** 12/19/25 - Bill McKibben Dec 19 - info re Trump administration’s decision to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research.............
Buzz Sawyer
"The most traumatic item is the k born like me in 1960. It was a product of that era’s faith in science, a faith that paid off spectacularly. Take weather forecasting. As Nature reported today
Work at NCAR played a key part in the rise of modern weather and climate forecasting. For instance, the lab pioneered the modern dropwindsonde, a weather instrument that can be released from an aircraft to measure conditions as it plummets through a storm. The technology reshaped the scientific understanding of hurricanes, says James Franklin, an atmospheric scientist and former branch chief of the hurricane specialist unit at the US National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
But its most historically significant work has been in understanding the dimensions of the ongoing climate crisis. Nature again
On the global scale, NCAR is known for its climate-modelling work, including the world-leading models that underpin international assessments such as those from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Hundreds of scientists pass through NCAR’s doors each year to collaborate with its researchers. More than 800 people are employed at NCAR, most of whom work at the centre’s three campuses in Boulder, including the iconic Mesa Lab that sits at the base of jagged mountain peaks and was designed by architect I. M. Pei.
There’s no question about why the administration is doing what it’s doing. Project 2025 enforcer Russell Vought explained it quite succinctly—NCAR must go because it is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” This is stupid—it’s like closing the fire department because it’s a source of “fire alarmism”—but it’s by now an entirely recognizable form of stupid. And it’s also sly: it’s like spraypainting over the surveillance cameras so you can rob the bank without anyone watching. But of course nothing changes with the underlying physics. Indeed yesterday, as the announcement came down, NCAR was closed for the day because
the local electrical company planned to cut electricity preemptively to reduce wildfire risk as fierce winds were forecast around Boulder. In 2021, a wildfire ignited just kilometres from NCAR; fuelled by powerful winds, it ripped through suburban homes, killing two people. Many researchers say this is a new normal of increased fire risk in an era of climate change — a topic of study at NCAR.
I am glad people are rallying to fight—there was an emergency press conference today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where many of the world’s earth scientists are gathered. Third Act Colorado is working with Indivisible on a weekend rally. This is the scientific equivalent of tearing down the East Wing of the White House, and given the moment a lot more significant.
But I’m saddened to see how little our representatives in DC seem to really care, even the Democratic ones. Sixteen Democratic Senators voted today to confirm Trump (and Elon Musk’s) nominee to head NASA, even though, as Brad Johnson pointed out in his Hill Heat newsletter, the administration is trying to slash science research at the agency in half. The new head, Jared Isaacman, is clearly on board. As he wrote this spring, “Take NASA out of the taxpayer funded climate science business and leave it for academia to determine.” But of course the administration is wrecking that too—they cut off the funding for the gold standard climate research program at Princeton on the grounds that it was “contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.”
[As I begin, an aside. This is becoming a difficult moment economically for some—new data today suggests that unemployment has reached its highest level since the pandemic. I worry there may be a few people who graciously volunteered to pay the voluntary and modest subscription fee to help underwrite this project and who now find themselves strapped. Here’s instructions for how to cancel those payments. And conversely if you’re in a place where you can afford to help support this community, it would be graciously welcomed].
It’s the end of the year, and so one should be compiling ten-best lists. And I turned 65 last week, having spent almost my entire adult life in the climate fight, so it’s one of those moments when I wish I could look back with a certain amount of satisfaction. But since I owe you honesty, not exuberance, just at the moment I can’t provide much celebration. I was hopeful this edition of The Crucial Years might be about a big victory—on Wednesday the board that controls New York City’s pension funds was considering whether or not to pull tens of billions from Blackrock because of the investment giant’s climate waffling, which would have been a massive display of courage. Sadly, the city comptroller Brad Lander hadn’t gotten the measure on the agenda before the final meeting of his term, and he seems to have run out of time and political juice—the idea was tabled. And so we’re left staring at a pile of recent defeats, at least in this country (which is an important qualification). I’ll try to end in a more hopeful place, but I fear you’re going to have to work through my angst with me for a few minutes. This is a community, good times and bad. No one need feel obligated to help support it, but if you’re in a position to do so easily then a modestly priced and voluntary subscription is the way to do it. The most traumatic item is the Trump administration’s decision to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research, born like me in 1960. It was a product of that era’s faith in science, a faith that paid off spectacularly. Take weather forecasting. As Nature reported today
But its most historically significant work has been in understanding the dimensions of the ongoing climate crisis. Nature again
There’s no question about why the administration is doing what it’s doing. Project 2025 enforcer Russell Vought explained it quite succinctly—NCAR must go because it is “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.” This is stupid—it’s like closing the fire department because it’s a source of “fire alarmism”—but it’s by now an entirely recognizable form of stupid. And it’s also sly: it’s like spraypainting over the surveillance cameras so you can rob the bank without anyone watching. But of course nothing changes with the underlying physics. Indeed yesterday, as the announcement came down, NCAR was closed for the day because
I am glad people are rallying to fight—there was an emergency press conference today at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where many of the world’s earth scientists are gathered. Third Act Colorado is working with Indivisible on a weekend rally. This is the scientific equivalent of tearing down the East Wing of the White House, and given the moment a lot more significant. But I’m saddened to see how little our representatives in DC seem to really care, even the Democratic ones. Sixteen Democratic Senators voted today to confirm Trump (and Elon Musk’s) nominee to head NASA, even though, as Brad Johnson pointed out in his Hill Heat newsletter, the administration is trying to slash science research at the agency in half. The new head, Jared Isaacman, is clearly on board. As he wrote this spring, “Take NASA out of the taxpayer funded climate science business and leave it for academia to determine.” But of course the administration is wrecking that too—they cut off the funding for the gold standard climate research program at Princeton on the grounds that it was “contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.” Too many Democratic leaders are feeling comfortable waving off climate concerns, because of a feeling that it might be a political problem for them. That was exemplified this morning in the New York Times when center-right pundit Matt Yglesias issued a strident call for liberals to “support America’s oil and gas industry.” That he did it hours after that oil and gas industry won its fight to shutter climate research was probably coincidental, but the piece was a woebegone recycling of decades-old bad-faith arguments from a person who has insisted repeatedly that climate change is not an existential risk. Yglesias wants us to follow Obama-era ‘all of the above’ energy policies even though they date from fifteen years ago, when clean energy was more expensive than dirty, and long before we had the batteries that could make solar and wind fully useful. It’s no longer a good argument, but he has not changed his tune one iota—he keeps invoking Obama, as if what was passable policy in 2008 still made sense. The centerpiece of his argument is that we should support the gas industry because at least it produces less carbon than coal.
By now anyone following this debate knows that this is a mendacious point. That’s because the switch to gas has reduced American carbon emissions at the cost of increasing American methane emissions. Those who, like Yglesias, followed last year’s debate over pausing permitting for LNG export terminals know that the crucial point was the science showing that in fact American LNG exports were worse than coal. The job is to get others to switch to solar, not coal—and that’s happening everywhere except the U.S., whose appetite for the stuff is apparently the thing still driving up global consumption even as demand drops in China and India. Having written many many opeds for the Times, I know that they fact-check things like the methane numbers; this should not have eluded them, but in fairness it’s eluded Democrats for decades, because gas has been such a convenient out for those unwilling to stand up to Big Oil. If I sound sore here, it’s because I’ve tried and failed to get this basic point of physics across; it’s just technical enough that senators often forget it, but ostensibly serious people like Yglesias should at least grapple with it. All of this comes on the tenth anniversary of the Paris climate talks—and tenth anniversary of the Congress and (Democratic) president approving the resumption of U.S. oil exports. I celebrated my 55th in Paris, and I remember being hunched over a laptop at a cafe writing what I think may have been the only oped opposing that resumption. As I said at the time
And indeed the Senators who said it was no big deal were wrong. America is, as Tony Dutzik pointed out this week, now the biggest oil exporter on earth. He lays out the case nicely
So, anyway, feeling a little sad today. But I do think this is a low point, because I think around the rest of the world, where Trump (and pundits like Yglesias) have marginally less sway, things are continuing to break the right way. In fact, earlier today the premier journal Science picked its scientific “Breakthrough of the Year” and it turned out to be not some fascinating if arcane new discovery, but instead the prosaic but powerful spread of renewable energy around the planet.
That’s the fight as we head into 2026. Trump and Big Oil have had the run of things this year, but their idiocy is pushing up against limits: among other things, it turns out that permitting every data center imaginable while cutting off the supply of cheap sun and wind is sending energy prices through the roof, which may be a real issue as midterms loom. I’m not retiring—I’m here for the fight, and you too I hope In other energy and climate news +Sea level rise seems to be accelerating. A new study of dozens of tide gauges around the U.S. shows, as Brady Dennis puts it, that a pretend study carried out by climate skeptics for the Department of Energy earlier this year, “stands in contrast” to reality.
Meanwhile, Arctic sea ice is at a record low level for the date
and a new study shows what a miserable year it’s been up north, with the highest temperatures ever recorded. As Oliver Millman puts it
+The Trump campaign against electric vehicles is causing a $19.5 billion dollar writedown at Ford, which will retool its assembly lines to make more hybrid vehicles and fewer true EVs.
Meanwhile, Uber is pulling back its incentives for EV use
Underscoring the stupidity of all this: new numbers from China on the explosive growth in electric trucks there.
Beyond trucks, the rest of transit. Here’s a fascinating essay from Andrew Beebe on the coming frontiers of electrification:
 +Rapid falls in the price of storage batteries are essentially turning solar power into 24 hour supply—the numbers, says Michelle Lewis, are truly remarkable
+I’m a longtime admirer of Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, whose new exhibition, Presence, manages to capture a roiling sun in ways that make audiences gasp. A fine profile in the Guardian includes him taling about how art can work to change our perceptions:
+Sharon Lerner at ProPublica has an important report on the EPA’s new project: doubling the amount of formaldehyde we get to breathe. If that sounds bad, well, it is.
+Congestion pricing in New York City has proven to be…kind of miraculous. New data from the first six months of the project finds
+Clare Fieseler has an almost-poignant and really fascinating account of the guy who’s spent the last years effectively spewing misinformation about offshore wind in an effort to kill the industry in America.
+Carbon credits have been a grave disappointment bordering on a general scam—but there’s one interesting emerging case where they might work? Anton Delgado, writing in the Washington Post, describes their use in the Philippines to
+As the holidays approach, I raise a glass in your direction, with thanks for all you’ve done for the planet this year. In fact, here’s a California vintner that’s just gone fully solar, with a floating array! As the owner of Nelson Vineyards explained
Thanks for reading. I wish I could say that if you took out a voluntary and modestly priced subscription you’d get a souvenir wine glass, but you won’t.
© 2025 Bill McKibben
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