16 million to President Trump’s future presidential library to settle a suit over the editing of content in a “60 Minutes” interview with then Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

The very public resignation of CBS News veteran “60 Minutes” journalist Scott Pelley, a former anchor of the CBS Evening News, has led to further concerns, some of which the younger Ellison sought to temper in an opinion column in The New York Times on August 4.

ABC has been subjected to similar heat. It paid $15 million to Trump’s future presidential library foundation and another $1 million for legal fees in a defamation suit brought by the President. Trump had charged that ABC’s George Stephanopoulos incorrectly reported that he had been found guilty of a “rape” of former Vanity Fair editor E. Jean Carroll. (Trump eventually paid Carroll $5 million after a jury found Trump guilty of sexual abuse, battery and subsequent defamation.)

NBC Universal, a major subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, was investigated by the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, over the network’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. FCC chair Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, has criticized the network’s coverage of Trump deportation policies. Also, President Trump has repeatedly threatened to revoke NBC\Comcast and ABC licenses for not carrying a highly political July 2026 prime-time speech he gave (only CBS carried it live and in full).

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, for TV, and NPR, for radio, throughout 2026 have been coping with and adapting to the Republican-controlled Congress’s rescinding of $1.07 billion in 2026 and 2027 funding, earlier approved by the Congress in an unusual two-year appropriation. Roughly 70 percent of CPB’s annual federal funds of about $535 million had been going to the 1,500-plus local TV and public radio stations, mostly in small, rural, and remote areas.

NPR closed its dedicated climate desk and let go several of its science reporters. And CPB closed its doors entirely in January 2026. Public TV and NPR stations, have had to make reductions and patches in their newsrooms, including cutting back on climate coverage along with other news coverage.

The print media

Not all the upheaval in the media world so far in 2026 has been limited to broadcast and cable and public broadcasting. At the once-proud Washington Post, the paper’s popular and highly regarded “Weather Gang” – providing daily weather forecasts and keen insights on climate change goings-on – has folded and has been reincorporated by its founder, meteorologist Jason Samenow as an independent online outlet. The Post’s owner, Executive Chair Jeff Bezos and former CEO of Amazon, has narrowed the focus of the paper’s influential editorial page in ways that substantially de-emphasize climate change and other issues. (See an excellent Substack by former Post climate science reporter Chris Mooney on the Post’s editorial downsizing.)

Some specialized news organizations also have undergone contraction in the past few months. For instance, the well-regarded E&E News, with its frequent climate coverage, was first merged into a broader online newsletter by its then-owner, Politico. And well-regarded and veteran science and climate journalist Dan Vergano – at various times in his career previously with USA Today and National Geographic – was let go from Scientific American soon after a subsequent owner, Springer Nature, sold the magazine to Lab X Media. Stay tuned on that one.

More media changes are likely through the remainder of 2026. As the saying goes, “the beat goes on.” Just how that will apply to the newsroom climate “beat” –- and how some offshore outlets might figure into this morass -- remains to be seen. Perhaps in a subsequent post at this site.

___________________

Bud Ward spent five decades as an environmental and climate change journalist and educator.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Richard B (Ricky) Rood is Professor Emeritus, Climate Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; writer, speaker. https://OpenClimate.org/

Richard Richels lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

The toxic smoke from burning forests is causing enormous damage to the health of the US public. Unfortunately, smoke plumes originating in Canada lead to claims that they are a failure of public policy, when in fact their increasing frequency and intensity are primarily the result of our collective inaction on climate change.

Some in the U.S. blame negligent Canadian forest management for the smoke plumes that have darkened skies and threatened human health across the upper Midwest and southern New England. They even include the President of the United States who claims he is, “. . . holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush”. There is blame for these increasing and ever more ferocious wildfires, but it is not appropriately directed at Canada.

Wildfires in the Canadian forests have been happening routinely since long before the industrial revolution, but their character has changed markedly over the past few decades. True, some of the more damaging fires that we now see are due to human activity--the way we manage landscapes such as forests, grasslands and cities, and how we manage fires when they occur. Indeed, much of the current science points to management and land use as the most important factors in explaining fires. But most of that science only applies to managed forests. In Canada, most of the forests that are burning now are not nor have they ever been managed.

Weather is a key determinant the frequency and intensity of many of the Canadian fire storms of 2026. Many are being ignited by natural processes like dry lightning. Also, they are erupting in locations where it has been extraordinarily dry for years, coupled with record high day and night temperatures and unusually strong winds. Unfortunately, they also are happening in locations that are so remote and so naturally rugged that they cannot be controlled. They burn themselves out eventually, often after heavy rains reduce their momentum.

None of this is unexpected. Warmer temperatures remove water from vegetative fuels making them both easier to ignite and more likely to spread rapidly. Where climate change has caused long term drought, record heat, and accelerated winds, the speed that fire races across forests and dry grass increases. Even urban areas can be explosive.

Subscribe now

In short, when the Canadian forest is in a dry regime, climate change increases wildfire frequency by making ignition and spreading easier. It also increases wildfire intensity because there is more fuel to burn and because stronger winds blow airborne embers higher and farther.

It is also important to emphasize that the damage of wildfire smoke is real. Exposure to high concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM) in smoke poses serious health risks, and the levels of exposure are growing. The figure above shows the plume from the Canadian fires reaching the populated east coast of the United States and beyond on July 17^th of this year. The figure below shows the plume from the historic 2020 California wildfires when 5 of the 6 largest wildfires in California history were all burning at the same time.

Fine particulate matter (PM2.5 or PM that is 2.5 ug/m3) when inhaled, goes deep into and lodges in the lungs, where it is absorbed by the blood stream. It then goes on to damage nearly all our organs. Most PM2.5 in U.S. air comes from burning of fossil fuels but the portion from wildfires is particularly damaging to human health. It is more toxic than “regular” PM2.5 because of its chemical composition and the way it affects the body. Moreover, it has been found that the mortality impacts of wildfire smoke can last up to three years after exposure.

The EPA Air Quality Index (AQI) summarizes air quality in more than 500 cities in the US. The measurements are used to communicate daily air quality levels to indicate how clean or polluted the air is and to notify the public when exposure is high enough to cause adverse health consequences. It is updated frequently to reflect current air quality conditions. The AQI is color-coded into six categories, from green (good air quality: 0 to 50) to maroon (hazardous with health warnings of emergency conditions, with everyone more likely to be affected than at lower levels of the AQI (301 and higher). Unfortunately, the AQI does not capture the extra toxicity of wildfire smoke, which means that in its presence the AQI may underestimate health risks.

Wildfire smoke is degrading the progress made in the US in reducing air pollution as measured by the AQI. Since 2016, wildfire smoke has eroded about 25% of previous multi-decadal reductions in PM2.5 concentrations in nearly three-quarters of the 48 contiguous American states. The contribution of wildfire smoke to regional and national air quality trends is likely to grow with climate change.

A recent analysis projected that, under a high warming scenario, PM2.5 from wildfire smoke could result in over 71,400 excess deaths per year by 2050, which would be a 73% increase over the estimated annual excess deaths from wildfire smoke in 2011-2020. Cumulative excess deaths could reach 1.9 million between 2026 and 2055. When monetized, the health impacts of climate-driven wildfire smoke could be among the most expensive consequences of a warming climate in the US.

In summation, uncontrollable wildfires are leading to the widespread exposure of millions of people to downstream toxic smoke, but Canada is not the primary culprit. Everyone who burns fossil fuels has contributed to their extreme numbers and record-breaking intensities. We are all partially responsible for the damage they cause.

_____________________

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Kristie Ebi is principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Richard B (Ricky) Rood is Professor Emeritus, Climate Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; writer, speaker. https://OpenClimate.org/

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

This post examines how climate-driven wildfires have become system-wide risks for the United States, with damages extending far beyond burned acreage and destroyed structures. It focuses on the economic, public health, and ecological impacts of worsening fire weather, drawing attention to estimates that place the annual national burden in the hundreds of billions of dollars. We argue that better accounting of these interconnected losses is essential, but not sufficient. Policymakers also need stronger climate data and computer models that can anticipate where wildfire damages are likely to emerge before disasters occur.

Wildfires are a natural part of many ecosystems. When a warming climate leads to drier conditions, wildfires are more difficult to manage and their potential for destruction increases. In discussion of the climate-wildfire connection, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cites research showing that the warming climate in the western U.S. has doubled the number of large fires between 1984 and 2015. NOAA also notes that rising temperature and decreasing moisture are the main drivers increasing the likelihood of weather conditions suitable for fire. This post explains how climate change is intensifying wildfire risk, examines the resulting ecological, economic, and health impacts, and considers ways to reduce future harm.

How climate change affects wildfire

The relationship between climate change and wildfires is complex and shaped by many interacting factors. Explanations that apply in one place or period may change as conditions and events evolve, and forecasts of wildfire frequency and intensity depend on how those events unfold. Still, research and observation point to several important patterns in how climate change affects fire risk.

The warming associated with climate change can lead to wetter or drier conditions. In dry regions or seasons this intensifies wildfires by making landscapes hotter, drier, and easier to ignite. As greenhouse gas emissions raise global temperatures, warmer air draws more moisture from soils, grasses, shrubs, and trees. This drying effect turns vegetation into highly flammable fuel and lowers the threshold for a spark to become a major fire.

Climate change is also lengthening the fire season. The National Park Service (NPS) reported at the beginning of 2025 that fire seasons in parts of North America have expanded by up to two months. Earlier snowmelt, hotter nights, reduced summer rainfall, severe drought, and stronger heat waves leave forests dry during the periods when they most need moisture. NASA scientists note that these changes allow fires to start more easily and spread with greater speed and intensity. A 2024 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report found that U.S. wildfire acreage has generally increased since the 1980s, with most of the highest-burn years occurring since 2000.

Subscribe now

Warming also increases wildfire risk indirectly by disrupting forest ecosystems. Shorter, milder winters allow pests such as the mountain pine beetle to survive across larger areas, killing trees and leaving behind extensive dead timber. The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) explains that this dead organic matter dries quickly and becomes volatile fuel, helping fires burn hotter, spread into forest canopies, and become harder to contain.

Finally, wildfires reinforce climate change itself. For instance, forests normally store carbon, but when they burn, they release carbon dioxide and smoke while losing future carbon-storage capacity. This added warming intensifies the drought, heat, and dryness that fuel future megafires, creating a dangerous feedback loop.

The implications for economic systems

The growing connection between climate change and wildfires is placing mounting strain on economic systems by disrupting markets and generating widespread financial losses. A 2017 review by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) had placed climate-exacerbated wildfire costs at between $71.1 billion to $347.8 billion annually. In 2023, the U.S. Congressional Joint Economic Committee (JEC) built on that work by broadening what counts as wildfire damage. Rather than focusing mainly on direct destruction and immediate recovery costs, the JEC incorporated a wider set of indirect, long-term, and economy-wide losses, raising the NIST range to between $394 billion and $893 billion per year.

The JEC expansion is important because many wildfire costs occur well beyond the burn perimeter and long after the flames are out. The report adds categories that earlier estimates often treated incompletely or left out, including smoke-related illness and premature death far from the fire itself, lost wages and reduced productivity from evacuations and unsafe air, lower property values in high-risk areas, higher insurance payouts and business interruptions, damage to watersheds and water systems, tourism losses, timber losses, and repairs to electrical infrastructure.

By counting a wider range of often compounding effects, the JEC provides a more comprehensive measure of how wildfire damages spread through the broader economy and why a full accounting is so difficult. Table 1, our summary of the study, shows the effects to be particularly burdensome in the first four categories. Taken together, they show that wildfire damage is not only a matter of burned structures and suppression costs; it is a national economic burden that spreads across many systems over time.

Table 1. Annual Wildfire Damages by Category (JEC Report)

The analysis underlying Table 1 provides useful insight into the potential magnitude of damages but it doesn’t help communities identify where damage is likely to occur so they can invest sooner in prevention, preparedness, and resilience. Gaining this insight will require greater understanding of the physical feedbacks at play and the various pathways to destruction.

These predictive simulations will require coupling wildfire modules with state-of-the-art climate Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) so the expanded frameworks can be used to estimate the economic, social, and ecosystem damages caused by fires. Because climate conditions shape wildfire risk – and wildfires alter landscapes and affect emissions, health, infrastructure, and natural capital – these models need to capture both directions of the climate-fire relationship. Doing so would give policymakers a fuller picture of future wildfire costs and help them target prevention, preparedness, and resilience investments more effectively.

Final comment

But waiting for better predictive tools is not an option. The risk of these fires spinning out of control is far too high, and the consequences too severe, to justify a passive approach. We must assist those currently in danger, while we invest in greater resilience for the future. Shifting our strategy from managing damage to actively preventing it depends heavily on stronger data systems and improved climate and wildfire models. This makes proposed administration cuts to climate research and modeling programs deeply problematic. Reducing funding would weaken the essential tools required to predict fire risks, guide safety investments, and minimize future destruction. Cutting these programs is both short-sighted and misguided, especially since dangerous fire weather will not wait for us to prepare.

To the reader: If you find this post of interest, please share it with others.

_________________

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Richard B (Ricky) Rood is Professor Emeritus, Climate Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; writer, speaker. https://OpenClimate.org/

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

The National Academies published an update of the science of attribution of extreme weather events to a warming climate, standing firm in the face of campaigns to discredit the science, scientists, and the Academies.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on July 16 released a 236-page report, Attribution of Extreme Weather and Climate Events and Their Impacts. (A press statement provides a summary.) The report by a 15-member committee updates the Academies’ 2016 assessment of attribution science. It describes the improvements in data, methods and modeling over the decade and how these advancements support improved assessments of role of climate change in extreme weather events.

The report also describes the challenges that remain. As illustrated by the figure above, confidence in attributing a climate cause is strongist for events that are essentially thermodynamic, like heat extremes or intense rainfall. But much remains to be learned about small-scale dynamic processes such as convective storms.

The attribution science covered in the report is important not only for planning community resilience and wider private and public risk management. It also is potentially relevant to litigation of claims for compensation for damage resulting from extreme weather events. This economic interest has spurred efforts to discredit the NASEM process, and with it the underlying science. This campaign has included efforts to disrupt and discredit the individual members of the Attribution Committee, and a challenge to Academy processes by some Republican members of the House of Representatives.

In a post on Truth Social earlier this month, Trump claimed that the National Academy of Sciences published “fraudulent, biased, and misleading Manuals on climate change.” He has now ordered “Federal Suspension and Debarment Officials” to review the organization’s conduct.

Although he referred to multiple “Manuals,” the president’s Truth Social screed is really about a single manual: the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The Reference Manual serves “as a go-to document judges can use when they deal with issues involving scientific testimony.” For the first time, the most recent version of the manual contains a climate science chapter. It describes the hard scientific evidence that fossil fuel burning is influencing extreme weather events. This science is anathema to the oil industry and to its conservative supporters, including the president, and they have responded by attacking the manual and its authors.

The Federal Judicial Center caved to a request by 27 Republican state attorneys general to remove the climate chapter from the Reference Manual, but it is still publicly available on the website of the National Academy of Sciences. This open defiance of overt political pressure is causing problems for the National Academies.

Established by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences is the premier scientific organization in the United States. One part of its mission is to produce and promote “the adoption of independent, authoritative, trusted scientific advice to the government for the benefit of society.”

I’m a member of the National Academy of Sciences. I’m also a climate scientist. I’m writing this essay as a private citizen, not as a representative of the official or unofficial views of the academy. I simply care about its survival.

I’ve written and spoken about Trump’s views on climate science since 2014. In essays, op-eds, podcasts, and open letters—including an open letter to Trump himself. It’s painful and disheartening to recognize that nothing I’ve written has made one iota of difference. Trump continues to incorrectly dismiss climate science as a fraud. As a con job. As a hoax.

The real fraud is Donald J. Trump. The real hoax is in Trump’s efforts to persuade Americans that human-caused climate change is not happening. That wildfires are solely due to bad forest management. Or to Canadians. The real con job is in Trump’s repeated lies about global warming. That it isn’t happening. That all changes in climate are purely natural.

Trump is destroying so much that is good and valuable in America. He’s generating the very “American carnage” he described in his first inauguration speech. Carnage in pursuit of power, revenge, personal financial gain, and ego. He is remaking the country in his own image.

Now the National Academy of Sciences is firmly in his sights.

Why? Why does he care about an organization of scientists? A confederacy of nerds? Why does he care about climate science? Why does he believe, falsely, that climate science is fraudulent?

The National Academy of Sciences is on Trump’s radar because they are in his way. The climate science the National Academy of Sciences has assessed, for over four decades, is in fundamental conflict with Trump’s political agenda: the promotion of fossil fuels and the promotion of the powerful fossil fuel interests that have supported Trump’s rise. Science shows that fossil fuel burning is affecting Earth’s climate in harmful ways. So in Trump world, science is the enemy.

The cause of President Trump’s attack on the National Academy of Sciences is simple. The National Academy of Sciences is good at what it does. It has published reports on pretty much every aspect of climate science, most recently on what’s called “event attribution,” or the influence of human-caused climate change on extreme events.

Event attribution research provides hard evidence that fossil-fueled warming is ratcheting up the intensity and frequency of heat waves, and of extreme rainfall. This is the kind of evidence that may put fossil fuel companies on the hook for damages in lawsuits. As the tobacco industry learned decades ago, knowingly causing harm to human health can affect your corporate bottom line. The fossil fuel companies will eventually learn the same lesson.

But not under Donald Trump’s watch. He will do all he can to shield the Exxons and Chevrons of the world from accountability. If shielding means destroying the National Academy of Sciences, then so be it. If shielding means crippling the ability of this country’s leading institutions to monitor global warming, to study it with sophisticated computer models, and to understand the causes of warming, then so be it. If shielding means actively discouraging the use of cheap, efficient sources of low carbon energy, then so be it. If shielding means coming up with deeply flawed government reports that portray climate science as unsettled, then so be it.

President Trump doesn’t like bad news. Human-caused global warming is bad news. It’s bad news for his deep-pocketed supporters in the fossil fuel industry. It’s bad news for the narrative that under Trump’s tenure, everything is wonderful in America. It’s bad news for the fiction that the country’s future is bright.

But our future is not bright. It’s hot. It’s a future with lots of bad news and “downers.” Excess mortality from increasingly more intense heat waves is a downer. Larger, more intense wildfires are a downer, burning not only our forests, but also our cities, and leaving us choking in acrid smoke. Sea-level rise is a downer, taking billions of dollars off the value of coastal real estate.

This is why Trump is so exercised about the National Academy of Sciences. He doesn’t want event attribution reports. He doesn’t want fast-track reports assessing the evidence for human effects on global climate. He doesn’t want US courts to have a climate science chapter in the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence, which provides judges with credible, vetted information about the reality, seriousness, costs, and causes of climate change.

It’s said that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Others have argued he actually started the fire, so that he could rebuild the city to his liking. We cannot allow our American Nero to fuel the flames while the planet burns with his reckless pro-fossil fuel policies. And we cannot allow him to destroy institutions—like the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine—that provide a candle in the growing darkness of ignorance.

____________

Benjamin Santer is a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow, and a contributor to all six scientific assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

_____________

This article appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on July 26, 2026.

Myths about the effects of extreme heat contribute to its human cost. Debunking them can save lives.

Vast areas of England, Europe, and the US continue to bake under extraordinary temperatures. In the last 30 days, more than 112.5 million Americans were under heat alerts. These will not be the only heatwaves this summer. Heatwaves are the number one weather-related cause of death in the US and Europe. Worldwide, there are more than 545,000 annual deaths from heatwaves. Yet nearly all deaths during a heatwave are preventable with sufficient advance preparation. Addressing myths about heatwaves can contribute to reducing preventable deaths. Here are a few of the more prominent ones.

1) I’m not at risk

All humans need to keep their core (internal) body temperature within a narrow range to protect their cells and organs. Humans have behavioral and physiological mechanisms to achieve that. Behaviorally, we seek out shady places or water bodies to cool down. Physiological mechanisms to dissipate excess heat include radiating heat to the environment; conducting heat by touching a cooler surface; transferring heat when cooler air or water contacts the skin (convection); and sweating to cool the body by evaporation.

Exposure to high temperatures over several hours may overwhelm the effectiveness of these mechanisms, resulting in a rise in the internal body temperature that then starts heating our internal cells and organs. This can ultimately lead to heatstroke, a medical emergency with a high fatality rate.

Everyone is susceptible to heat stress. A dramatic example occurred in 2001 when the 27-year-old Minnesota Vikings offensive lineman Korey Stringer died from exertional heat stroke during training camp. Another example was the death of a 23-year-old Brazilian student in 2023 during a concert by singer Taylor Swift . With nearly two-thirds of Americans living in counties vulnerable to heat threats, the individual stories are endless. For example, many delivery drivers and roofers have died from working in the heat.

Subscribe now

Many groups are at higher risk during heatwaves, including older adults; young children; pregnant women; people with chronic medical conditions such as cardiovascular, respiratory, or kidney disease; people who take drugs, such as beta blockers, that reduce the ability of the body to sweat; and outdoor workers. Extreme hot temperatures are deadly, from heat stroke, cardiovascular disease, and nearly 70 other causes of death. People with epilepsy may experience more seizures; people with multiple sclerosis may experience exacerbations; and people with disabilities may suffer more. Some places also are at higher risk, such as redlined districts.

2) Few people die during a heatwave

The numbers of reported deaths during heatwaves significantly underestimate the true burden because those deaths are typically from heatstroke, which is a small fraction of total deaths. The total number of deaths are calculated based on a well-established and validated approach that counts the numbers of excess deaths; these are the numbers of deaths that occurred during a heatwave minus the numbers of deaths that occurred during the same period in earlier years. It can take months to a year before the death certificates required for these analyses are available. This limited visibility of heat-related deaths is why heat is a “silent killer”.

For example, for many years, the US Centers for Disease Prevention and Control estimated that about 700 people died annually from heatwaves in the US. CDC revised that estimate to about 2000 deaths in 2020. However, excess deaths analyses indicate about 12,000 deaths occur from the heat annually in the contiguous US. In Europe, which has more than twice the population of the US, 67,873 heat-related deaths occurred in 2022; 50,798 in 2023; and 62,775 in 2024.

3) Cold weather is more deadly than heatwaves

In countries such as the United States and regions such as Europe, there are many more deaths during the winter than the summer season. Because temperatures during summer have a strong, positive association with mortality, it is common, but incorrect, to assume that warming winters will reduce mortality, despite persistent comments on social media. Three lines of evidence support that cold temperature-related mortality is unlikely to be significantly reduced in future decades.

The first is observations that increasing temperatures over the past twenty years did not reduce cold temperature-related mortality. Despite warmer temperatures from 1985-2012, cold-attributed mortality increased in the US. Many cold-related deaths do not occur during the coldest periods or in the coldest places. Warmer US cities generally experience more mortality from extreme cold events and cold temperatures than colder cities. For example, hypothermia death rates are 66% higher in Houston than in New York City.

The second is that more deaths are categorized as occurring during colder than warmer temperatures because of statistical approaches used in analyses of temperature-related mortality. Every location has a temperature at which mortality is the lowest, with mortality increasing linearly as temperatures increase or decrease. The lowest mortality temperature is warmer than the average temperature, which results in more deaths associated with “colder” temperatures.

The third is that the leading causes of winter season mortality, cardiovascular, respiratory diseases other than influenza, and cancer, do not have strong associations with temperature. About half of winter season deaths is attributed to cardiovascular diseases. Seasonality in other factors may account for this, such as higher systolic and diastolic blood pressure in winter months along with changes in vasoconstriction, blood viscosity, red blood cell count, plasma LDL cholesterol, plasma fibrinogen, and possibly C-reactive protein.

4) Air conditioning is the answer

Most people can maintain their core body temperature during heatwaves without using air conditioning. Electric fans can be effective for many living in temperate climates, particularly when combined with misting with water to increase evaporation. Other options include putting your feet in cold water, draping an ice towel around your neck, and drinking cold water. Of course, air conditioning is needed by some people, such as those in frail health and others who struggle to maintain their core body temperature.

However, air conditioning is not feasible in many locations. Farms, highways, and many other outdoor environments can’t be air conditioned to protect outdoor workers. Regulations can ensure access to shade and sufficient hydration breaks, yet just seven US states have regulations to protect outdoor workers. And countries with high heat-related mortality, such as India, simply do not have sufficient electricity generation to protect the millions exposed to heatwaves.

Air conditioning has many downsides. Air conditioners pump heat outdoors, increasing the urban heat island. They can drive energy demand to the point of exceeding the supply capacity of the local utility. Blackouts during heatwaves amplify mortality and morbidity. This highlights that even in the US, it will take time to build the necessary resilience into the electric grid system. The situation is much worse in Europe given the nature of its housing stock. Further, air conditioning can increase emissions of greenhouse gas emissions that feedback to even higher future temperatures.

Heatwaves are a societal wide issue requiring comprehensive responses, coordinated across local to national levels, through heatwave action plans that include early warning and response systems. Hundreds are in operation worldwide, with more needed. For evidence-based approaches to effectively manage health, the website Heat.gov provides comprehensive information on how to protect families, friends, and colleagues from the risks of heatwaves.

______________________

Kristie Ebi is principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Bud Ward spent five decades as an environmental and climate change journalist and educator.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

A useful website returns to life

For nearly 15 years a NOAA website, Climate.gov, was the US government’s principal portal providing climate information to the public. In 2025 it was shut down by the Trump Administration. On June 23, an independent nonprofit organization, led by former NOAA staff, brought it back. The new website is Climate.us. It preserves climate dashboards, maps, blogs, and explanatory articles of the earlier site, and its goal is to “. . . build an enduring, independent, and scientifically rigorous platform that the world can rely on for climate communication, education, and engagement”.

It’s worth a look at Climate.us see the resources that are there.

As the Strait of Hormuz moves closer to reopening, Americans are weighing what it may mean for household budgets. Energy prices are already straining consumers, especially at the gas pump. Although the Administration says that gasoline prices will rapidly drop once the hostilities end, the question is not simply whether energy prices fall, but where they settle and how long they remain there. More important still is whether the energy price surge has triggered a second and broader wave of inflation that will be even harder to rein in.

Economists describe the U.S. Consumer Price index or CPI as a lagging indicator because it reflects the effects of past conditions rather than predicts what comes next. Still, like a caregiver’s thermometer, it is an essential tool for measuring the economy’s temperature. Central banks and businesses use it for inflation tracking, income adjustments, and economic policymaking.

The CPI received a major overhaul in 1978 in response to the devastating global energy crises and supply shocks of the 1970s. As aggregate prices soared, policy makers needed more detail on energy commodities and services and how they impacted Americans’ living costs. Now, with nearly a half century of data on how the economy responds to energy shocks, we are better prepared for what is being called one of the greatest economic threats since the Great Depression.

In what follows, we examine how the Strait’s closure is already affecting the CPI energy index. The initial price shocks have been significant, but the greater risk is that they spread through the broader economy. If a second wave of inflation takes hold, a temporary energy spike could become a more persistent cost-of-living crisis. The central question is how far these pressures have already moved beyond energy, though future CPI reports will be needed to measure the full extent of the spread.

The country’s current inflation reading

The CPI released on June 10, 2026, showed year-over-year inflation at 4.2%, the highest level in more than three years, with much of the increase attributed to energy. The figure below highlights the nature of the threat to American pocketbooks. Since COVID-19, Americans have been working to regain the purchasing power they had earlier in the decade.

Just as that goal seemed within reach, renewed inflation seems to be taking hold. Nearly half of the recent increase occurred in the past three months, suggesting that supply disruptions in the Persian Gulf are producing the effects economists had warned about. The June CPI report shows that gasoline, diesel, and heating oil had the largest immediate effect on U.S. inflation, with year-over-year prices surging 40.6%. As the figure indicates, a dollar of earnings has lost all the purchasing power gained in the last four years.

Why price declines may be less predictable than advertised

The closing of the Strait created a simultaneous and unprecedented shock to global energy, agriculture, and industrial supply chains. A successful and lasting reopening will require immediate attention to physical and diplomatic barriers. The former will require neutralizing Iranian naval mines and untangling the shipping logjam. Production must resume where possible and the multiyear effort to repair plant and equipment begun. There also will be the task of restoring physical inventories which are currently at historically low levels.

On the diplomatic front, the challenge is to ease fears of renewed fighting in the Gulf, because producers are unlikely to restore pre-war output while the region remains a tinderbox. A U.S.-Iran cease-fire could create an opportunity to strengthen regional security pacts built around collective deterrence.

Subscribe now

Then there are the market realities that govern how quickly prices move. That price surges came so soon after the Strait closure comes as no surprise. Oil trade takes place in a highly developed global market where prices adjust quickly worldwide. Bad news in the Persian Gulf can show up overnight on the marquee at the neighborhood gas station thousands of miles away.

How rapidly prices fall in the face of good news is another matter. Retailers may have raised pump prices quickly to reflect higher replacement costs, but they are likely to lower them more slowly as costs fall, as they try to retain profitable margins on fuels bought at lower prices.

For all of these reasons, the President’s claim that prices at the gas pump will rapidly decline to pre-war levels once the hostilities cease should be treated with caution. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that energy costs could remain elevated well into 2027. Even if oil shipments through the Strait resume this summer, EIA believes that traffic will likely take several months to return to pre-conflict levels. Those with a stake in the international oil market will be watching closely for progress in easing long-standing geopolitical tensions, removing supply bottlenecks, and ensuring a sustained period of ample, uninterrupted production.

But it is not enough for crude oil and refined-product prices to fall; they must also align with physical supply and demand. Speculators in futures markets, if unfettered to market fundamentals, may place unreasonable bets in either direction. We are reminded of the term “irrational exuberance”, famously coined by the late Alan Greenspan to describe investors oblivious to real world realities. In a rising market, speculators may seriously overshoot estimates for the high. Likewise, in a falling market, they may fail to recognize the floor. The good news is that prices tend to realign with spot-market realities within weeks. Nonetheless. episodes of mispricing should be expected.

A second wave of inflation may await

More worrisome for the overall inflation rate is the threat that higher energy prices ignite a second wave of inflation, as higher fuel costs spill over into the broader economy. By raising extraction, processing, and transportation costs, energy prices make non-fuel commodities more expensive. Businesses then pass those higher costs through the supply chain, pushing up prices more broadly and adding to inflationary pressure.

Petroleum products are also key inputs into other goods. When crude oil prices rise, the cost of everyday items such as aspirin, compact discs, clothing, diapers, food packaging, and prescription drugs rise as well. In short, the Strait disruption may have affected prices across thousands of products.

Similarly, natural gas is a key input to nitrogen fertilizers, essential for maintaining global grain supplies. When the Russia-Ukraine war sharply decreased grain supplies, it boosted demand for U.S. wheat, corn, and soybeans resulting in increased inflation in food products. A similar pattern could emerge in the aftermath of the current disruption of gas and fertilizer supplies from the Gulf, driving up the prices of grains in international markets and, in turn, domestic grocery bills.

If these secondary effects spread through the global and U.S. economy, more retailers will face higher operating costs which they will be forced to pass on to their customers. If inflation persists, central banks may keep interest rates high or tighten further, increasing borrowing costs. A Hormuz closure could turn an energy shock into broader long-term inflation while at the same time stoking fears of an economic slowdown as American pocketbooks feel the pinch.

Concluding comments

The Trump Administration’s repeated claim that gas prices will quickly return to pre-war levels once hostilities end may be overly optimistic. The President’s prediction that prices will “drop like a rock” overlooks serious physical, diplomatic, and market barriers that could slow the decline. The U.S. Energy Information Administration suggests that even if all goes as planned, it will take several months for production to return to pre-war conditions

Because today’s food supply chains depend heavily on petroleum and natural gas – from production through processing and distribution – food inflation often trails energy inflation. As higher energy costs spread through the economy, the next wave of core (excluding food and energy) inflation, could prove much harder to reverse. How much of this has already occurred remains unclear, but in the months ahead, the Federal Reserve Board will be watching the CPI closely for warning signs. Until then, it may be wise to postpone buying that new gas guzzler.

____________________

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Kristie Ebi is principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Heads up! It is increasingly likely that, starting this fall, the world will experience one of nature’s more disruptive phenomena. Based on previous experience, it will have serious implications for regions of the US, and for other parts of the globe. Preparing now could avoid some of its more costly impacts.

The underlying process is the El Niño Southern Oscillation or ENSO, a cycle in the tropical Pacific that involves regular reversals in trade winds and ocean heat distribution. Its phase when warmer water is brought to the South American coast was named El Niño (the Christ child) because this tends to happen around Christmas.

If you are not familiar with ENSO, the UK Met Office has prepared a useful 4-1/2 minute explanatory video.

The Pacific goes into its El Niño phase approximately every 2 to7 years, as can be seen in this figure from the March 2026 Temperature Update from Berkeley Earth.

These oceanic and atmospheric cycles alter weather around the globe. The details differ from event to event, but one common pattern is increased rainfall and flooding in some regions and drought and increased fire risk elsewhere (as suggested by the puffy clouds in the Met Office video). Also, during these events the surface of the Pacific is warmer, feeding heat into the lower atmosphere and raising its temperature.

A commonly used measure of the strength of an El Niño is the increase in ocean temperature in a region of the central Pacific (called El Niño-3.4). It is the one used in the figure. Warming in this region between 1.5°C and 2.0°C is generally classified as a “strong” El Niño, and a rise over 2.0°C is a “very strong” one.

Subscribe now

The NOAA Climate Prediction Center (part of the National Weather Service) prepares forecasts of these events. A build-up of heat in the subsurface ocean and a weakening of the trade winds are leading indicators that an El Niño is coming. Month to month the latest measurements of these changes, plus other ocean and atmospheric conditions, are fed into Atmosphere–Ocean General Circulation Models to forecast its strength.

This next figure shows NOAA’s estimate as of June. In August through January it is certain that ENSO will be in its El Niño phase. In November-December-January (NDJ) when NOAA estimates a 88% chance the El Niño will be strong (over 1.5°C) and a 63% chance that it will not be just strong but very strong (over 2.0°C).

More concerning, NOAA’s forecast is relatively conservative compared to estimates by other groups in the US and around the world. The average of ENSO forecasts by 13 of these efforts shows an 80% chance of a very strong El Niño in NDJ 2026. The average estimate of the peak rise in Niño-3.4 temperature is around 3°C.

Next fall, therefore, there is a disturbingly high likelihood of worldwide disruption. In the US. for example, experience shows that a strong El Niño portends extreme rainfall and flooding in California and other parts of the Southwest. But the biggest economic and social impact will be drought in South and Southeast Asia, and perhaps in Australia and southern Africa.

To convey how damaging a strong El Niño can be for these regions, studies often refer to The El Niño of 1877-78 in which millions died. (It is the origin of the picture at the top of the article.) The conditions leading to that disaster will not likely be repeated. Global food systems have improved over the last 150 years because of expanded global trade, national food stocks, and development of international aid agencies.

Nevertheless, experience of the strong El Niños of 1982-83, 1997-98 and 2023-24 (easily seen in the first figure above) shows that the resulting water scarcity can still create food insecurity and other disruption in many countries. Moreover, compared to previous decades, two other conditions combine to produce poorer agricultural output under an El Niño now. Rising global temperatures diminish crop yields in some regions. And the closing of the Strait of Hormuz has cut off a key source of fertilizer and raised the price of diesel fuel. Even when the Strait is opened, it will take months for these markets to return to normal. In the meantime, farmers will be left either without, or priced out of, needed inputs.

As of early June, the strength of the growing El Niño is yet uncertain, but the risk is very great. Just sitting and watch it happen is foolish, and there are areas of preparation the US and other nations should be about.

First is to document the experience to inform responses to future events like this. For example, a scientific experiment was carried out during the 1997-98 El Niño that produced vital insights into how drought-driven diarrheal diseases in some Pacific Island countries could be successfully managed with education and capacity building. Also, the study revealed ways that flooding risks could be mitigated through proactive planning, attention to supply chains, and protection of health care facilities. The upcoming El Niño is an opportunity to augment this work by monitoring the changing risks during and after the event, and evaluating the effectiveness of interventions to protect human and natural systems.

Where extreme rainfall is the main risk, efforts should start now to increase resilience to the coming risks of flooding. An example is the effort of some US cities to warn institutions and individuals about what is coming and provide guidance about how to prepare.

Preparing for a potential food crisis in Asia and other regions is more challenging. Organizations like the World Food Program have early warning systems to alert populations at risk, and it and other UN agencies are attempting preparatory action. Unfortunately, these organizations are already strained by ongoing international and civil conflicts, climate shocks, economic slumps, disease outbreaks and other disasters.

Worse, the Trump Administration (with some other nations following) has drastically reduced national support for food assistance and other international aid programs. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), run by the US Agency for International Development (AID), was a leading organization monitoring food insecurity worldwide for more than 40 years. It was gutted along with the rest of the Agency in the early months of the new administration. The US contribution to food aid, also earlier an AID function, was shifted to the Agriculture Department with a reduced budget—plus an “America First” provision requiring that any US contribution come from domestic commodities.

News of widespread hunger could lead to a reversal of some of these cuts and perhaps to an emergency program of food aid. But timing will be crucial: mounting such an effort could take weeks to months. If a very strong El Niño continues to develop as forecast, signs of coming famine will appear in spiking future prices of staple commodities like wheat, rice, palm oil and sugar. If the nations that could help are not now preparing to respond to these signals, any response will likely come too late.

______________________

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Richard Richels lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Indeed. How could United States gas prices be so much higher on Memorial Day than they were on New Year’s Day when the national average price was less than $3 per gallon? The national average price on May 26^th was $4.49 per gallon with some states close to $4.00 per gallon and others ranging between $4.60 and $6.10. The figure above, from the US Energy Information Administration, puts current prices in a regional context by showing that the national average is elevated by West Coast prices. In addition, it shows a remarkably sudden and dramatic increase beginning around the end of February – that is, when hostilities in Iran and Lebonon began in earnest.

1. Setting the context

This was happening even though the US is a leading crude oil producer (roughly 13 million barrels per day in 2025), and also an exporter of crude (roughly 4 million barrels per day mostly to Europe, Asia, and Oceania). At the same time, the U.S. was importing roughly the same amount (mostly from Canada). In addition, the US has been importing gasoline for years (between 0.5 and 1.0 million barrels per day) and exporting between 0.75 to 1.25 million barrels per day. It seems that our refineries on the Gulf shore were built to refine heavy sulfur-ladden crude oil from Mexico and Venezuela and not the sweet light crude that is extracted elsewhere in the country. And so we import heavy dirty crude and export the sweet light variant.

Because of this extensive trade, therefore, US prices of crude oil and products, importantly including gasoline, are determined in international markets. Thus it is not a surprise that US prices respond when global crude oil markets are stricken by a supply shock elsewhere. For gasoline in particular the global oil price represents about half of the price at the pump, with the rest coming from refining costs, transportation costs, and federal and state taxes.

Subscribe now

Figure 1 shows that world oil prices rose from $66 per barrel on February 28^th (when Operation Epic Fury was unleashed) to $75 on March 4^th (when the Strait of Hormuz was closed cutting off 20% of the world’s daily oil supply), $95 on March 9^th, $98 on March 13^th, $105 on March 30^th, $111 on April 7^th and back down to $96 in the middle of May. They had fallen further to around $87 per barrel in early June, but uncertainty about how the war will be resolved, and thus oil the oil price, remains high.

Figure 1. Four-month history of international crude oil prices through May 27, 2026. The jagged line plots one measure of crude oil prices. It show a sudden turn upward in early March, when Operation Epic Fury began, that has persisted since with the support of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. The bars on the bottom show day to day increases (green) or decreases (red) in price. Notice the sharp jump in prices on the day that Operation Epic Fury began and persistent (if irregular) continuation starting on the day when the Strait of Hormuz was closed.

2. Some economic consequences.

In addition to releasing some of the oil stored in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the current administration has proposed to suspend the federal tax on gasoline and diesel fuel until oil prices fall (amount unspecified). This action would lower gas prices by 18 cents per gallon and diesel by 24 cents, not much energy cost relief for lower income drivers and the trucking industry. Additionally, this action would interrupt a revenue stream that is designed to support efforts to maintain our aging federal highway system.

The oil price spike has not been all bad for all everyone. It has clearly been a benefit for royalty holders and state tax authorities. It also is a benefit to stockholders of production companies. For example, the stock prices of the six “super major” oil companies (including Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and Shell) have soared since the U.S.-Israel attack on Iran. As a result, their combined market capitalization[1] rose by $130 billion in just two weeks.

With limited and short-term responses by the federal government, the economic prospects are likely to darken. We are doubtlessly in a global oil market where a supply interruption anywhere affects consumers everywhere, and there are many potential pinch points. To say otherwise is simply wishful thinking. The only long-term solution is to reduce dependence on highly centralized sources in the oil-rich Middle East to decentralized domestic renewables.

[1] The market capitalization of a company is the market value of outstanding stock shares calculated as the product the market price of a share times the number of shares held by the public.

___________________

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

OMB’s proposed new rule seeks to politicize research funding across the entire federal government

Summary: A proposed new rule would replace merit-based funding of science with a heavily politicized process. It would also deprive scientists of the ability to rely on finding for long-term projects. This proposal has no real legal basis. It is likely to undermine American science, giving a boost to China's efforts to take over global scientific leadership.

Last week, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a sweeping new regulation of grants across the federal government. Here are two quick takeaways. First, OMB gives every sign of realizing it is on shaky legal ground. Second, the OMB rule seeks to continue Trump’s 2025 campaign to rip apart research funding. The goals of that campaign were to destabilize scientific research; squelch research on forbidden topics like climate change, clean energy, race, and gender; and inhibit academic criticism of the Administration. The legal basis for the 2025 campaign was dubious and did not do well in court. OMB is now trying to create a foundation for making the war on science permanent.

Let me begin with the first point: OMB’s legal analysis gives every sign of papering over legal difficulties. It is vague and seems to admit that its effort to seize control of all grant-making goes beyond precedent. The sources of authority that OMB cites center on government efficiency but don’t give OMB power to control substantive policies. After all, it’s the Office of Management and Budget, not the Office of Governmental Policy.

OMB relies primarily on 31 U.S.C. 503, which is about the power of the deputy director — itself a sign that the provision is not intended as a vast delegation of authority. Under section 503, the Deputy “shall establish governmentwide financial management policies for executive agencies” and shall perform a list of “financial management functions.” Those financial management functions include ”establishing financial management policies and requirements,” which OMB cites as the primary basis for its new rule. OMB also refers to its authority to “issue supplementary interpretative guidelines to promote consistent and efficient use of procurement contracts, grant agreements, and cooperative agreements.” That’s in 31 U.S.C. 6307. (Note that these are guidelines, not rules.) This section clearly doesn’t give OMB the power to impose policies that go beyond promoting efficiency.

Yet the rule is full of substantive provisions such as banning what the Administration likes to call gender ideology, which means any non-traditional view about gender. Similarly, it strikes out at DEI and environmental justice, an argument that was used in 2025 to cancel projects relating to racial health disparities. And the broader threat to deny funding to any project conflicting with Administration policies – and to cancel funding on a moment’s notice if a project falls off the Trump Train – goes far beyond any concern with efficiency. Don’t forget that “administration policy” is very broad. For instance, in one Executive Order, Trump embraces biological racism and denounces the view that “race is not a biological reality but a social construct.” Clearly signs of ideological impurity could imperil funding. The mandate to comply with administrative policy would impose a stifling ideological conformity, raising serious First Amendment issues.

The rule has an exception for cases where the governing statute of an agency overrides one of its provisions, as indeed it must. Yet, it attempts to avoid the need for agencies to provide a reasoned explanation of how these provisions will achieve their specific research missions. For example, it fails to consider the possibility that researchers will be reluctant to pursue long-term research projects given the looming risk of unexpected political cancellation. That could be a much bigger problem for some types of research than others. Also, laws applying to specific agencies may vary significantly. While agencies have signed on to the OMB rule en masse, there is no consideration in the rule of agency-specific conditions, including differences in agency missions.

Researchers still remember the chaos of grant cancellations in 2025. The new rule gives complete control to political appointees pursuing Administration policies rather than prioritizing scientific merit in awarding grants. It also emphasizes that grants are always at the mercy of shifting Administration priorities. For science as a whole these are the most damaging parts of the rules, because they politicize research funding, eliminate merit-based grant awards, and make it hard to rely on funding for any project that lasts beyond the next presidential election. What had been a very competitive quest for scientific excellence is in the midst of being transformed into a much more political process, which can only damage American science as a whole.

The Administration’s antipathy toward science remains a puzzle. It is reflected not only in the grant-cancelling jihad but in efforts to gut funding for NSF and NIH. But who is against finding useful new chemicals and materials? Or lifesaving treatments? Or a better understanding of AI’s economic impact? And what American is in favor of ceding scientific leadership to China? The answer is “the Trump Administration,” but don’t ask me why.

______________________

Dan Farber is Sho Sato Professor of Law and Co-Director, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law.

______________________

This article appeared in LegalPlanet on June 1, 2026.

This paper translates scientific assessments of likelihood and confidence into legal standards like “more likely than not” and “beyond a reasonable doubt”. It speaks to a core challenge for the judiciary – to navigate the tension between law’s need for defined thresholds and science’s inherently probabilistic and context-dependent reasoning.

Climate science had been knocking on the courthouse doors for quite some time when the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) finally invited it into the realm of legal action in 2007 when the justices issued their ruling on Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S., in April. By a 5-4 vote, the court found that the Clean Air Act of 1970, as amended in 1990, allowed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate greenhouse gases.

More specifically, greenhouse gases were declared pollutants because it was reasonable to anticipate that their emission into the atmosphere could “endanger public health or welfare.” To act on this finding, however, the EPA was required to show that concrete harm could “be traced to emitters and damages could be remedied by the courts.”

The EPA then spent two years assessing the science before publishing its first endangerment finding EF(2009) on December 7^thof 2009. In their words, “The Administrator finds that the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases (GHGs)—carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆)—in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

The judicial door had been opened, but challenges remained. The EF(2009) finding withstood more than 20 separate attempts to have it nullified.

That all changed in 2025 when the federal government mounted more systematic attacks. One was designed to slam the door shut, and the second tried to cancel any attempts to educate the judiciary about the nuances of using climate science. The goal was to weaken the ability of the courts to judge the liabilities of private and public actors who knowingly ignored their legal and social responsibilities to ameliorate the climate risks of their actions.

Starting on Inauguration Day, the executive branch of the federal government attacked the EF(2009) by eroding the public’s confidence in climate science and climate scientists. Based on biased and immediately debunked assessments of the state of the science published by the EPA, the agency undertook a concerted campaign of disinformation designed to advance minimalist damage estimates, question the value of government actions to slow the pace of warming, and degrade the personal integrity of the entire worldwide scientific community.

Confident that its campaign was working, the EPA officially rescinded the 2009 Endangerment Finding early in 2026.

EPA Administrator Zeldin expressed his concern that the science on climate risk had not yet been settled and so had no business being communicated to the judiciary. Encouraged by those words, state Attorneys General quickly demanded that the Federal Judicial Center (FJC) and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) excise Chapter 21from the 4^th edition of the “Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence.” That new chapter had been written to summarize what the judiciary needed to know about climate change, but the FJC acquiesced.

Why is that so important? Because the chapter could have become the anchor of many efforts to help judges and lawyers and practicing lawyers understand what climate science can and cannot be expected to bring to legal arguments about (1) the applicability of the Clean Air Act in framing new and existing environmental policies and (2) the means by which court rulings can legitimately assign criminal and/or civil liability.

The second point above is italicized because it represents a second fundamental challenge for the judiciary. In 2007, SCOTUS used a “could reasonably be expected” legal threshold to support its decision. To me, they thereby applied an appropriate standard that reflects a specific confidence level to which climate science assessment can offer valuable and well-documented information.

It also seems to me that climate science can speak to a “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for criminal cases by presenting scientific knowledge that had been accepted with very high likelihood” (when rigorous statistical analyses were available) or “very high confidence” (when quality data was available and supported widely accepted process understanding) to the court. It can also speak to “more likely than not” thresholds with statistically supported 50–50 likelihood estimates or “medium confidence” assessments.

Well-researched documents, like the afore-mentioned Reference Manual and the integrated “Climate Science and Law for Judges” curriculum published by the Climate Judiciary Project, are vital resources for the judiciary. The latter was first published in 2023, but it is currently being updated in the face of strong public opposition from the Department of Justice.

Both of these documents are designed to bring the complexities of climate risk assessments to the fore. Specifically, they make it clear that likelihood and confidence assessments depend critically upon the social and economic contexts within which they have been conducted. “More likely than not” assessments can, for example, be accurate descriptions of reality for some plausible contexts and not for others. This means that legal liability can depend not only on what a defendant did or did not do to effect climatic dynamics, but also upon what other citizens did to alter the broader context.

Should, for example, a defendant whose actions have increased the likelihood or consequences of a flash flood be held completely accountable for catastrophic damages if the impacted community did not provide adequate early warning so that its citizens could get out of harm’s way?

None of this is to say that the legal system cannot accommodate competent descriptions of complex climate risks. I am arguing instead that accommodation is a complicated and locale-specific challenge that cannot be met successfully if the judiciary is not informed honestly about what to expect from the underlying science.

________________________

This article appeared in the The National Law Review, Volume XVI, Number 119, April 29, 2026.

_______________________

Gary Yohe, is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

The Iran War highlights the fragility of fossil energy supply chains and provides a sound reason for consumer nations to reduce their reliance on oil and natural gas. While renewable energy’s rising economic competitiveness and climate change concerns are important drivers of global fuel choice, supply disruptions leading to damaging swings in hydrocarbon prices are of increasing importance as the underlying political conflicts are unlikely to disappear.

The history of post-WWII oil prices is shown in Figure 1 in both nominal and real (inflation adjusted) terms. The present crisis over the Strait of Hormuz, with oil ranging again over $100 per barrel, is unnervingly reminiscent of the oil disruptions of the 1970s. The 1973 Arab oil embargo and the 1979 Iranian Revolution resulted in huge spikes in oil prices and long lines at the gas pump. Together the two events were cited as major contributors to a decade of U.S. stagflation. None of the other dozen market-moving conflicts that have occurred in their wake has been as damaging to the global economy. It appears, however, that our luck may be running out.

Figure 1. Crude Oil Prices (1946-Present).

However the present conflict is settled, the current chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz calls attention to the vulnerabilities that plague the global energy system. Relying on supply from a handful of exporting countries concentrated hundreds or thousands of miles from their customers, traveling on a vulnerable route, produces a system exposed to significant and unwarranted risks. Addressing these challenges calls for energy supply security through either safeguarding existing sources or opting for more secure alternatives.

The Strait of Hormuz and workarounds

The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and 30% of LNG traffic flows, is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. It thus is exceptionally vulnerable to asymmetric warfare (jets and missiles versus drones) and there are no alternative routes immediately available for most exports. Continuation of the current conflict threatens global recession and inflation.

Subscribe now

Historically, oil-rich Gulf states have been slow to respond to the potential threat of the Strait due to a heavy reliance on the U.S. security umbrella, limited technical alternatives for oil export, fear of Iranian retaliation, and the immense cost of infrastructure projects. While recent events have finally accelerated moves to “Iran-proof” their exports, past approaches were defined by calculated restraint to avoid regional conflict.

The efforts that the Gulf states have completed to build operational land-to-sea pipelines, shown in Figure 2, can reduce dependence on the chokepoint by 20% to 25%, but even the completion of projects that are still in the design stage, will likely fall far short of a satisfactory workaround of this critical waterway.

Figure 2. Oil and LNG installations in Persian Gulf

Other chokepoints

Then there is also the problem of other chokepoints in the global system. Figure 3 highlights the significance of the Strait of Malacca which serves as the main route for oil shipments from the Middle East and Africa to East Asia, handling around 23 million barrels daily. Roughly 80% of China’s crude oil imports is now reliant on the narrow channel – a mere 1.7 miles wide at its narrowest point. If blocked, supply ships would be forced to detour thousands of miles, severely impacting global shipping and raising freight costs.

Moreover, even comparatively smaller volume chokepoints, such as the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, can produce massive effects on the world price of oil. When threatened or blocked, they create immediate fear of a supply shortage, which drives up prices due to critical reliance on these routes.

Figure 3. Map of daily transit volumes of petroleum and other liquids through world maritime oil chokepoints (million barrels per day first half of 2025).

Alternative supply routes or alternative technologies?

Which brings us to the key question: should we continue to depend on a highly centralized global energy system vulnerable to individual chokepoints and price shocks, or do we need to look beyond current supply chains to decentralized technologies such as solar and wind?

The transition to renewables is already well under way due to their cost-competitiveness. While fossil fuels still dominate, renewables now account for the vast majority of new power capacity, making them a principal driver of the energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency, renewables are already competing well against fossil fuels at the point of capital stock turnover. Indeed, an analysis by Bloomberg suggests that, based on current technology cost estimates, we should expect to see an accelerated shift away from fossil fuels in coming years.

Then there are the effects that concerns about climate change are having on the rate of transition. If the current onslaught of extreme climate-induced weather continues as the science suggests, a country heavily invested in hydrocarbons, risks being overstocked with fossil-fired plants and equipment – leaving its economy to bear the financial burden of the stranded resources.

Now with the threat of oil and natural gas supply interruptions, we have another transition “accelerator.” The costs of projects to strengthen fossil fuel supply chains may be of the order of tens of billions of dollars (pipelines) to hundreds of billions of dollars (canals), plus the costs of repairing the damage to infrastructure in times of conflict and the enhanced measures to upgrade regional security.

The options

While President Trump has argued that maximizing domestic production of oil and gas renders U.S. consumers immune to price spikes caused by disruptions in Middle East oil, the current conflict in the Strait of Hormuz shows that a major disruption anywhere can affect business and households everywhere. The real solution to the current vulnerability is accelerating the transition to clean technologies. Instead of opting for short-term fixes that simply prolong the risks, lasting security comes from moving away from unreliable fossil fuel supplies and embracing sources which are immune to blockades. Renewables are inexhaustible, locally generated, and now cheaper to deploy than fossil fuels, reducing exposure to geopolitical volatility, supply shocks, and high carbon emissions.

________________________________

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

The attack on U.S. science

It is not easy to keep track of all the ways that U.S. science has fallen under the Trump Administration’s knife. This article from the journal Nature provides a user-friendly graphic summary of the first year’s effort.

____________________________

A successful trip but wreckage at home

A NASA scientist describes how, amidst the excitement of the Agency’s success in space travel, the Trump Administration is crippling its crucial contributions to understanding our own planet—in particular the science underpinnings needed to confront the mounting disruption of climate change.

_________________________

Saying goodbye to mountain glaciers

A study by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) reports that 2025 was among the worst years on record for tons of global ice lost. And, of course, these are tons melted from a diminishing total stock of ice. The graph above is from the WGMS study, and a summary of the analysis is available here.

__________________

Difficulties revealed in mapping a complex ocean

Sea level varies by region because of the earth’s rotation and variation in gravity, plus other factors like winds and tides. Models of these influences are applied in climate change impact analyses. A new study finds that these models underestimate current sea level in some regions, most significantly in parts of Asia. This means that even the current baseline is worse than we thought, so sea level rise impact assessments for these areas will need to be corrected to account for tens of millions of additional coastal inhabitants who are in harms’ way. Clicking on the hyperlink in the text above will lead to a short cartoon that explains the needed correction using actual measurements rather than models of current sea levels.

Subscribe now

While China and the European Union are restructuring their energy portfolios to emphasize low carbon alternatives, the United States stands alone among major powers for its commitment to coal, oil and gas. We discuss the threat that this poses for America’s competitive position in energy trade.

The adoption of clean energy and its supporting industries serves many purposes. Most obvious is meeting the challenges of climate change and mitigating geopolitical risks with their damaging price spikes. But also, a commitment to these technologies has important implications for participation in the global energy market.

We examine the potential for the U.S. to compete with two of its major competitors, China and the European Union, given the contrasting approaches to climate change and energy supply. We conclude that, to avoid missing out on lucrative international markets, the U.S. must not only expand its energy portfolio but reconsider its “America First” strategy which discourages partnerships with conventional allies.

For purposes of the present discussion, “clean energy” refers to technologies that are traded in the international marketplace to replace fossil-fired generation, store energy and reduce consumption. To highlight the magnitude of the stakes for those wishing to compete in this sphere, a few statistics may be helpful. Investments in wind and solar energy are projected to reach $8 trillion by 2050; roughly $6 trillion is needed for grid upgrades in the next decade; and the electric vehicle (EV) market is expected to expand steadily, with valuations estimated in the tens of trillions of dollars by midcentury.

Three differing perspectives on the global technology future

We begin with brief overviews of the motivations driving the world’s three largest economies.

The current U.S. Administration has sought to promote America’s abundant fossil fuel resources to the Nation’s economic advantage. It does not see the goal of transitioning away from hydrocarbons as a shared aim among nations but rather views it as a threat to its “fossil fuel dominant” policy. By rolling back environmental regulations and reducing support for renewable energy initiatives, the Administration hopes to increase sales of domestic hydrocarbons both at home and abroad.

China, meanwhile, is following a “dual-track” policy. On the one hand, it is trying to balance economic growth and ensure power supply stability by continuing to add coal power. But at the same time, it is advancing its long-term decarbonization goals having pledged to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060. Its industrial strategy has made it the global leader in manufacturing and exporting clean energy technologies.

The European Union is dedicated to achieving “green sovereignty”, recognizing clean energy as both critical in combating global warming and as an opportunity to strengthen domestic energy independence. The E.U. has committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century by reducing reliance on imported oil and gas, significantly expanding domestic renewable energy production, and improving energy efficiency.

Fossil fuels vs. clean tech

With these differing perspectives in mind, we now turn to the challenges facing the Trump Administration in the international marketplace. A recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) shows that renewables are overtaking fossil fuels in many parts of the world. Solar and wind are now the most affordable generation options and are projected to surpass coal as the top electricity source, fueling over 90% of new power demand through 2030. Of course, a country’s choice will depend upon its natural resource endowment, existing deployment of physical and human capital, and its market structure. But even the U.S., with its abundant supply of hydrocarbons and an infrastructure tailored to their use, is finding renewables to be winning out.

Subscribe now

With its International competitors investing in early-stage research and hands-on experience to lower the costs of clean tech, the Administration’s campaign to ensure the competitiveness of fossil fuels is failing. Subsidies to hydrocarbons will do little good and waste taxpayer dollars. If the Administration’s aim is to reap the benefits of the nation’s fossil fuel asset before its markets decline, it may have a very limited window of opportunity.

It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the U.S. will face a declining market abroad for its fossil fuel wares. Figure 1 from a recent study by Bloomberg, projects trade-flows for China and the United States. It shows a scenario where technology choice is governed primarily by economic considerations. Currently, both countries are net importers of energy goods, but by 2050, China is projected to move from a trade deficit – due to oil and gas imports – to a surplus as a leading exporter of clean-tech products. In contrast, the U.S. remains a net importer, largely because it yields the clean tech market to China and others.

Figure 1. China and the US: A Tale of Two Opposing Exporters.

Thus, the case for transitioning away from fossil fuels is compelling on the economics alone. It is strengthened still further when the multiple threats posed by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are included. Adding the social cost of carbon, makes the Administration’s present position even less defensible. The country risks being overstocked with fossil-fired plant and equipment and the economy having to bear the financial burden of the stranded resources.

A more robust strategy

Instead of maintaining a defensive position designed to lessen the attractiveness of clean technology, the United States would benefit from adopting a more balanced strategy that integrates domestic industrial policy with international cooperation to enhance its global clean energy portfolio. Considering that the US is unlikely to be competitive in established technologies, such a silicon-based solar power, and that “100% American made” is improbable, options include a combination of 1) friendshoring, which entails sourcing supply chain components from reliable allies, and 2) leapfrogging, which involves seeking a leadership position in the development of advanced technologies.

A recent study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace identified numerous areas for collaborative advancement, including solid-state batteries, next-generation solar and wind, geothermal and geologic hydrogen, critical minerals recycling, small modular nuclear reactors, AI-powered smart grids, and geologic carbon capture. Such investments would likely drive technological innovation and boost U.S. competitiveness in global clean energy markets.

And what’s in it for the European Union? According to the Atlantic Council, benefits include strengthened energy security through diversified supply sources, decreased reliance on high-risk suppliers, and access to stable, competitively priced American liquefied natural gas (LNG). Europe will require gas imports from non-Russian providers for the foreseeable future for its transition toward net-zero carbon emissions. Concurrently, the recent EU-US deal offers the opportunity to promote technological innovation by investing in technologies that reduce dependence on fossil fuels and encouraging economic growth.

Rethinking “America First” policy

This is to say that there are numerous prospects for mutually advantageous collaboration between the United States and the European Union. However, it remains uncertain whether such partnerships will develop given the current Administration’s “America First” policy. Restoring trust among transatlantic allies will necessitate that the United States address divergent climate objectives, persistent trade disputes, and increasing concerns regarding energy security.

The President’s transactional approach to policymaking, which often involves the trashing of previous commitments, limits prospects for future collaboration. Strengthening the relationship will require a transition from short-term arrangements and mutual skepticism to sustained cooperation based on shared goals, diversified energy strategies, and resilient policies. The likelihood of achieving such progress remains uncertain.

__________________________

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Effects of climate change are ubiquitous, intensifying, and persistent. Drawing on the United Nations Development Program’s 2025 Sustainable Development Report we argue here that it negatively influences nearly every aspect of human security. Effects on economic, food, health, personal, community, and political securities are all direct, while the seventh, environmental security, is affected indirectly but no less significantly.

While the title reads like a mantra for overzealous environmentalists, there are valid reasons to trust the science that tells us that the climate is changing, human activity is the cause, and that we’re already experiencing the damaging effects.

But affecting “nearly everything”? Where can we find data and findings that support assertions on that scale?

An answer to that question is available in the effort of the United Nations Development Program (UNEP) to monitor progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that date from the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. There, more than 178 nations adopted what was labeled Agenda 21 – a comprehensive action plan designed to improve human security and protect the environment through a global partnership for sustainable development. This process led to the identification of the seventeen SDG’s shown in the picture above and targets for each for the year 2030.

The UNDP monitors progress (or lack thereof) toward achieving these goals and issues in an annual progress report. The 2025 edition gives a general call to action on “food systems, energy, digital connectivity, education, jobs, social protections, and climate”. Climate Action receives specific attention as Goal #13, but the Report also finds that progress on climate change is needed if humanity is meet most of the other SDGs, as a few examples will show.

• Mention of climate risk comes right away under Goal #1 of “No Poverty”. In reporting on the 9.9% of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, the Report observes that sluggish growth in sub-Saharan Africa is exaberated by slow recovery from COVID-19, economic instability exacerbated by hot conflicts around the globe, and amplified by climate shocks. Because more than 75% of the world’s extremely poor live in sub-Saharan Africa as of 2025, and that region is vulnerable to persistent and exaggerated drought, climate variability, and resilience to climate shocks will be a focus of future efforts to maintain progress toward this aspirational goal.

  Subscribe now

• With regard to Clean Water and Sanitation (Goal #6), the Report recognizes that recent advances in water-quality monitoring in a growing number of countries are beginning to fill critical knowledge gaps about the ways freshwater systems are affected by pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss. Gaps still exist, though, and developing new procedures to exploit this monitoring is a critical need.

• A major lesson from Sustainable Cities and Communities (Goal #11) is that anticipated rapid urbanization requires a strong focus on climate adaptation. The report projects that more than 2 billion urban residents in some locations could see temperature rise by 0.5^oC through 2040 with 36% of global urban populations facing annual mean temperatures in excess of 29^oC (above 84^oF). Climate change also means that 1 billion people will continue to be threatened by more frequent and extreme flooding.

• Life Below Water (Goal #14) is not exempt from climate risk. The proportion of ocean reefs that have experienced bleaching has increased steadily from 21% at the turn of the last century to nearly 85% in 2025. Also, average acidity levels in the oceans have shown an upward trend, with particular hot spots in some regions. Both impacts threaten marine life and the nutritional intake of 3 billion people worldwide.

• The news about Life on Land (Goal #15) is not much better. Natural systems face increasing climate risk. For example, forests are experiencing mounting climate stressors--like intensifying wildfires and damage by invasive species that migrate with warming temperatures to regions where natural controls are missing. The report emphasizes that annual national carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires exceed the European Union’s contribution from fossil fuel consumption by a factor of 2. In addition, more and more natural species are threatened by the impacts of a combination of human activities and change in local and regional climates.

At a time when international geopolitical upheavals--like the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and across the Middle East, wreak economic, social, and economic havoc across the globe--it sometimes seems useless to bring up climate change as a source of significant and ongoing risk. But cyclones and wildfires decend with little warning, just as wars do. Both do far-reaching and sometimes unpredictable (but not unimaginable) harm to physical, political, societal, and economic infrastructure.

There are no natural “off ramps” from the road we are traveling to a dramatically warming future, and that is a problem that affects nearly everything that sustains human security. Absent successful actions designed to slow emissions and expand adaptive capacity, working to move forward in achieving nearly every SDG to improve or at least sustain human security will inevitably feel like swimming against a increasingly dangerous and tumultuous current.

___________________

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Kristie Ebi is principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

A quiet end for a DOE attack on the climate science.

The report of the DOE’s Climate Working Group, which was intended to provide evidence for the Administration’s attempt to rescind the Endangerment Finding, has been quietly interred . . . in a footnote! An elegant obituary of the DOE’s effort has been written by Texas A&M’s Andrew Dressler, who led an effort of scientists that documented the report’s flaws. It is available in Dressler’s Substack.

For over 30 years, the Federal Judicial Center’s Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence has served as a go-to document judges can use when they deal with issues involving scientific testimony. The third edition, produced jointly with the National Research Council, came out in 2011 and covered fields such as forensics, mental health, neuroscience, and toxicology. The fourth edition, published in 2025, expanded its coverage to include chapters on new topics such as computer science, artificial intelligence, and, until a few weeks ago, a chapter on climate science. This chapter, authored by two experts, was removed unilaterally by the Federal Judicial Center after 27 Republican attorneys general sent a letter demanding that it be deleted.

The full document, including the climate science chapter, is still available on the National Research Council website, but this too is at risk, as a subset of these attorneys general have sent a letter demanding its removal and implicitly threatening consequences if this is not done.

The Reference Manual is a crucial, unbiased tool to provide judges with background information about science. Lawyers and judges are not generally known for their proficiency in math and science; law students generally come from the liberal arts and humanities.[1]

Those students become lawyers and some of them become judges. Along the way, their science proficiency does not improve. The Reference Manual is an essential tool to help them do their jobs.

The need for judicial education in science is obvious. A telling example of this comes from Massachusetts v. EPA, a 2007 Supreme Court case involving EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. At oral argument, Justice Antonin Scalia mistakenly referred to the stratosphere instead of the troposphere.[2] In terms of climate change, whether one is dealing with the stratosphere or the troposphere really matters. A lawyer for Massachusetts gently corrected Scalia. “Troposphere, whatever,” Scalia responded. “I told you before I’m not a scientist. That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.”

Yet in the 2024 Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision,[3] the Court overturned the existing rule set forth in Chevron v. NRDC,[4] which instructed courts to defer to agency fact finding. Loper Bright asks judges to do exactly what Justice Scalia sought to avoid and for which he felt ill-equipped.[5]

Without that rule, which allowed judges to defer to scientists and other experts within federal agencies, the Reference Manual is one of the few tools available to help judges to do what Loper Bright requires.

Judges as gatekeepers. The first edition of the Reference Manual was published in response to the Supreme Court’s 1993 decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which set the standard for admitting expert testimony in federal courts.[6] The Court described judges as gatekeepers and held that they must ensure that proffered expert testimony is based on good grounds. For scientific expertise, this meant to be admissible as evidence, the basis for the opinion had been adequately tested, had acceptable error rates, was peer reviewed, and was generally accepted in the pertinent field. The Daubert standard was later codified in an amendment to the Federal Rule of Evidence 702, which requires, among other things, that the court determine that “the testimony is based on sufficient facts or data,” that “the testimony is the product of reliable principles and methods,” and that the “opinion reflects a reliable application of the principles and methods to the facts of the case.”[7]

The Reference Manual gives judges the information they need to carry out their gatekeeping responsibilities under Rule 702. Without this resource, a judge with little background in science will have considerable difficulty evaluating the reliability of the foundation for proffered expertise. Although the parties before the Court will duly assert their respective scientific views, the adversarial system tends to lead to polarized presentations. The Reference Manual provides an independent introduction and overview of the general science of the respective fields covered. This provides a framework by which judges can adjudicate complex scientific cases.

Understanding the research basis for scientific evidence requires knowing fundamental concepts of hypothesis testing, general research design, and statistics. This is the language of science, and the Reference Manual is a subject-by-subject guide regarding the methods and general findings of the fields included.

The Reference Manual does not instruct judges on how to decide individual cases. The science covered in the Reference Manual is general. Issues concerning science are constantly litigated. For example, juries might be asked to decide whether benzene caused the plaintiff’s leukemia, whether the DNA profile of the defendant supports guilt, whether the bitemark on the victim matches the defendant’s teeth, or whether the severity of a particular storm event was enhanced by human influence. However, before the jury ever hears testimony on benzene’s effects, DNA random match probabilities, bitemark matching, or the impacts of a superstorm, the judge must determine whether this testimony is admissible, drawing on his or her knowledge of, respectively, epidemiology, population statistics, metrology, and climate science. The Reference Manual helps them make those decisions.

A flawed attack. The authors of the climate science chapter have posted a defense of its contents here, in which they systematically dismantle each of the arguments used to exclude it from the handbook. Many of the authors of other chapters in the Reference Manual have publicly decried this political attack.

Some background to this scientific “debate” is illuminating. In 2025, Energy Secretary Chris Wright commissioned a “team of independent experts to critically review the current state of climate science.” Secretary Wright concluded that this review contradicted the mainstream narrative, but failed to note that the Energy Department report misrepresents the scientific understanding of human impacts on temperature at different altitudes in the atmosphere. This fundamental error is just one of many egregious errors in the Energy Department report identified in a comprehensive analysis by 85 experts in climate science.

Earlier this year, a federal judge ruled that the Energy Department violated the law by handpicking a secret group to write this climate report, but did not strike the report from the public record. This means that in spite of its serious scientific flaws and the illegal manner in which the report was produced, the report is still available, and is still being presented as a credible scientific assessment. For example, one of the complaints levied by the attorneys general about the climate science chapter of the Reference Manual is that the authors “do not cite, for instance, any of the leading experts from the Department of Energy’s recent report on climate change.”

Science dies in darkness? Over the last 30 years, the Reference Manual has proven to be an essential tool for judges and, perhaps equally, for lawyers. Without that resource, judges would need to resort to lesser alternatives, including AI-aided internet searches. Although not without its uses, AI can produce uncurated, possibly hallucinating internet content. This is a poor substitute for the deeply researched and peer reviewed content in the Reference Manual.

Another benefit of a comprehensive resource like the Reference Manual is that it is transparent. Critics of the climate science chapter can make their objections known generally and to courts in specific cases. The Reference Manual, like any resource, is not perfect or fully comprehensive on the subjects it covers. A party that disagrees with any part of the Reference Manual will have an adequate opportunity to make its disagreement known. In contrast, a litigant whose judge consulted an AI chatbot for background information on the subject is at a greater disadvantage than a litigant who knows that the source of the judge’s knowledge base is the Reference Manual. It is easier to battle a known enemy than one imagined.

Knowledge is rarely, if ever, advanced through censorship. The Reference Manual’s chapter on climate science is an invaluable resource and a major contribution to the literature. It does not need to be, and is not, the last work on the subject. Both science and the law advance by open debate and a willingness to hear alternative perspectives. The complaints of the attorneys general, therefore, should be addressed by the publication of alternative views on the state of the science. These alternative views can then be subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny—as in the case of the Energy Department’s climate report.

Removing the climate science chapter advances neither science nor the law. It only deprives judges of a resource needed to do their jobs.

ENDNOTES
[1] See Karen Sloan, College students with these majors crush the LSAT. End of logic games may change that., REUTERS (June 4, 2024), https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/collegestudents-with-these-majors-crush-lsat-end-logic-games-may-change-that-2024-06-04/[https://perma.cc/4BSK-J7PW] (“Fewer than 5,000 STEM majors applied to law school in 2023— just 6.6% of the national applicant pool, according to data from the Law School Admission Council. More than 50,000 arts and humanities or social sciences majors applied.”).

[2] Transcript of Oral Argument at 22, Massachusetts v. E.P.A., 549 U.S. 497 (2007) (No. 05-1120).

[3] Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024).

[4] 467 U.S. 837 (1984).

[5] David L. Faigman, Overcoming Judicial Innumeracy: A Proposal to Bring the Venerable Process of Peer Review to the Enduring Problem of Courts’ Scientific Illiteracy, 26 Colum. Sci. & Tech L. Rev. 76 (2025).

[6] 509 U.S. 579 (1993).

[7] Fed. R. Evid. 702.

______________________

David L. Faigman is Chancellor & Dean and the John F. Digardi Distinguished Professor of Law at University of California College of the Law, San Francisco. He is also a Professor in the School of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco.

Erwin Chemerinsky is Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law at University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Benjamin Santer is a Professor in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellow, and a contributor to all six scientific assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Lynn Nadel is Regents Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona.

_______________________

This article appeared on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on March 11, 2026.

.

U.S. consumers are increasingly concerned about the cost of living. Although global warming is not the sole contributing factor, it plays a significant role in affecting consumer affordability by raising costs related to housing, insurance, utilities, health care and food. While experts continue to discuss the extent of these relationships, the presence of a connection is widely recognized.

The word “affordability” could well be a contender for the 2026 “word of the year” in the United States. Steep price hikes are a challenge for consumers and those who they elect to keep living costs manageable. Often the underlying causes are not well understood. Sometimes the increases may be self-inflicted, stemming from trade wars, regional conflicts, or simply inadequate planning. Other times, they arise from forces more difficult to control, like natural disasters. In most cases, it’s a combination of different factors that contribute to the problem.

Identifying all substantive factors behind a given price rise is particularly complex when global warming is at play. The Trump Administration does not acknowledge the reality that greenhouse gases are causing rising temperatures, nor does it attribute much of the severe and widespread extreme weather events currently occurring worldwide to climate change.

This article examines the subsequent links in the causal chain, focusing on how events such as severe storms, flooding, heat waves, and wildfires influence consumers’ financial situations. Emerging research indicates that rising global temperatures are impacting costs related to housing, utilities, insurance, and even grocery bills. While experts may debate the extent of these connections, the existence of a link is widely recognized.

Subscribe now

We begin with the most expensive item in the average American’s monthly budget, housing (rent/mortgage), often comprising over 33% of expenditures. Global warming is both effecting the supply and demand for housing. A September 2025 Realtor.com report found that over 26% of U.S. homes face severe or extreme risk from climate-related hazards. Disasters like sea-level rise and wildfires make some areas uninhabitable, reducing safe housing and increasing prices in less vulnerable locations. Building or retrofitting homes to withstand such assaults raises construction expenses, which are passed on to homeowners and renters.

Closely related is the issue of property protection. Insurers are becoming increasingly hesitant to service coastal regions or areas vulnerable to floods and wildfires. This comes at a time when consumers are scrambling for coverage. This combination of decreased supply and increased demand have caused property insurance rates to surge. The national average for homeowners insurance premiums increased by 34% from 2017 to 2023 outpacing inflation and an additional 8% in 2025. Governments in California and Florida are struggling to stabilize insurance markets that are under pressure from disasters like hurricanes and wildfires.

Nor should it come as a surprise that the price of heating and cooling these dwellings is affected. On the supply side, electric utility prices in the U.S. have risen by approximately 40% since early 2020, driven in part by the need to fortify electrical grids against extreme weather and increased cooling demand. Residential electricity prices rose by 11.5% in 2025 alone, with projections suggesting further increases of up to 40% by 2030. Sure, AI data centers will serve to exacerbate the problem, but climate change is increasing demand while causing supply-side interruptions.

Next, rising prices at grocery stores are painfully apparent. In the United States, food represents the second or third largest household expenditure. Over the past decade, food prices have increased at a rate exceeding general inflation. At the “farm” end of the supply chain, warming temperature trends across the United States contributed to 19% of national crop insurance losses between 1991 and 2017. These expenses, which illustrate the growing impact of climate-related damages to agriculture, are indirectly absorbed by taxpayers as part of the broader economic effects of climate change on the food sector. Recent studies suggest that by 2035, projected warming could drive food price inflation in North America up by 1.4% to 1.8% annually.[1]

Then, there is the additional burden placed on the Nation’s health care system that already accounts for approximately 18% of GDP because of prescription drug costs, the rising expense of advanced technologies, an aging population presenting with more chronic diseases, and persistent shortages within the clinical workforce. Climate change exacerbates these challenges: it increases demand for care related to heatstroke, respiratory conditions from wildfires, and water- or vector-borne illnesses, while also impacting supply by damaging infrastructure through severe weather events that result in power outages, disruptions to supply chains, and costly emergency evacuations. Collectively, these issues place significant strain on an already overburdened system. And all Americans will bear the incremental costs.

In summary, there are multiple ways that climate change affects consumers’ pocketbooks. In order to target our scarce risk reduction dollars wisely, we need further insight into how rising temperatures influence the household budget. But with just our current knowledge it is evident that anyone concerned about affordability should pay careful attention to global warming and its wide-reaching effects.

[1] The Administration has removed the USDA publication describing this estimate and a legal fight is under way to restore access to it.

______________________________

Richard Richels was lead author for multiple chapters of IPCC studies in areas of mitigation, impacts and adaptation.

Henry Jacoby is William F. Pounds Professor of Management (emeritus), M.I.T.

Gary Yohe is the receiving agent of Gary W. Yohe, LLC and Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies (emeritus), Wesleyan University.

Kristie Ebi is a principal in ClimAdapt, LLC.

Bud Ward spent five decades as an environmental and climate change journalist and educator.

By Executive Order, President Biden instructed the United States Global Change Program to prepare a National Nature Assessment, to be produced by 2026. On 30 January 2025, however, weeks before it was to be released, President Trump signed his own Executive Order cancelling the Assessment.

The authors of the report decided that the work was “too important to die”, reorganized the effort and raised needed funds, and are publishing it outside the government. Their report, the Nature Record National Assessment is now out for review. The authors seek help with that effort, welcoming public input through May 30. They ask contributors to “read it, mark it up, question it, strengthen it—and add your perspective so the record reflects what people across the country are seeing, learning, and experiencing in nature”.

To participate, go to https://naturerecord.org/chapters, and click on “Menu”. Then, to get started, choose a chapter of interest. There you will find instructions on how to comment and where to click to share your insights. It is an opportunity not just to improve the Report but also to support the author team in bringing to light critical science that the Administration does not want anyone to see

.