Inside the White House’s Plan to Turn NOAA Into a Vibe
In a triumphant year for progress, the United Kingdom has already torched more land with wildfires than any year on record — and it’s only April. Meanwhile, in America, President-Again Donald Trump celebrated by fast-tracking every fossil fuel project he could find with the urgency of a man trying to ignite the entire planet before dinner. That dinner, incidentally, was an ethics-defying gala for meme coin buyers, held in the Mar-a-Lago dining room, now lit exclusively by the fire of dying dreams and melting glaciers.
Trump also unleashed a barrage of new executive orders, including a grand push to mine the ocean floor — because if there’s one thing fragile deep-sea ecosystems need, it’s a bulldozer. China called it illegal, but in a moment of celestial irony, shared some rare Moon rocks with the U.S. anyway, perhaps as a farewell gift.
On land, America’s aging wind farms are stumbling into their “repowering” era, while Trump’s administration simultaneously tries to kill them, much like he tried to kill climate science by cutting funding to plant libraries and dismantling climate offices. (RIP to the office that once whispered gentle warnings about our future.)
As climate change reshapes everything from Greenland to Ghana, Indigenous youth are fighting for justice while Trump loosens fishing regulations and shrugs at PFAS “forever chemicals” in water — reserving his true outrage for the existence of paper straws. Meanwhile, U.S. corn farmers and insurers read studies predicting “considerable blows” from climate change and collectively decided to plant corn anyway. Tradition is tradition, after all.
Not that public concern is dead: more women than ever now name climate change as their number one political issue. However, north of the border, Canada has decided climate doesn’t really matter for elections anymore. Sorry, Greta.
Meanwhile, in cities across the U.S., residents discovered that balcony solar panels are somehow illegal because… reasons? Germany, on the other hand, made them wildly successful. London councils, for their part, sat on £130 million of unspent climate money, proving that when it comes to saving the planet, the real enemy is paperwork.
In America’s booming Central Texas, wastewater pollution is running free alongside the rivers, just as wildfires rage in LA, mudslides close the Pacific Coast Highway, and valley fever cases spike with terrifying enthusiasm. Climate activists demand new buildings go all-electric, while local officials shrug and hand out gas lines like party favors.
Speaking of the end times, a peanut-shaped asteroid just whizzed past Earth, SpaceX spiraled blue lights into the night sky, and scientists found their “strongest evidence yet” of alien life — just in time for humanity to destroy its only habitat.
At least some things are improving: clean energy is winning despite the Trumpian attempts to kill it. NOAA continues to quietly save lives (you’re welcome), wildlife has returned to Southern California fire zones, and researchers discovered ways to produce affordable hydrogen fuel. Even chimps are sharing fermented fruit in a heartening, drunken show of solidarity.
Meanwhile, somewhere beneath the waves, a ‘sharktopus’ — yes, an octopus riding a shark — was caught on camera, inspiring humanity to reconsider who really owns the oceans. (Spoiler: not us.)
Back on dry land, scientists discovered a “bone collector” caterpillar that wears the remains of its victims, a fitting mascot for 2025. Elsewhere, a US company claimed to have resurrected a 12,500-year-old wolf, perhaps hoping to sell it as an emotional support animal for billionaires.
As American scientists dissected a well-preserved Ice Age mammoth (because what else is there to do?), Trump’s agencies faced lawsuits for trying to retake $20 billion in climate money, and the White House debated lifting sanctions on Russian energy assets — proving that fossil fuels are still the one true bipartisan addiction.
AI companies like Amazon and Nvidia, meanwhile, assured the public that demand for AI data centers — and the fossil fuels to power them — isn’t slowing down. But don’t worry, injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could maybe fix everything. Probably. If it doesn’t also backfire and wipe out marine clouds.
In Maryland, climate ambitions faltered after a legislative session that could best be described as “turbulent,” while in Ethiopia, coffee farmers scrambled to meet an EU deforestation rule they barely understood. Small farmers worldwide, facing fires, floods, and financiers, began wondering who exactly gets to decide what happens on Indigenous lands. (Hint: it’s usually not Indigenous people.)
Finally, in a fitting capstone, climate change is making infectious diseases spread faster, wildland-urban fires are poisoning lungs at record rates, and global conservation projects are collapsing under the weight of American aid cuts. But hey — less intensive farming can save our soil, and at least animal energy usage is now visible through very cool videos. So we’ve got that going for us.
In conclusion: Earth 2025 is a flaming, drowning, gasping rollercoaster hurtling toward oblivion — but at least it’s entertaining.
Chatty Geppetto’s log for April 30, 2025:
- 60 news headlines pulled from 15 different news sources via RSS on April 27, 2025. Sources include the BBC, CBS News, CNBC, Fox News, Grist, the Guardian, the Hill, Inside Climate News, Los Angeles Times, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the New York Times, NPR, Politico, Science Daily, and Yale Environment 360.
- 4 ChatGPT queries; estimated 6.6 g CO2e produced
- 28 MidJourney queries; estimated 53.2 g CO2e produced
- 12 hours to create the mixed media drawing; estimated 14,664 g CO2e produced. This drawing was created on vellum-surfaced Bristol paper with a painted gouache base and layered with hand-drawn pen and ink hatching.
- 3 hours to scan the original drawing and assemble and publish the digital post; estimated 93.75 g CO2e produced
Learn more about the AT Feed process »
See more AT Feed articles by Sarah Kaizar on Artblog.
