Climate.gov on the chopping block?

"Teachers relied on a federal website for climate education. The government may shut it down," writes The Hechinger Report (July 17, 2025) — and NCSE Deputy Director Glenn Branch was consulted for comment.

The website in question is Climate.gov, operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Program Office. "Since early May, all 10 editorial contributors to Climate.gov have lost their jobs, and the organization that produces its education resources will soon run out of money," according to the story.

Moreover, "[o]n June 24, the site's homepage was redirected to NOAA.gov, a change NOAA said was made to comply with an earlier executive order on 'restoring gold standard science.' Those steps follow many others the president has made to dismantle federal efforts to fight climate change, which his administration refers to as the 'new green scam.'"

Branch told The Hechinger Report, "It will make it harder for teachers to do a good job in educating their students about climate change," adding, "Previously, they could rely on the federal government to provide free, up-to-date, accurate resources on climate change that were aimed at helping educators in particular."

Rebecca Lindsey, the lead editor and writer for the website before she was fired, rehired, put on administrative leave, and fired again in 2025, expressed concern that the government "intended to keep the site up and use it to spread climate misinformation, because they were keeping the web developers and getting rid of the content team."

Also quoted were NCSE Teacher Ambassadors Jeff Grant and Melissa Lau; Anne Gold of CLEAN; Lauren Madden of the College of New Jersey; and Bertha Vazquez, the education director for the Center for Inquiry and a recipient of NCSE's Friend of Darwin award.