Clearly, the Trump administration has taken the axe to the American scientific establishment, which, ironically, is the envy of the entire world. The U.S. National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is composed of 24 grantmaking institutes and centers in all. I went to hear Francis Collins, who directed the NIH from 2009 to 2025, talk about a new book of his (listen to the lecture here). He was plainly heartbroken by the budget cuts imposed by the new administration, and as a medical doctor in particular, he lamented the impact this would have in the lives of millions still suffering from incurable diseases. What people don’t realize, he said, is that American scientific research is what is because of generous government investments over the years.
The NIH, for example, regularly publishes “Notices of Funding Opportunities” (NOFOs). 787 NOFOs were posted in 2024. In the first 13 months of the second Trump administration, only 84 were posted. As you can read here, the government shutdown was a factor, but bigger factors were Elon Musk’s DOGE program, new government rules reducing the number of NOFOs, and orders from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to increase the red tape before institutes and centers can spend funds already allotted to them. Finally, the NIH has been restructured to give more voice to political appointees and all grants now have to be approved by the NIH director’s office and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (HHS). Traditionally, green lights for new proposals came mostly from committees of scientists themselves.
Red flags went up immediately when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed secretary of the HHS last year, mostly because of his longstanding skeptical attitude regarding vaccines. One of his latest positions to have elicited much criticism in the scientific community is his opposition to what he calls the “war on peptides.” What RFK Jr. is referring to is a 2023 FDA decision to ban the use of 19 of these “amino acid chains meant to help regulate functions in the body and have become popular among fitness and longevity enthusiasts” (see this excellent ProPublica article). The reason? Well documented research had flagged important safety concerns in the use of these 19 peptides. The current secretary has signaled that he intends to approve the use of at least 6 of them anyway. Janet Woodcook, a former FDA acting director, had this comment to make:
“It would be a disruption of the social contract we have had since 1962 that drugs would be studied to see if they work before they are marketed in the U.S.”
The above examples should greatly concern us. But the area I believe demonstrates the current administration’s most egregious disregard for science is its complete dismissal of climate change and its cause as determined by the quasi-unanimous voice of world scientists. This is because ignoring the problem is likely to cause millions more deaths in the coming decades, particularly in some of the poorest countries, along with growing political stability leading to more violent conflicts.
Tell-tale signs of accelerating global warming
Perhaps the following is just anecdotal evidence of the Earth’s temperature speeding upwards, maybe even consistent with the normal variation of weather on any given year, but listen in. Many scientists disagree with that optimistic view. An article in Time magazine from two weeks ago (March 26, 2026) reports on a massive heat wave spreading across the United States. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines a heat wave as “a period of unusually hot weather that lasts two or more days.” But this one was characterized as “historic,” with California and Arizona registering highs of 112 degrees, parts of the Great Plains with up to 45 degrees above average, and with Colorado, Nebraska and Missouri showing temperatures in the mid-90s. This was in March!
David Gelles of the New York Times wrote about these same events, but also noted that a few days before, “blizzard conditions whipped the upper Midwest and severe thunderstorms moved east from Arkansas to the Gulf.” Moreover, these “anomalous weather and shattered records” have been ringing alarm bells in the scientific community, which was already dealing with the fact that some of the globe’s “ecosystems are showing signs of intense stress.”
Imperial College London climate science professor Friederike Otto put it this way, “Things are getting really outside of what humans have ever seen. Almost every part of the world is experiencing these extreme events.” And now articles are appearing on the “super-El-Niño” coming this summer, which may turn out to be even more record-shattering than the 2015 one. According to the best computer models, it is likely to bring . . .
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- Reduced Atlantic hurricane activity, but more intense cyclones across the Pacific and much of Asia
- Reduced monsoon rainfall, together with possible drought conditions in north and central India
- Hotter, more humid weather with powerful storms in the Western USA, possibly reaching into the Plains
- Later this year, likelihood of drought across Central Africa, Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines; while intense flooding could threaten Peru, Ecuador, north and east Africa, and the Pacific region around the Equator
- Global temperatures could break records, especially in the beginning of 2027
Two scientists just published an article (March 6, 2026) in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, “Global Warming Has Accelerated Significantly.” By removing the three factors of normal variability (El Niño, volcanism, and solar variation), they calculated that the remaining data offer scientists over 98% confidence that global warming has indeed accelerated in the last decade over any previous decade. Though climate scientists like University of Pennsylvania Michael Mann agree that the extreme weather we witness today exceeds what previous models predicted (notably, “the intensification of hurricanes, ice sheet disintegration and sea level rise”), he and others disagree with the “acceleration of global warming” thesis—at least, for now. After all, it’s an ongoing debate, and that’s how scientific knowledge progresses.
The best scientific minds globally have been working on this since 1992
Allow me to quote the United Nations’ summary of its climate change work:
“In 1992, countries joined an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, as a framework for international cooperation to combat climate change by limiting average global temperature increases and the resulting climate change, and coping with impacts that were, by then, inevitable.
“By 1995, countries launched negotiations to strengthen the global response to climate change, and, two years later, adopted the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol legally binds developed country Parties to emission reduction targets. The Protocol’s first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. The second commitment period began on 1 January 2013 and will end in 2020.
“There are now 197 Parties to the Convention and 192 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.”
By far the greatest leap forward was the 2015 Paris climate conference and its outcome, the Paris Agreement, which “seeks to accelerate and intensify the actions and investment needed for a sustainable low carbon future.” That was a treaty to hold nations accountable for keeping the global temperature from climbing 1.5 degrees Celcius above the pre-industrial level, beyond which the dangers to humanity and the planet could multiply at an alarming rate and possibly threaten the existence of humanity in coming generations.
Now please look again at the graph at the head of this post. Notice that the different colors represent the calculations of nine different institutes, national and international research centers, and notice how consistent they are with one another. Finally, try to take in the implications of that breathtaking climb in global temperatures starting in the 1970s, and then rising even more vertically after 2015. We are already on the cusp of that fateful 1.5 degrees Celcius mark!
Now, back to our starting point. On day one of both of his presidential terms, Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement. One of his most often quoted slogans was, “Drill baby, drill!” And since the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) is the main culprit in the planet’s heating, he is obviously playing to the likes of ExxonMobil and Chevron. The other top contributors to global warming (in decreasing order) are deforestation, agricultural practices such as livestock farming, and industrial emissions. All these activities release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) which then trap the heat and cause global temperatures to rise.
Why reversing our present policies is an urgent matter
As noted above, extreme weather becoming increasing severe, faster rates of sea level rise, and a growing number of displaced populations causing political upheavals are some of the consequences of our current addiction to fossil fuels. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a paper last year entitled “Emissions Gap Report 2025” (take a look at this helpful, short summary of its findings). Despite the Paris Agreement, “humanity continues to burn fossil fuels and pump out greenhouse gasses at a record rate.” More specifically, . . .
“In 2024 these emissions – which act like a blanket, trapping heat near the Earth’s surface – jumped over 2 per cent. That continues a steady increase dating back more than a century. There is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any point in at least the last 2 million years.”
Still, the Paris Agreement was not in vain. For one thing, while the 2015 calculations had the world warming 3 to 3.5 degrees Celcius by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions stayed at their current level, the Emissions Gap Report 2025 downgraded that figure by one degree (2.3-2:5). That is because the yearly commitments of nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs), though falling short, have still made a difference. For another thing, since 2015, there has been a noticeable surge in the production of renewable energy, giving us some hope for “a low carbon future, marked by economic growth and energy security.”
Martin Krause, Director of UNEP’s Climate Change Division, is quoted as saying,
“Every fraction of a degree of warming we avoid means climate change will be less severe . . .
“If we buckle down, we can still potentially save lives, spare economies and prevent the world from reaching devastating climatic tipping points [on this, see this explanation of ecological tipping points, and the 2025 report] . . .
“We have the technology and the know-how to end the climate crisis . . . What we need now is the political will.”
In particular, the G-20 nations, which collectively emit three-quarters of all greenhouse gases in the world will have to do a lot more. Additionally, as per the Paris Agreement, they will also need to raise the bar in their commitment to help finance the efforts of developing countries to adapt to climate change.
The two most dangerous potential fallouts of climate change
Honestly, I feel that Martin Krause’s tone in the above quote reflects a very delicate balance between hope and despair. On the one hand, he impresses on his readers how dire our situation is as human beings on this planet, and especially in light of the obvious foot dragging shown by the world’s greatest polluters. Yet don’t confuse China with the U.S. on this: though China is now the greatest polluter (especially regarding coal), it is also the greatest innovator in terms of renewable energy and by far the greatest producer of electric vehicles. By contrast, the U.S. under Trump has completely buried its head in the sand by doubling down on the use of fossil fuels and by discouraging the use of clean energy.
On the other hand, Krause tries to maintain hope that if we act together as nations sharing the same planet, we could easily step away from the brink of catastrophic climate change if we chose to do so. In a sense, he (and the UN, and allied agencies and NGOs) uses a combination of fear and hope to motivate climate action. Despair can paralyze people, while unsubstantiated hope can make them complacent. Though I do believe there’s hope, yet I want to end this post with a good dose of fear, only because we as Americans have been brainwashed into not caring about climate change. In my recent post reviewing Ahmed Afzaal’s book, I do believe we could be marching toward the collapse of human civilization as we know it, perhaps as soon as the end of this century.
The first grave danger is that of political instability caused by the displacement of people fleeing extreme weather, be it droughts, or floods, or famine, or the violence all this could bring about. The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) offers this quick summary of the myths and facts related to climate change and displacement. Some writing on the issue might qualify as fear mongering—that is, that we’ve about to witness mass population shifts from the poorest countries of the Global South toward the wealthier nations of Europe and North America. Up to now, that’s a myth (this could change). The great majority of people (70 percent) fleeing extreme weather events are internally displaced. For example, a record number of people were displaced in 2022 for these reasons (32.6 million).
Of those displaced persons in 2022, 41 percent were seeking refuge from climate change related causes. Making matters worse, climate change is not just a threat—it’s truly a “threat multiplier,” the UNHCR and others have determined. An example comes from the West African nation of Burkino Faso, where “some of the worst violence and displacement in recent years has taken place in the poorest, most drought-affected areas where armed groups have exploited tensions over shrinking sources of water and arable land. At the same time, the presence of violence and conflict can severely undermine the capacity of governments to respond to the effects of climate change.”
Finally, we cannot predict how many people will be displaced by climate change, because causal relations between the latter and other factors involved are extremely complex. What’s more, those numbers will also depend on how seriously the international community tackles the causes of climate change going forward.
The last ominous danger came up a good deal in Afzaal’s book: the interrelated nature of global capitalism, for good or for ill. I have no room here to do justice to this issue, except to point you to an in-depth 2019 Foreign Policy article written by Adam Tooze, history professor and director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Just as central banks stepped in forcefully to prevent the world financial system’s collapse in 2009, he argues that it is all the more imperative that the globe’s central banks anticipate the fallout that climate change will produce. It could be much, much more severe. They should begin now to courageously restructure global financial institutions to avoid a much more catastrophic meltdown in the future, which is likely to occur much sooner than we think.
Much of the world’s capital is parked today in assets related to the fossil fuel industry. If we are serious about the urgent process of decarbonization of world capitalism, then starting today, we should gradually move the $1 to 4 trillion held in the global financial markets which are related to oil, gas and coal and which also touch “carbon intensive utilities, chemicals, construction, and industrial goods firms," and begin to invest them in the clean energy sector. If that sounds very unlikely, it’s because it is! It will cause a lot of pain to very powerful players in today’s financial markets and international finance.
On the other hand, “protracted denial followed by panic-driven decarbonization” is what should already concern the world’s central bankers. Realistically, that is what we are facing. Tooze offers several practical steps central bankers could take. But again, we need to build up the political will, and that starts with you and me—by the way we vote and how we share information with friends, colleagues and neighbors. The more we face the dire consequences of our apathy or even defeatism in light of the terrifying consequences of the present status quo, the more hope we could hold on to.
All this said, we ignore the conclusions of contemporary science at our own peril—our individual health as individuals and the well-being of our fellow human beings sharing this beautiful planet with us. We also damage the wonderful home our Creator entrusted us with.
For further Reading:
From the BBC Science Focus, "A biblical megaflood could hit the US at any moment. And that's only the beginning."