<
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/11/climate-website-shut-down-noaa>
"A major US government website supporting public education on climate science
looks likely to be shuttered after almost all of its staff were fired, the
Guardian has learned.
Climate.gov, the gateway website for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (Noaa)’s Climate Program Office, will imminently no longer
publish new content, according to multiple former staff responsible for the
site’s content whose contracts were recently terminated.
“The entire content production staff at climate.gov (including me) were let go
from our government contract on 31 May,” said a former government contractor
who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “We were told that our
positions within the contract were being eliminated.”
Rebecca Lindsey, the website’s former program manager, who was fired in
February as part of the government’s purge of probationary employees, described
a months-long situation within Noaa where political appointees and career staff
argued over the fate of the website.
“I had gotten a stellar performance review, gotten a bonus, gotten a raise. I
was performing very well. And then I was part of that group who got the form
letter saying, ‘Your knowledge, skills, and abilities are no longer of use to
Noaa’ – or something to that effect.”
Lindsey said she had been worried that climate.gov might be a target of the new
administration soon after the election, but when a large Noaa contract was up
for renewal at the end of May, her former boss told her that a demand came
“from above” to rewrite parts of the contract to remove the team’s funding.
“It was a very deliberate, targeted attack,” said Lindsey."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
