Former NASA Employee Issues Desperate Plea to Agency Head Over Climate Science Cuts

In a dramatic escalation of the ongoing battle over climate science in the United States, a former NASA employee has issued an impassioned public plea to newly appointed NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, warning that the agency’s critical Earth science missions are being systematically dismantled under the Trump administration.

The plea comes amid what climate scientists and policy experts describe as an unprecedented assault on environmental data collection and climate research at the federal level. Last year, the Trump administration launched what many observers called a “war on climate science,” beginning with the systematic removal of critical environmental datasets from federal websites and culminating in the United States’ withdrawal from international climate organizations.

Trump himself has repeatedly dismissed climate science as “woke,” while doubling down on fossil fuel expansion with his signature “drill, baby, drill” mantra—even as mounting scientific evidence suggests the planet is hurtling toward catastrophic climate tipping points.

Nowhere has this regressive agenda hit harder than at NASA, where thousands of employees accepted a controversial deferred resignation program last July, resulting in approximately 20 percent workforce reductions across the agency. The cuts have severely impacted NASA’s Earth Science division, which operates a sophisticated fleet of satellites and observatories monitoring everything from atmospheric carbon levels to ocean temperatures.

In August, administration officials instructed NASA staff to develop plans for terminating two major missions, including the premature destruction of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2). This greenhouse gas-monitoring satellite continues to collect what NASA scientists have described as “exceptionally high quality” data while orbiting Earth—data that is considered essential for understanding the pace and scale of climate change.

Now, former NASA Earth public engagement lead Jon Mikel Walton has taken the extraordinary step of publishing an open letter to Isaacman on LinkedIn, arguing that the agency’s retreat from climate science represents a catastrophic failure of leadership at precisely the moment when accurate environmental intelligence is most desperately needed.

“The fleet helps scientists translate observation into public value like better storm and flood forecasting, stronger disaster readiness, safer water and food planning, and clearer visibility into climate risk,” Walton wrote. “This critical public infrastructure saves lives, protects the economy, and keeps the United States ahead.”

He continued: “And yet over the past year, budget uncertainty and political pressure have weakened one of the country’s most trusted sources of Earth intelligence. Teams were cut, expertise was lost, and NASA’s ability to communicate clearly about climate and environmental risk was silenced—exactly when those risks are accelerating.”

The timing of Walton’s plea is particularly significant given that Congress recently voted to maintain NASA’s budget largely intact for the 2026 fiscal year, effectively rebuffing the Trump administration’s attempts to slash funding for the agency’s science division. This eleventh-hour intervention suggests that lawmakers recognize the vital importance of NASA’s climate monitoring capabilities, even as political appointees within the administration seek to curtail them.

Walton’s letter calls on NASA to “rebuild” its Earth science leadership and “restore its public voice on Earth,” urging the agency to “fund the fleet, protect the teams, and tell the truth.”

The stakes could hardly be higher. As NASA continues to feel pressure from an administration determined to downplay the effects of global warming, other experts have grown increasingly blunt in their assessments. University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann told Agence France-Presse that “the US government is now, like Russia and Saudi Arabia, a petrostate under Trump and Republican rule,” adding that “it is therefore entirely unsurprising that NASA administrators are attempting to bury findings of its own agency that conflict with its climate denial agenda.”

The situation reached a new low earlier this month when NASA released its annual report on global surface temperatures for 2025, noting that the year was even hotter than 2023—yet the agency’s press release made no mention of climate change, the disastrous effects of burning fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, or even the term “global warming.” This marked a stark departure from the previous year’s report, which included detailed graphics, video content, and extensive quotes from scientists explicitly citing climate change as the driver of rising temperatures.

As the planet continues to warm at an accelerating rate, with 2025 ranking as one of the hottest years on record, Walton’s plea represents more than just a former employee’s nostalgia for better days. It is a stark warning that the United States is systematically dismantling its capacity to understand and respond to the climate crisis at precisely the moment when that understanding is most critical to global survival.

The question now facing NASA—and the nation—is whether the agency will continue down the path of political compliance or reclaim its historic role as a trusted source of scientific truth about our changing planet. As Walton’s letter makes clear, the answer to that question may determine not just the future of American science, but the future of life on Earth itself.

Tags

climate science, NASA cuts, Trump administration, Earth monitoring, climate data, environmental research, science funding, global warming, OCO-2 satellite, Jared Isaacman, Jon Mikel Walton, federal climate policy, scientific integrity, Earth observation, climate crisis, NASA Earth Science, environmental intelligence, climate denial, scientific data, climate monitoring

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