Climate.us, spearheaded by three former NOAA staffers (two of whom are sisters), is picking up where the government site left off.
The website from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), launched during President Obama’s first term, provided constant updates on the agency’s climate research in plain English, alongside vivid charts and graphics. It lasted 15 years, until the Trump administration gutted the site in 2025; the entire staff was disbanded through layoffs or unrenewed contracts, and the URL now redirects to NOAA’s website instead.
Text on the site, dated June 24, 2025, says the redirect was done to comply with an executive order and White House policies, and that “future research products previously housed under Climate.gov will be available at NOAA.gov/climate and its affiliate websites.”
Anyone paying attention to the Trump administration’s second term will recognize the shuttering of Climate.gov as part of a larger project to obfuscate reality, particularly around science and climate change. Cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service have created gaps in weather data. Over the summer, the Department of Energy deleted more than 1,600 pages about energy efficiency and utility bill savings amid brutal heatwaves that stressed power grids across the country — around the peak of a Cyclospora outbreak that would have been caught sooner if not for cuts to the federal surveillance programs that usually track food-borne illnesses. If the federal government was once the sun around which most scientific research in this country orbited, it has now become a black hole.
Still, some light remains in the dark. In August 2025, a group of former Climate.gov staffers launched a crowdfunding campaign to restore the Climate.gov archives and continue its work under a new name: Climate.us. Rebecca Lindsey, the program manager and longtime editorial lead of Climate.gov, spearheaded the effort, which raised $530,000 over six months through individual donors and foundation grants. This year, Lindsey and her colleagues hope to raise an additional $300,000. The team incorporated as a nonprofit and is fiscally sponsored by Multiplier, a California-based nonprofit focused on environmental and social justice issues.
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