More than 1,900 scientists who are members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) have signed a letter warning the American public of the “danger” of Trump administration attacks on science.

The administration’s attack on scientific institutions in the United States has included cancellations of federal grants to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions; the firing of NASA, NOAA and other government employees; investigations and threats to private universities; resignations; and censorship, reported The Guardian.

“We see real danger in this moment. We hold diverse political beliefs, but we are united as researchers in wanting to protect independent scientific inquiry. We are sending this SOS to sound a clear warning: the nation’s scientific enterprise is being decimated,” the scientists stated in the letter.

Established by Congress in 1863 — during the administration of Abraham Lincoln — as the National Academy of Sciences, today the organization is a nonprofit and includes the National Academies of Engineering and Medicine. Together, the academies have over 6,800 peer-elected members.

“The quest for truth – the mission of science – requires that scientists freely explore new questions and report their findings honestly, independent of special interests. The administration is engaging in censorship, destroying this independence,” the letter stated. “It is using executive orders and financial threats to manipulate which studies are funded or published, how results are reported, and which data and research findings the public can access. The administration is blocking research on topics it finds objectionable, such as climate change, or that yields results it does not like, on topics ranging from vaccine safety to economic trends.”

The signatories are all elected members of NASEM and represent some of the top scientists in the country. The letter describes researchers removing scientifically accurate terminology from papers and grant proposals to comply with federal agencies; removing their own names from work; and abandoning studies, The Washington Post reported.

Richard Aslin, Yale School of Medicine senior scientist and an author of the letter, said the scientists wanted “to make sure the American public is aware that this is not just about us losing our jobs. It’s about the whole country losing a tremendously valuable resource that has made us, honestly, the envy of the world,” reported The Washington Post.

The Trump administration’s upheaval of scientific institutions has some wondering if the cuts are a precursor to privatization, The Guardian reported.

“The administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration. The funding cuts are forcing institutions to pause research (including studies of new disease treatments), dismiss faculty, and stop enrolling graduate students — the pipeline for the next generation’s scientists,” the letter said.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last week that the administration plans to reduce the HHS workforce by 20,000 — about a quarter of its employees. Agencies on the chopping block include the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Peter Marks, who was the FDA’s director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, resigned last weekend, citing the administration’s “unprecedented assault on scientific truth.”

“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary,” Marks’ resignation letter stated. “But rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

In an unprecedented attack on environmental science, the administration also sought to dissolve the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development by firing more than 1,100 scientists.

“The nation’s scientific enterprise is being annihilated and the silence of too many of our scientific leaders is only making the ongoing catastrophe worse,” said Dr. Robert Steinbrook, director of the Health Research Group at nonprofit consumer rights advocacy organization Public Citizen, a think tank based in Washington, DC, as reported by The Guardian.

“The ‘SOS’ signal from 1,900 scientists must be a wake-up call for our leading scientific and medical organizations to show courage and speak out at this critical moment,” Steinbrook said. “If scientists and scientific and medical organizations will not forcefully speak out in defense of science and public health, who will? There is no alternative.”

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In a new review published in the journal Oxford Open Climate Change, scientists have issued an urgent warning that the fossil fuel industry and its products are driving intertwined crises threatening humans, wildlife and our shared future on this planet.

The collaborative review by scientists from the Center for Biological Diversity and several universities synthesizes scientific evidence that shows fossil fuels and the industry are behind many harms to public health, biodiversity and environmental justice, while contributing to the agrochemical pollution, plastics and climate crises, a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity said.

“The science can’t be any clearer that fossil fuels are killing us,” said lead author of the report Shaye Wolf, the Center for Biological Diversity’s climate science director, in the press release. “Oil, gas and coal will continue to condemn us to more deaths, wildlife extinctions and extreme weather disasters unless we make dirty fossil fuels a thing of the past. Clean, renewable energy is here, it’s affordable, and it will save millions of lives and trillions of dollars once we make it the centerpiece of our economy.”

The review’s focus is on the United States — the largest producer of oil and gas in the world and the biggest contributor to the fossil fuel crises. The study provides solutions that are already available for the phaseout of fossil fuel use and extraction while transitioning quickly and “fairly” to affordable renewable, clean energy and materials throughout the economy.

“Fossil fuel pollution impacts health at every stage of life, with elevated risks for conditions ranging from premature births to childhood leukemia and severe depression,” said co-author of the review David J.X. González, an assistant environmental health sciences professor at University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health, in the press release. “We’ve got to work fast to end fossil fuel operations near our homes, schools and hospitals and trade fossil fuel infrastructure for healthy, clean energy.”

Fossil fuels are responsible for roughly 90 percent of all human-caused carbon emissions that are causing global heating, ocean acidification and fueling unparalleled climate disasters.

To limit damages caused by the climate crisis, the authors encouraged governments to immediately cease the expansion of fossil fuels and to phase out current fossil fuel development.

The review also detailed the disproportionate harms fossil fuel use, extraction and processing inflict upon low-income communities and communities of color.

“Decades of discriminatory policies, such as redlining, have concentrated fossil fuel development in Black, Brown, Indigenous and poor white communities, resulting in devastating consequences,” said Robin Saha, an associate professor of environmental studies at the University of Montana, in the press release. “For far too long, these fenceline communities have been treated as sacrifice zones by greedy, callous industries. The most polluted communities should be prioritized for clean energy investments and removal and cleanup of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure.”

Climate change and pollution caused by fossil fuel use are also accelerating animals’ risk of extinction. As much as a third of plants and animals could become extinct over the next half-century if fossil fuel use continues unabated.

The review emphasized the need for increased protection of essential carbon-storing ecosystems and the incorporation of renewable energy infrastructure into the built environment, among other measures.

It also stressed the increased production of plastics by the fossil fuel industry, which creates pervasive pollution that contaminates our water, air, soil and food systems.

The scientists recommended ambitious targets to reduce the production of primary plastics and accompanying “chemicals of concern,” while at the same time incentivizing sustainable and safe plastics alternatives and substitutes, along with sustainable agricultural practices that limit petrochemical pollution from fertilizers and pesticides fueled by fossil fuels.

The review discussed a major barrier to the transition to clean energy: the longstanding, multibillion-dollar disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry to cover up the hazards of its products while blocking policies that support the phasing out of fossil fuels.

“The fossil fuel industry has spent decades misleading us about the harms of their products and working to prevent meaningful climate action,” said Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard University professor of the history of science, in the press release. “Perversely, our governments continue to give out hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to this damaging industry. It is past time that stops.”

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Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) have said that Arctic sea ice most likely reached its yearly maximum extent on March 22, at 5.53 million square miles.

The maximum sea ice extent for 2025 is the lowest in a satellite record going back 47 years, falling short of the last record low set in March of 2017.

“This new record low is yet another indicator of how Arctic sea ice has fundamentally changed from earlier decades,” said Walt Meier, NSIDC senior research scientist, in a press release from NSIDC. “But even more importantly than the record low is that this year adds yet another data point to the continuing long-term loss of Arctic sea ice in all seasons.”

Scientists from NSIDC stressed that the measurement of Arctic sea ice extent was preliminary. Weather conditions could alter the total maximum ice extent for the year. NSIDC’s full analysis will be issued in early April.

“In the dark and cold of winter, sea ice forms and spreads across Arctic seas. But in recent years, less new ice has been forming, and less multi-year ice has accumulated. This winter continued a downward trend scientists have observed over the past several decades. This year’s peak ice cover was 510,000 square miles (1.32 million square kilometers) below the average levels between 1981 and 2010,” a press release from NASA said.

Antarctic sea ice hit a near-record-low minimum extent on March 1, at 764,000 square miles, tying the second-lowest yearly minimum on record.

That’s 30 percent lower than the 1.1 million square miles of typical Antarctic sea ice extent prior to 2010. Sea ice extent is the total ocean area with a minimum of 15 percent ice concentration.

“Warming temperatures are what’s causing the ice to decline,” Meier said, as The Associated Press reported. “You know, sea ice in particular is very sensitive… 31 degrees is ice skating and 33 degrees it’s swimming.”

Reduced sea ice extent in both polar regions marked another milestone — the planet’s total sea ice has reached an all-time low. Ice coverage globally in mid-February was more than one million square miles below the average before 2010.

“We’re going to come into this next summer season with less ice to begin with,” said Linette Boisvert, a NASA ice scientist based at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in the NASA press release. “It doesn’t bode well for the future.”

The Arctic is warming at four times the rate of the rest of the planet, and it impacts weather all over the world, reported The Associated Press. As temperature and pressure differences shrink between north and south, the jet stream becomes weaker. This causes it to dip further south, bringing storms and cold temperatures that frequently get stuck, dumping more rain and snow.

“The warming winter atmosphere above the Arctic Circle does impact large-scale weather patterns that do influence those of us outside the Arctic,” said Julienne Stroeve, a University of Manitoba ice scientist.

Ice scientists mostly rely on measurements of Earth’s microwave range radiation by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. The natural radiation is distinct for sea ice and open water, with ice cover appearing bright on satellite images.

“It’s not yet clear whether the Southern Hemisphere has entered a new norm with perennially low ice or if the Antarctic is in a passing phase that will revert to prior levels in the years to come,” Meier said.

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One of the largest studies ever conducted on biodiversity loss worldwide has revealed that humans are having a severely detrimental impact on global wildlife.

The number of species is declining, as well as the composition of populations.

“Biological diversity is under threat. More and more plant and animal species are disappearing worldwide, and humans are responsible. Until now, however, there has been no synthesis of the extent of human intervention in nature and whether the effects can be found everywhere in the world and in all groups of organisms,” a press release from University of Zurich (UZH) said. “This is because most of the studies conducted to date have only looked at individual aspects. They either examined changes in species diversity over time or were limited to a single location or to specific human impacts.”

To fill in the gaps, a team of scientists from UZH and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) collected data from roughly 2,100 studies comparing biodiversity at nearly 50,000 sites that had been impacted by humans with an equal number of reference locations that remained unaffected.

The studies covered freshwater, marine and terrestrial habitats worldwide, with all groups of organisms — microbes, fungi, plants, invertebrates, birds, fish and mammals — represented.

“It is one of the largest syntheses of the human impacts on biodiversity ever conducted worldwide,” said Florian Altermatt, a UZH professor of aquatic ecology and head of an Eawag research group, in the press release.

The findings, “The global human impact on biodiversity,” were published in the journal Nature and leave no doubt as to the devastation humans are imposing on global biodiversity.

“We analyzed the effects of the five main human impacts on biodiversity: habitat changes, direct exploitation such as hunting or fishing, climate change, pollution and invasive species,” said lead author François Keck, a postdoctoral researcher at Eawag, in the press release. “Our findings show that all five factors have a strong impact on biodiversity worldwide, in all groups of organisms and in all ecosystems.”

Pollution is one of the five most important drivers of biodiversity loss globally – especially when untreated wastewater pollutes natural waters. Florian Altermatt

The average number of species at affected sites was nearly one-fifth lower than at those that were unaffected. Vertebrates such as amphibians, reptiles and mammals were found that have experienced especially dramatic species loss across all biogeographic regions. These populations have a tendency to be significantly smaller than those of invertebrates, which makes them more vulnerable to extinction.

“Biodiversity change poses a critical threat to human societies from local to global scales, highlighting the urgent need for understanding the complex relationship between human pressures and their effects on ecosystems,” the authors wrote in the findings. “Human pressures, broadly classified in five main types — land-use change, resource exploitation, pollution, climate change and invasive species — can enhance or reduce species diversity locally. Crucially, by impacting biodiversity at local scales, effects of human pressures can similarly impact biodiversity patterns among communities at broader spatial scales.”

In addition to population numbers, species composition is another key aspect of biodiversity. Keck said human pressure is causing a decline in species numbers, as well as a shift in the composition of their communities.

“In high mountain regions, for example, specialized plants are at risk of being displaced by species from lower altitudes as the climate warms. In some circumstances, the number of species at a particular site may remain the same; nevertheless, biodiversity and its ecosystem functions will be affected if, for example, a plant species disappears that has particularly good root systems to protect the soil from erosion,” the press release said.

The largest shifts in the composition of species communities are among microbes and fungi.

“This could be because these organisms have short life cycles and high dispersion rates and therefore respond more quickly,” Keck explained.

The study found that habitat changes and environmental pollution had an exceptionally negative impact on species numbers and composition.

Altermatt said that wasn’t surprising, as habitat changes can often be drastic, as when humans raze a meadow or cut down a forest. Pollution, whether it is accidental, as with an oil spill, or deliberate, as in the spraying of pesticides, introduces destructive substances into habitats that weaken or destroy their organisms.

A third aspect of biodiversity investigated by the team was homogeneity — the similarity of species communities at different sites.

“For example, large-scale, intensive agriculture tends to make landscapes more homogeneous, and the species communities they contain more similar. The effects were mixed, with some studies showing a very strong tendency towards homogenization, and others showing a tendency for species communities to become more diverse, especially at the local level,” the press release said.

The researchers expressed doubt in the latter being a positive sign. They speculated that an uptick in dissimilarities could be a temporary result in severely impacted habitats.

“The human influence that we find is sometimes so strong that there are even signs that could indicate a complete collapse of the species communities,” Altermatt said.

The authors said the findings can serve as benchmarks for conservation efforts and biodiversity research going forward.

“Our findings provide clear indications of which human influences are having the greatest impact on biodiversity,” Keck said. “This also shows what goals need to be set if these trends are to be reversed.”

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Tackling the climate crisis with bold action will increase nations’ economic growth instead of damaging it as net-zero policy critics have claimed, according to new research from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

Ambitious goals and implementing policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would lead to a net gain in gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide by 2030, the report said.

“Climate action has gained momentum over the past decade, driving real economic opportunities. However, current efforts are not keeping pace with rising risks. Our planet is dangerously close to crossing the 1.5˚C temperature guardrail, and current actions are not far or fast enough to prevent the worst impacts of climate change. Countries remain reluctant to scale up their climate actions and ambitions, fearing harm to their economies. This jeopardises the future of both our planet and its people,” a press release from OECD said.

The net gain to the global economy is projected to be 0.23 percent by 2040, but increases the following decade if emissions are reduced.

“The overwhelming evidence that we now have is that we are not regressing if we invest in climate transitions. We actually see a modest increase in GDP growth, that may look small at first… but quickly grows,” said UNDP Executive Secretary Achim Steiner at the Europe 2025 Conference in Berlin on Tuesday, as The Guardian reported.

The world’s most advanced economies would see a gain of 60 percent in per capita GDP from 2025 levels by mid-century, with lower-income nations experiencing a 124 percent rise.

Developing countries would also benefit in the shorter term if governments invested in reducing emissions, with 175 million people no longer being in poverty by 2030.

However, if the climate crisis continues unabated, a third of the world’s GDP could be lost by 2100.

“Climate action is losing momentum, while accelerating it is needed to secure prosperity. Mounting economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and rising public debts are shifting priorities and straining government budgets, particularly for climate,” the press release said.

Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, on Wednesday warned that the climate could plunge Europe into a “permanent recession” if the climate crisis is not addressed head-on.

“From unprecedented storms hitting Europe’s west coast and heatwaves, to droughts in Sicily and floods across central Europe, climate-driven disasters are slashing food production and destroying infrastructure, businesses, homes and communities,” Stiell said in a speech in Berlin. “And the climate crisis could carve up to 2.3% off Europe’s GDP by mid-century – a recipe for permanent recession, meaning continuously shrinking economies, failing businesses, and significantly increased unemployment.”

New and more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) were due last month, but just 19 countries submitted their updated NDCs by that time.

“Any slowdown in climate action risks delaying much-needed investments, weakening economic resilience and increasing climate damages. The cost of insufficient action is clear: it could threaten future development, economic stability and long-term prosperity,” the press release said. “As nations prepare their next round of climate commitments with their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), now is the opportunity to change this trajectory.”

The new analysis shows that increased “climate ambition” is both achievable and makes economic sense in the near-term and for the future.

“The 2025 NDC cycle is an opportunity to build collaborative approaches around climate, development and growth priorities, broaden and strengthen ownership of development-enhancing mitigation strategies, and inform effective investment plans and strategies to mobilise public and private sources of finance to deliver action,” the press release said.

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