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"They're using different words. Extreme weather instead of climate change, for example, which isn't a politically charged word. And they're starting to archive their research results out of government hands."

A former Trump official who alarmed scientists years ago when he attempted to meddle with a congressionally mandated climate report has returned to the White House in a role that’s expected to heavily influence the next version of the assessment.

This digital coup also, and above all, enables a tight control of power over the conduct of science and the production of knowledge, which is nothing like what the first Trump administration (2017-2021) had implemented.

"Of course, we haven't yet seen the full extent of what they have in store," says Kurtz. At the moment, however, one can observe how attempts to fire researchers are already being made "much more aggressively."

“These are irreplaceable repositories of important climate information,” says Lauren Kurtz, CSLDF executive director. “So fiddling with them or deleting them means the irreplaceable loss of critical information. It’s really quite tragic.”

"While previous presidents have consistently defended scientific research, at least publicly, the Trump administration has repeatedly called it into question."

As the impacts of manmade climate change have accelerated from factors like more extreme fires, heat and floods, and climate science itself has matured into credible discipline, more and more climate scientists have found themselves targeted.

“Compared to the first Trump administration, government scientists are now more comfortable coming to us and using our legal assistance, taking legal action,” said Lauren Kurtz, executive director of [CSLDF]. “They are less afraid of rocking the boat.”

As Trump prepared to return to office, the nonprofit Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, which provides free legal and educational support to researchers facing harassment and intimidation for their work, was gearing up for a high-stakes protracted struggle to protect scientists.

Still, Kurtz expects the next few years to be rough for climate scientists. “It’s going to be chaotic; it’s going to be unpredictable.”