This Earth Day, we must fund science and our planet’s future
By Irina Marinov Ph.D. and Michael E. Mann Ph.D.
As we celebrate Earth Day this year, it is impossible to ignore the alarming erosion of our nation's science and scientific infrastructure — a trend that threatens not only our understanding of environmental change but also our ability to predict and respond to severe weather events or environmental disasters.
Despite ever-worsening wildfires, hurricanes, floods, sea level rise, and record-breaking heat in 2024, the current administration is now decimating our nation’s science funding. In the past week alone, the White House has proposed significant budget cuts to key agencies responsible for climate, environmental, and weather science.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) - agencies that have made the US a global leader in atmospheric, oceanic, and environmental research and applications since the Second World War - are facing massive firings of staff, shrinking budgets, and politically motivated scrutiny of their work.
At NOAA proposed cuts include eliminating the office of Ocean and Atmospheric Research, including long-standing programs such as Sea Grant, Regional Climate Data and Information, the National Severe Storms Laboratory; descoping of NOAA atmospheric composition and ocean color instruments; and cuts at the National Ocean Service and National Marine Fisheries Services. NOAA is terminating cooperative climate research institutes such as the Princeton University program, which has produced generations of top climate and weather scientists and has helped NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab to be a top climate modeling center in the world since 1968. The reason given for this termination is that the research promotes youth climate anxiety, and climate alarmism, and perpetuates narratives (such as fluctuating water availability as a result of global warming) that do not align with the priorities of this administration. Needless to say, this reasoning is wrong, immoral, and short-sighted, and goes against our country’s own national security and economic needs. NOAA’s cooperative institutes on the chopping block are a network of 16 science consortiums involving 80 universities and research institutions across 33 states. They include toxic algae bloom research in Michigan and tropical cyclone research in Florida.
NASA is bracing for terminations of existing missions and missions in development, and major cuts as large as 50% are expected. NSF unfunded APAR, the next-generation airborne radar for studying storms and hurricanes, and has just rolled out on April 18 a set of politically motivated updates on its priorities.
Since Trump took office, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has scrapped $1.5 billion in grants for environmental justice and frozen $20 billion in funding for clean energy and efficiency programs. Over the last two days, the EPA has started to cancel awarded research grants on topics spanning air and water quality, climate change impacts, and chemical pollution. The EPA is also set to cancel grants aimed at protecting children in rural America from pesticides, wildfire smoke, and toxic chemicals contaminating the food supply.
The White House is proposing to wipe out the entire biological research program at the US Geological Survey (USGS) in its 2026 budget request. USGS research includes conservation of endangered species, state management of game and wildlife, responses to wildfire, invasive species, sea level rise, and pollution, and involves approximately 1200 employees around the country. The opening of a huge Pacific marine protected zone to commercial fishing together with a new executive order titled “Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness” will increase the risk of overfishing and declining fish stocks and will likely weaken, not strengthen our fishing industry.
All staff involved in organizing the next (2027) US National Climate Assessment were just fired. This report, led by the US Global Change Research Program, is required by Congress every 4 years and is critical for US national and local decision-making for agriculture, land and water use, and energy production.
The barrage of US governmental agency cuts is compounded by indiscriminate and illegal governmental staff firings, massive losses of scientists from the public sector and universities, massive defunding of (congressionally approved) ongoing research grants for universities, and the elaborate, large-scale defunding of universities.
The result? A severely weakened national capacity to monitor and predict weather and environmental changes, the erosion of decades of scientific progress, a devastating loss of human capital, and squandered time—time that’s critical for adapting to and mitigating the impacts of climate and environmental crises.
These cuts don’t just affect scientists in lab coats—they affect every one of us. They mean slower or incorrect storm, tornado, flood, pollution, and wildfire warnings, poorer air and water quality, and fewer tools to help our citizens, farmers, emergency responders, city planners, businesses, army, and navy prepare for what’s ahead. Here in Philadelphia and PA, where more frequent/intense heat waves and more frequent flooding intensify the burden on our most vulnerable residents, this is not an abstract issue. It's local, and it's personal.
Climate change is not a future problem. It is a NOW problem. And it is one we cannot solve without data, without science and scientists, and without the infrastructure that allows us to understand what’s happening to our planet. When we defund weather, climate, and environmental research, we blindfold ourselves in the middle of a burning house.
In the face of this adversity, the scientific community and grassroots activists need to push forward with renewed commitment and energy. In our universities and businesses, specialists and educators need to partner with schools, libraries, and environmental groups to bring climate and environmental education to more people. We need to aggressively decarbonize our society and economy while working to protect and amplify the voices of frontline communities who are bearing the brunt of inaction. But we cannot do this alone. We need a government that funds the future—not one that denies it.
On this Earth Day, we celebrate our planet, and the resilience of those fighting to protect it. But we also call on our elected leaders — from City Hall to Capitol Hill — to reverse course and reinvest in weather, ocean, environmental data, and science. There is no prosperity on a dying planet, and no security in ignorance.
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About the Authors:
Dr. Irina Marinov is a climate scientist and Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Michael E. Mann is a Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of the Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book is “Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis. Both Dr. Marinov and Dr. Mann are members of the Philadelphia Science Action community.