They hate knowledge. They promote ignorance.
The whole premise of science is that there are facts – facts and physics that are not amenable to human whims. Nature does not respond to the Republican Party Platform.
Authoritarians find this threatening – they cannot mold science with a tweet.
The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate.
The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea.
Scientists have used data from the system to understand how the ocean is absorbing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, how changes in ocean temperature such as marine heat waves might affect fisheries or signal bigger shifts in the climate, and coastal flooding along the East Coast.
The station in the Irminger Sea has been key to understanding changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, a global conveyor belt of water that some scientists are concerned may be weakening as a result of climate warming. A collapse of the current could have severe and far-reaching weather effects.
The Irminger Sea moorings are fixed to seafloor 9,200 feet below the surface and are part of an international collaboration among scientists who are studying the overturning current.
Michael England, a spokesman for the National Science Foundation, said the decision to dismantle the network, known as the Ocean Observatories Initiative, “aligns with N.S.F.’s wider strategy to have a nimbler approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”
Craig McLean, who was the acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the first Trump term, said the move was part of a pattern in the Trump administration.
“This reflects the further lack of understanding that the current administration has of scientific value and scientific merit,” Dr. McLean said. “By dismantling such a system, we push the United States back yet again into a rear seat in global scientific leadership.”
The ocean observation system began operating in 2016 and was expected to continue for 25 years. Jim Edson, a marine meteorologist who led the Ocean Observatories Initiative, called it “the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems.” When it was first proposed, the science foundation said it was important to have a long-term presence at scientifically important sites in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
Removing the instruments could take 15 months. Seismic instruments positioned around an active underwater volcano off Oregon will continue operating until 2028.
Each observation station consists of several moorings that secure long arrays of devices connected to wires. The devices measure ocean currents as well as chemical and biological conditions from the water’s surface down thousands of feet.
The instruments were hardened to resist the pressure of the deep ocean, as well as the effects of corrosive seawater and those of marine plants and animals, which can foul electronics. Remotely controlled robotic vehicles and gliders around the moorings collect and transmit data to research laboratories.
In 2024, Project 2025’s authors explicitly targeted the network, claiming the OOI was “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and advising that “the preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.”
Since taking office, Trump’s administration has consistently targeted the network’s budget, and proposed 80% funding cuts in both 2025 and 2026. While Congress successfully pushed back on both occasions to restore the necessary money, the NSF moved ahead with decommissioning, despite managers previously attempting to save the network by limiting data collection to cut costs.
Talk about an administration that puts its fingers in its ears then screams “I don’t want to hear the bad news”
I hope a future President specifically taxes fossil fuel companies to pay for the reinstallation of this network.