THE SET-UP: The days of climate denial are but a sepia-toned memory of a simpler time. We are past that now … and headlong into an era of climate erasure. It’s not just programs and grants and resilience and adaptation getting axe’d … words and phrases that refer to the rapidly changing climate are now verboten. I guess if you work at NASA or NOAA or the EPA or the USDA, you can probably get away with thinking about the verboten words … but you’d better think twice about jotting 'em down or typing ‘em into a memo or an email.
If you did use the verboten words in the “before time,” you can be sure that the regime is busily purging any trace of it from the government’s websites, storage clouds and databanks. From prolonged and unseasonal heatwaves to recurring 100-year floods, from Hell-like firestorms to unprecedented tornado clusters, the genesis of whiplashing weather (and the home insurance crisis it is stoking) is currently being stuffed down the memory hole.
Denial? Forget about it.
Literally. Trump wants us to erase it from our conversations and our memos and, it seems, from our thoughts.
Out of mind, out of sight?
Even today the regime terminated funding for climate research at Princeton University on the grounds it perpetuates “narratives” that do not “align with the priorities of this Administration.”
“Narratives.”
As The New York Times explains, the terminated “narratives” included “a collaboration between NOAA and Princeton that focuses on improving computer models that show how the ocean and atmosphere are changing.” The Commerce Department, which oversees the increasingly crippled National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said the collaboration “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.”
Of course, there seems to be good reason for the anxiety … but that’s only if we think about it. I guess that’s why the regime is also halting “a five-year research effort … to understand how Earth’s water availability would fluctuate as a result of global warming,” and “a different five-year research project aimed at predicting how changes in rainfall patterns and sea-level rise could affect coastal flooding.”
Apparently, the less we know about what’s coming, the better it is … for them … and for the makers of Xanax. - jp
TITLE: The $20B question hanging over America’s struggling farmers
https://grist.org/food-and-agriculture/the-20-billion-question-hanging-over-americas-struggling-farmers/
EXCERPTS: As Earth heats up, the growing frequency and intensity of disasters like catastrophic storms and heat waves are becoming a mounting problem for the people who grow the planet’s food. Warming is no longer solely eroding agricultural productivity and food security in distant nations or arid climates. It’s throttling production in the United States.
Farmers and ranchers across the country lost at least $20.3 billion in crops and rangeland to extreme weather last year, according to a new Farm Bureau report that crowned the 2024 hurricane season “one of the most destructive in U.S. history” and outlined a long list of other climate-fueled impacts.
Texas experienced the highest losses for the third year in a row. Extreme drought, excessive heat, and high winds took out more than $3.4 billion worth of crops like cotton and wheat, and damaged rangeland. Flooding cost Minnesota some $1.45 billion in corn, soybeans, and forage, among other crops. California endured nearly all the same weather challenges as the south-central U.S. and the upper Midwest, costing its agricultural sector $1.4 billion.
And then there was the one-two punch of hurricanes Helene and Milton that tore through the Southeast. Georgia’s agricultural sector sustained over $459 million in losses as Helene wiped out crops like peanuts, pecans, and cotton. The same storm destroyed some $174 million worth of tobacco, blueberries, and apples in North Carolina. Florida’s ag industry lost nearly twice that to the two hurricanes, adding to the problems pummeling citrus production, all of them caused by previous storms, water scarcity, and disease.
Those tallies are but a snapshot of the economic impact of last year’s disasters on U.S. farm production, as they only account for damages wrought by major weather events such as billion-dollar disasters. They also don’t figure in most livestock or infrastructure losses following Helene and Milton, which significantly hike up total agricultural economic impacts for states like Georgia and Florida.
By the end of the year, farmers from coast to coast were left with diminished income, unpaid bills, and little recourse. Those financial stressors were compounded by inflation, surging labor and production costs, disruptions to global supply and demand, and increased price volatility. So in December, Congress authorized nearly $31 billion in emergency assistance to help struggling producers.
TITLE: USDA solar program restarts with new rule for farmers: No DEI or climate focus
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/04/08/science/trump-solar-program-restarted/
EXCERPTS: Across the country, thousands of farmers were left in the lurch back in January, after the Trump administration froze a US Department of Agriculture grant program to help install solar on small farms.
Those projects help farmers cover the costs of powering greenhouses and refrigerating crops and meat after it’s harvested. But the program comes with a catch: the installation costs only get reimbursed after the solar panels are up and operating.
Anne Diemand Bucci, of Diemand Farm in Wendell, roughly 20 miles north of Amherst, suddenly found herself making payments on a $250,000 bank loan for a solar project that might never get built.
Thirty miles south, at Red Fire Farm in Granby, Ryan Voiland watched as the window to use a $50,000 grant in state matching funds closed, making it even less likely he’d be able to add a solar canopy to his farm.
And Bill Jordan, a solar developer in New York State who has spent decades helping farmers install solar panels, saw $18 million in work freeze up.
Then, in late March, as quickly as the taps had turned off — they reopened, albeit with a stipulation that applicants remove “harmful” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility references, and any “far-left climate features” from their proposals, according to a press release issued by the USDA.
As farmers circulated the press release and found similar language in email messages they received as grantees, they were, in a word, perplexed.
“I didn’t understand it,” said Bucci, whose 175-acre operation specializes in chickens for eggs and meat, turkeys and grass-fed beef, trees for lumber, and various foods like soup and turkey pot pies, which she sells in her farm store and locally.
With Massachusetts’ sky-high electricity rates, Bucci’s solar panels would help mitigate the $3,000 to $4,000 electricity bills she’s hit with each month.
Her grant doesn’t mention diversity or inclusion — nor does it explicitly mention climate change, though the generation of clean energy from solar panels will certainly help combat global warming.
Not to mention, it’s not even clear how the USDA would measure the extent to which climate or DEI is a part of the grant. The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.
Eventually, she heard from Jordan Energy — the contractor on her project — that her plan should be safe. She’s moving ahead, but that doesn’t mean it sits well for Bucci, who did not vote for Trump.
“What is the point they’re trying to make?” she asked, as chicks peeped loudly in the background. “If somebody is doing something for climate change, or for DEI like, really? What is so wrong with that?”
TITLE: Phrases Newly Banned At USDA Include ‘Safe Drinking Water’ and ‘Climate Change,’ Leaked Memo Reveals
https://sentientmedia.org/phrases-newly-banned-at-usda/
EXCERPTS: “Safe drinking water,” “greenhouse gas emissions,” and “climate change” are just a few of the 100+ words and phrases now banned at the Department of Agriculture’s research division, according to a recently-leaked memo. More Perfect Union reports that in March, staff at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were sent a long list of words and phrases by a section head and told that they may no longer use any of them in certain official contexts. The memo was sent by Sharon Strickland, the Northeast Area Financial Management, Travel and Agreements Section Head at the ARS, to staff. The ARS is the research wing of the USDA, overseeing over 600 research projects and 2,000 scientists.
The photo of the leaked memo is partially cropped, and some of the words aren’t visible, so the details and precise nature of the directive aren’t clear. In general, the memo appears to state that staff are forbidden from submitting agreements and other contracts that use any of the forbidden words.
President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have long been hostile to environmentalism and government efforts to address climate change. Many of the newly banned words reflect this mindset: “Global warming,” “climate science,” “alternative energy,” “methane emissions,” “pollution remediation,” “clean water,” “solar energy,” “microplastics,” “water conservation,” “soil pollution” and “contaminants of environmental concern” are among the forbidden phrases.
The list also includes a section of words that are banned as a result of the Trump administration’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. These phrases include “environmental justice,” “underserved,” “gender,” “inclusive,” and “accessible.” Additionally, this section forbids the use of many words used to denote either non-white, non-cisgender or non-heterosexual identities: “black,” “indigenous,” “transgender,” “bisexual” and “queer” may also no longer be used in relevant USDA-ARS communications.
The inclusion of some newly banned phrases is downright confusing, even when accounting for the administration’s general animosity toward DEI and environmentalist efforts. “Rural water” and “diesel” aren’t exactly left-wing rallying cries, yet they too have been deemed unacceptable at the USDA-ARS.
This latest move raises serious questions about the future of the Agricultural Research Service, the biggest being: how will it continue to do its job?
How can the department conduct research into water safety if it’s not allowed to use the words “water quality,” or “safe drinking water?” Does the ban on the phrases “air pollution” and “greenhouse gas emissions” mean that the department will no longer research emissions from factory farming? Emissions from food account for around one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, with most of those fueled by meat production, especially beef.
“There are currently 24 PFAS-related research projects funded by the ARS,” Pingree notes. “What happens to those projects now? This research is absolutely crucial to understanding and mitigating these harmful chemicals, which have devastated farmers, their families, and public health. It really is terrifying to think all of this important research could be eradicated with the click of a button, making our communities less safe and less affordable.”
Other unanswered questions remain too: Since the word “black” is forbidden, for example, is the department also no longer allowed to reference black beans in discussions about crops? While this may sound preposterous, in early March the administration included research involving transgenic mice in its sweeping freeze on funding for transgender health research.