So, what’s next?

As I write this in June 2025, the number of climate and weather scientists I know who have retired, accepted buyouts, or been fired is beyond my accounting. Many more have lost their funding and expect to be without a job in a matter of months. A leading NASA Institute was turned out to find a new home. Data and information services are threatened; some are closed down or likely to close. Across federal agencies, budgets of climate change activities have been reduced, sometimes eliminated, and further reductions are expected. A few have been shut down, then given a reprieve after some effective protests.

Even in cases when no one says out loud that an effort is ended or a center is closed, the people available to do the work have, often, been left in a position to assure failure. There are simply too few to do what needs to be done. Infrastructure is imperiled.

It is a bleak time for climate science. All of this was promised in Project 2025.

Many who I know are too shell-shocked to talk about what has happened. They are more concerned about how to pay the mortgage. Those who are still at work are focused on doing their jobs. They are scientists and communicators committed to and driven by their work; they consider their work important.

Beyond their personal situations, few are thinking about “what’s next?” It is a difficult proposition to think, collectively, about institutions.

One size does not fit all

(Image credit: NOAA.)

This past week, I gave a talk in a workshop on what I believe is required to provide model simulations to support adaptation to a warming climate in the Great Lakes region.

I have believed for years that the U.S. needs a new, more strategic approach to climate modeling. The current political situation only elevates the need. It is foolhardy to imagine that a future election is going to rebuild what we once had.

I described the need for a new approach in “To adapt to climate change, we need better models.”

In short, I and many others have felt that U.S. climate modeling activities were inefficient, fragmented across too many agencies. I believe that too much effort is focused on “understanding” the climate system and not enough is focused on the real-world applications that we face: preparedness, adaptation, geoengineering, tipping points, etc. The predominant culture of massive computers and the quest for a one-size-fits-all comprehensive model is unsustainable. It does not address the need.

Though I feel the way we do business needs to change, I have never advocated “tearing it all down.” Though inefficient, what we have (perhaps had) worked and was, often, world-class. I have no examples that demonstrate how tearing it all down leads to better outcomes.

My talk at the workshop focused on the Great Lakes. But it also provided a version of what needs to happen nationally.

I made the (perhaps unconvincing) argument that the current political environment offers an opportunity to do something differently.

Rising above the political fray

(Image: iStock.)

I understand the researcher’s desire to focus on “the science” when attacking problems deemed imperative by society.

Many scientists maintain the knowledge they generate is politically neutral, objectively valuable. However, when science-based research suggests or compels changes to personal behavior, businesses, economics, and power structures, it is immediately politicized. If the research is supported, primarily by government, there is no reason to expect our science enterprise to rise above the political fray.

For the current administration, climate science resides on the liability ledger rather than the assets.

Political activism and litigation provide well-founded pushback against the deconstruction of our climate science capacity, but I fear such efforts produce only limited success. Even if we experience some major political and legal victories, too much damage has already been done.

We need new champions, new leaders.

Too much of what I hear from our often-deposed leaders in climate science remains trapped in the echo chamber surrounding agency missions, agency turf, and the objective value of our work. It’s as if the scientific community believes that once our value to society will, in crisis, be revealed, our missions and budgets will be restored.

But the people who are cutting budgets and hollowing out institutions are working with values that deviate from longstanding scientific norms. They have rewritten the agencies’ missions. Though the public is supportive of climate science, climate and science rarely rise to the level of a first-priority voting issue. Those in control of the resources are getting what they want.

The future will rely on the community moving away from a defensive position. Science cannot maintain the narrative that all we have done has been right, and that all that is being proposed is wrong. Too many studies about the practice of science and the execution of science policy, often authored by scientists, demonstrate that things need to change.

Balancing change with preservation

Leadership requires one to differentiate themselves from the canonical thinking of the group.

I led several organizations in my career, and I was never asked to be a steward of present behavior and practice. I was always asked to disrupt an entrenched organizational culture and to address goals that aligned with agency or national priorities.

This required asking what needs to change.

And it required a strategic approach that balanced change with preservation. A coherent and focused approach is a convincing feature of good leadership. It is easier to conceive an effective approach to adaptation modeling in the Great Lakes than it is to reimagine the entire U.S. climate science enterprise. Even so, such a regional effort could be framed as a contribution to such a reimagining.

As the rubble of our crumbling climate enterprise piles up, we need to identify the next generation of science leaders who will extract and develop approaches and opportunities that meet the moment. If we don’t, that potential will be lost for years. What we face today is too important to let that happen. We need to find, inspire, and support those willing to challenge the status quo of their own community, to avoid complicity with those intent on doing damage, and to build trust and develop the compromises necessary to do things differently.