Earlier this summer, access to climate.gov – one of the most widely used portals of climate information on the internet – was thwarted by the Trump administration, and its production team was fired in the process.
The website offered years’ worth of accessibly written material on climate science. The site is technically still online but has been intentionally buried by the team of political appointees who now run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Now, a team of climate communication experts – including many members of the former climate.gov team – is working to resurrect its content into a new organization with an expanded mission.
Their effort’s new website, climate.us, would not only offer public-facing interpretations of climate science, but could also begin to directly offer climate-related services, such as assisting local governments with mapping increased flooding risk due to climate change.
The effort is being led by climate.gov’s former managing editor, Rebecca Lindsey, who, although now unemployed, has recruited several of her former colleagues to volunteer their time in an attempt to build climate.us into a thriving non-profit organization.
“A lot of federal employees are grieving over the sense that they’ve not just lost a job, but a vocation,” said Lindsey. “None of us were ready to let go of climate.gov and the mission.”
In the first few weeks after the Trump administration ended their work, Lindsey’s new team has received a steady flow of outside support, including legal support, and a short-term grant that has helped them develop a vision for what they’d like to do next.
“The things that were most popular on climate.gov were things that basically just taught people about climate, both natural climate and climate change,” said Lindsey. “There is a need for content that helps people achieve basic climate literacy independent of an agency.”
As multi-year veterans of the federal bureaucracy, at times they’ve been surprised by the possibilities that the new effort might offer.
“We’re allowed to use TikTok now,” said Lindsey. “We’re allowed to have a little bit of fun. We have a group chat. We’re diving into things that are not part of our wheelhouse.”
The climate.us team is also in the process of soft-launching a crowdsourced fundraising drive that Lindsey hopes they can leverage into more permanent support from a major foundation. Lindsey also set up an email address to contact the team to offer in-kind support.
“Someone bought our domain name for us. And we have somebody that’s volunteered web hosting space for this phase. But we do not yet have the sort of large operational funding that we will need if we’re going to actually transition climate.gov operations to the nonprofit space.”
In the meantime, Lindsey and her team have found themselves spending the summer knee-deep in the logistics of building a major non-profit from scratch.
“We’ve all had to let go of the 9-5 mentality and basically try to do things as quickly as possible,” said one member of Lindsey’s new team who previously worked with her at climate.gov but asked not to be named for fear of retribution.
“By carrying on the legacy of climate.gov and actually trying to republish the most vital parts of climate.gov, we hope that we can be a cornerstone,” said Lindsey. “We hope that it will provide a critical mass that will attract other partners who want to be part of the effort.”
Given the context of why Lindsey is doing this work at this time and in this way, it has been an emotional summer. The effort has the sheen of equal parts science journalism and a cathartic personal vendetta against an administration that has all but declared war on federal science efforts.
“We’ve been optimistic and alternating between being energized and feeling like this is a good thing and we’re on the right path and then, of course, being terrified that we’re not going to be able to pull it off and six months is going to have passed and we all should have been looking for new jobs and we didn’t,” said Lindsey.
“What’s happening can feel so overwhelming that it’s easy to feel like you’re powerless to do anything about it,” said Lindsey’s team member. “But sometimes you have to just look out and see what’s within your reach. And this problem is within our reach, so we just see it as sort of doing our part.”
Lindsey also told the Guardian that all the content for climate.gov is still up if you know where to look, which when she found that out, made her even more upset.
“This is information that the taxpayers have already paid for,” said Lindsey. “This administration is trying to hide it and take it away from us. It’s an abuse of government. It’s a waste of resources. People should be indignant. That’s not the way the government should work.”
“I think it’s important for this initiative to persist even past this crowdfunding phase,” said another part-time contributor to the project, who wished to remain anonymous because they are still an employee of the federal government.
“Whether people realize it or not, climate change impacts everyone, regardless of the current political environment. And climate science is the only way to understand and adapt to what is happening on our big beautiful planet.”
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