A former NASA staffer says the agency is failing the planet as the Earth’s climate approaches a devastating point of no return.<\/b>
\n, the Trump administration declared war on climate science.
In the first two weeks of Trump\u2019s second term, the administration started scrubbing critical environmental resources and datasets from federal agency websites and withdrew the United States from international organizations dedicated to combating climate change, dismissing them as a \u201cwaste of taxpayer dollars.\u201d Trump himself has dismissed climate science as \u201cwoke,\u201d while vowing to \u201cdrill, baby, drill\u201d for fossil fuels as our planet stands at the edge of a climate disaster.
Nowhere has that regressive agenda been felt more than at NASA. The agency announced in July that thousands of employees had accepted a controversial deferred resignation program, losing roughly 20 percent of its workforce as a result.
In August, the Trump administration instructed NASA employees to come up with plans to terminate two major missions, including the premature destruction of a greenhouse gas-observing space satellite, dubbed Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2), which is still collecting \u201cexceptionally high quality\u201d data while orbiting the Earth.
According to one former NASA staffer, it all adds up to a ringing failure by the agency as the Earth\u2019s climate approaches a devastating point of no return.
In a \u201cplea to NASA administrator Jared Isaacman\u201d posted to LinkedIn, former NASA Earth public engagement lead Jon Mikel Walton argued that the agency needs to continue funding its Earth Science missions, including a fleet of space-based observatories such as OCO-2. (A NASA spokesperson told Futurism in an email that the agency \u201ccannot speculate regarding any programmatic changes\u201d when asked about the future of the spacecraft. The agency is seeking ideas for \u201cpartnerships to continue operations and data collection of the Earth science mission OCO-3.\u201d
The fleet helps scientists translate \u201cobservation into public value like better storm and flood forecasting, stronger disaster readiness, safer water and food planning, and clearer visibility into climate risk,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis critical public infrastructure saves lives, protects the economy, and keeps the United States ahead.\u201d
\u201cAnd yet over the past year, budget uncertainty and political pressure have weakened one of the country\u2019s most trusted sources of Earth intelligence,\u201d Walton continued. \u201cTeams were cut, expertise was lost, and NASA\u2019s ability to communicate clearly about climate and environmental risk was silenced \u2014 exactly when those risks are accelerating.\u201d
Futurism reached out to NASA for comment on Walton\u2019s plea but has yet to receive a response.
Lawmakers are actively fighting the current administration over what role NASA should play in the coming years, especially when it comes to climate science. Earlier this month, Congress voted to keep NASA\u2019s budget largely intact for the 2026 fiscal year, an eleventh-hour intervention following the Trump administration\u2019s attempts to deal its science division a devastating blow.
\u201cCongress has reaffirmed NASA\u2019s science mission by restoring its funding,\u201d Walton wrote in his plea. \u201cThe question now is whether the agency will lead where it matters most: helping the nation \u2014 and the world \u2014 understand what\u2019s happening to Earth in real time. NASA is uniquely positioned to provide this shared reality: what\u2019s changing, why it\u2019s changing, and what it means for lives, livelihoods, and national resilience.\u201d
Walton called on the agency to \u201crebuild\u201d its Earth science leadership and \u201crestore its public voice on Earth.\u201d
\u201cFund [NASA\u2019s Earth Science] fleet,\u201d he wrote. \u201cProtect the teams. Tell the truth.\u201d
The Trump administration\u2019s damaging effects on NASA\u2019s climate efforts are playing out in ways both large and small. Earlier this month, the agency released its yearly report on global surface temperatures, noting that 2025 was even hotter than 2023 \u2014 yet failed to make a single mention of climate change, the disastrous effects of burning fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, or the concept of \u201cglobal warming,\u201d as Agence France-Presse noted.
For an agency dedicated to studying the planet through its science directorate, it\u2019s a damning omission. NASA\u2019s preceding 2024 report was fleshed out, including graphics, video, and quotes from scientists citing the role of climate change. The press release accompanying this year\u2019s report felt like an afterthought, limited to just six paragraphs of surface-level analysis. That\u2019s despite 2025 squarely being one of the hottest years on record.
As NASA continues to feel the brunt of an administration eager to discount the effects of global warming, other experts have chosen to be far less subtle in their call to action.
\u201cThe US government is now, like Russia and Saudi Arabia, a petrostate under Trump and Republican rule, and the actions of all of its agencies and departments can be understood in terms of the agenda of the polluters that are running the show,\u201d University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann told AFP.
\u201cIt is therefore entirely unsurprising that NASA administrators are attempting to bury findings of its own agency that conflict with its climate denial agenda,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n