Orders first arrived to remove all references showing how climate change hits marginalized communities hardest. Soon after, officials demanded that any mention of the “Gulf of Mexico” be deleted. By early summer, climate.gov had vanished from the web.
This federal portal, once promoted as a single resource for understanding global warming, became another casualty of President Donald Trump’s campaign against science. A group of former staff members is now determined to restore it.
RelatedPosts
Rebecca Lindsey, the site’s former managing editor, who was dismissed in February along with hundreds of colleagues at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is helping coordinate this effort.
“We began brainstorming ways to preserve and protect climate.gov,” she told AFP. Their new site, climate.us, went live a few days ago, although it currently functions only as a placeholder.
The core team consists of several science writers, meteorologists, and data visualizers, along with about half a dozen current government employees volunteering anonymously for fear of retaliation. They have set two main objectives.
Also Read: Governor Criticizes Trump Over ‘Department of War’ Post During Chicago Crackdown Protests
Rebuilding Technical Tools and Resources
The second, more ambitious goal involves securing enough funding to reconstruct the tools and resources that once made climate.gov invaluable. The original site, launched in 2012 under Barack Obama, featured interactive dashboards tracking sea-level rise, Arctic ice loss, and global temperatures.
It also provided accessible explanations for complicated climate phenomena, like the polar vortex, and maintained a blog covering the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the planet’s most influential natural climate driver. In 2024 alone, climate.gov attracted approximately 15 million page views.
“We held meetings throughout the summer, which led us to write a prospectus we hope to present to major philanthropies and funders,” Lindsey explained. A crowdfunding campaign has also begun to generate public support.
By Wednesday, their donorbox.org page reported nearly $50,000 raised toward a target of $500,000. For Lindsey, the interest and engagement matter more than the actual sum.
“If all goes well,” she said, “this project could become a central resource for many groups at other federal science agencies where content or data has gone offline or been removed. We hope to serve as a lifeboat for them, too.”
The initiative has already received encouragement from scientists and schoolteachers offering their time. “This is a challenge we can address,” Lindsey said. “Even if it is a small effort, just knowing someone is taking action inspires others.”
