Essay by Eric Worrall
“… I still have the grant because I changed the title …”
Outcry as Trump withdraws support for research that mentions ‘climate’
US government stripping funds from domestic and overseas research amid warnings for health and public safety
Oliver Milman
Fri 21 Feb 2025 23.00 AEDTThe Trump administration is stripping away support for scientific research in the US and overseas that contains a word it finds particularly inconvenient: “climate.”
…
Researchers said work mentioning climate is being particularly targeted. One environmental scientist working in the western US who did not want to be named said their previously awarded grant from the Department of Transportation for climate-adaption research had been withdrawn, until they retitled it to remove the word “climate”.
“I still have the grant because I changed the title,” the scientist said. “I was told that I needed to do so before the title of the grant was published on the US DoT [Department of Transportation] website in order to keep it. The explanation was that the priorities of the current administration don’t include climate change and other topics considered ‘woke’.
…Kaarle Hämeri, chancellor of the University of Helsinki in Finland, said the descriptions for Fulbright grants had been changed to remove or alter the words “climate change”, as well as “equitable society”, “inclusive societies” and “women in society”.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/feb/21/trump-scientific-research-climate
Am I reading this correctly?
Did an anonymous climate scientist just admit to conspiring to defraud the US Government into providing funds for a climate paper, by turning the very title of their paper into a lie?
How many climate scientists are willing to bend the truth to keep their access to federal grant money?
How much money are dissembling students and faculty members at the University of Helsinki receiving from the US Government?
How deep is the rot, if the Chancellor of a major university appears to think it is OK to talk positively about students attempting to deceive the US Government, by rewording the titles of their grant applications to evade restrictions imposed by the Trump Administration? Though to be fair, maybe the chancellor did condemn bending the truth to win Fulbright grants, and Guardian reporter Oliver Milman forgot to include the Chancellor’s condemnation in his article.
I looked up the Fulbright Programme, the grant programme allegedly being abused according to the Chancellor or the University of Helsinki.
Fulbright Program
…
The program was founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946 and has been considered one of the most prestigious scholarships in the United States.[1]The program provides approximately 8,000 grants annually, comprising roughly 1,600 grants to U.S. students, 1,200 to U.S. scholars, 4,000 to foreign students, 900 to foreign visiting scholars, and several hundred to teachers and professionals.[2]
…
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulbright_Program
A few things things seem clear.
- At least some climate scientists appear to think it is acceptable to dissemble and deceive the US Government, in order to secure of maintain access to federal grant money.
- The US Government needs to examine what advice is being given to climate scientists seeking grants and who is providing that advice, in case the advice to change the title of the climate science paper to evade research grant restrictions originated from officials working for the US Government.
- DOGE is going to have to dig a lot deeper than the titles of research grant proposals, to prevent dissembling climate scientists from making a mockery of the Trump Administration’s efforts to direct how federal grant funds are disbursed.
- If alarmist climate scientists are willing to dissemble and deceive to maintain their access to federal grant money, what else are they lying about?
I am not suggesting climate scientists should be prevented from doing research, I fully support the right of even the most alarmist climate scientists to raise their own money from state governments or other organisations or individuals who think climate change is a threat. Publishing woke nonsense is free speech, and free speech is protected by the US Constitution. But no government is or should be obligated to spend taxpayer dollars on research they do not think is a priority.
At least there is one positive from this Guardian Article. Thanks to Guardian reporter Oliver Milman, we now have the name of a US Government funded overseas research grant programme which is allegedly being abused by dissembling climate scientists – the Fulbright Program.
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How many climate scientists are willing to bend the truth to keep their access to federal grant money?
Easy answer-everyone. It’s also not unique to climate science. It happens with most researchers in many fields. People writing proposals have to be responsive to the questions posed in the topic. That often involves repackaging the work they’ve been doing for years so it looks like an ideal solution to a problem. There is likely a lot of climate scientists or meteorologists that have had to pigeon hole their work in a climate change narrative. It will likely be freeing for many. The bigger problem for them will be when it’s no longer framed as an existential problem, the amount of funds available will be substantially smaller.
Either way is wrong – putting “climate change” into an unrelated project, or stripping the words “climate change” from a climate research project, both are wrong. How many times can a scientist prostitute their integrity to please the paymasters before the only thing which is left is the desire to win the next research grant?
Researchers in academic institutions are most likely rated by the accounting department, you bring in more money you’re a better researcher. I even recall stories of some who played it straight, got several small grants but it didn’t measure up to the needs of the bureaucrats. They got terminated and one or two committed suicide. Corporate academia is all about the money not scientific integrity.
Researchers who prostitute their scientific integrity to win grants also likely present a poor return on investment for taxpayers. A corrupt process being entrenched practice is no reason to tolerate its continuance.
From the papers I have read, not just climate by the way, both the title AND the conclusions should be similar.
The real problem is pseudoscience where the conclusions are prefaced by “models”, “maybe”, “might be”, etc. Climate science has lost its way due to the need to forecast doom and gloom without having certifiable empirical evidence that is incontrovertible.
Climate science never questions if the measurements being taken are single measurements that are not repeatable or multiple measurements of the same thing under repeatable conditions and how that affects the uncertainty. Just divide the variance by the √n and use it for the uncertainty. Never propagate uncertainties throughout, just throw them away and find the variance of the last probability distribution derived from multiple averages and again, divide by the √n.
When was the last time you read a paper that described if a monthly average consists of ~30 samples, each of size 1, or whether there is 1 sample of size ~30? This really matters when using the CLT (Central Limit Theory) to decide if one can calculate an SDOM (Standard Deviation Of the sample Mean).
When was the last time you saw temperatures weighted by sine and cosine functions to take into account the insolation reaching each measuring point? Why is each point on the earth’s surface assumed to absorb an average insolation?
Climate science has not proven itself capable of using real physical mathematics to derive anything.
“The real problem is pseudoscience where the conclusions are prefaced by “models”, “maybe”, “might be”, etc.” Journalists convert that to “Scientists Say”
Maybe get Elon Musk & DOGE to find out how much money Michael Mann owes the US taxpayers from his fraudulent work!
(I repeated this comment from a post in reply to Greg61 downstream).
Definitely, money, along with publications and awards, contribute to an academic’s stature.
It’s very much a political game, so other attributes factor in as well (appearance, speaking ability, intelligence, fame, pedigree, etc.). But the more money one brings in, the bigger the office, lab, number of students, postdocs and staff. Individual departments have their own finance offices, which report interface with the central office. Success breeds success.
Peer review departmentally is probably most important, and department heads are typically academics who decided to take their careers on a bureaucratic path. The heads administer performance ratings and ranking though a human resources department. Kingdoms and thiefdoms abound.
Titles can be easily modified, but iirc, whenever the boss at Uni went for a grant he had to do a detailed description of the purpose of the grant.
Surely people supplying the grants would have to read the proposal as well. !
Trying to hide the actual aim of the research by altering the proposal wording would surely end up biting them in the butt !
I wouldn’t be sure of that, when somebody jumps at a dishonest solution on the first opportunity, it’s not the first time they’ve been dishonest.
At this point they are only trying to confound the algorithms that are using title as the key field to question a grant proposal to audit the batch. Often, the grant officer is in complete agreement with the grantee’s viewpoint and will sneak the projects through despite the directives from on high. As long as they can get it by the auditors they think they are doing their duty to “the cause”TM
It makes a lot of sense to eliminate all government grants for anything involving the word “climate”. the word “climate”, itself, is undefined in the current vernacular. “The study of Climate Change” doesn’t mean a study into a change in climate, it means a study of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. Many acknowledge this, but few are willing to categorically state it. Though fitting, the word “anthropogenic” is not well understood either, but its common replacement, “man-made” isn’t allowed by today’s gender sensitive word police.
Some say that “climate” is 30-year average weather but then blame “Climate Change” to be the cause of a normal hurricane, or even a normal tornado. Even a flood that is well below the FEMA defined “Hundred Year Base Flood Elevation” may regularly be attributed to “Climate Change”.
Until and unless the word “climate” is defined by all as is found in common dictionaries, our hard-earned tax dollars should not be given to its study.
Parasites have to adapt to their host or they will die. I doubt anyone relying on federal grants considers themselves a parasite, but they are. They’re just acting rationally in response to a tantalizing incentive. The government is responsible for creating the parasitic relationship by offering the incentives; Congress and the bureaucrats of the Executive Branch agencies that dream up the litany of crazy categories to receive grants. Leftists and Democrats want a parasitic population that depends on government largesse. It arises from their character defects. They yearn to control people and compel them to behave and think the way they insist is good for them. Trump and his brilliant staff recognize the parasitic relationship that (bad) government has created and they’re dismantling it as fast as they can by cutting off the money. It’s thrilling to see, but I’m afraid it will only be a brief respite from the natural tendency of those in power to, well, wield power. Giving it up is antithetical to their nature.
Agreed. Research funded by Federal grants ought to be rare and mostly should involve critical national defense issues.
There are thousands of foundations, wealthy universities, charities and non-government organizations that are fully capable of funding general research in other areas. And in the majority of cases, I suspect that the quality of the research would be better if government grant money was out of the picture.
Most of these government grants, including grants to universities for junk research, grants to PBS and NPR, and grants to the arts and the neighborhood “community” activist groups are really just political payback to pet groups for their political support. End the grants and help restore honesty to government.
So that research proposal for Mozambique be retitled as a Riviera for Gaza as Mozambique has a province called Gaza
Just as wrong.
There is a Gaza province in Mozambique
Are you ‘suggesting’ that a Gaza Rivieria is NOT the real purpose of that suggestion?
Lying is normal for alarmist climate “scientists”.
If that is the case, it is time for the lying to stop.
it is time for the lying to stop.
Agreed,
Not only for alarmist climate “scientists”, but for everybody, particularly politicians.
History shows that in politics, religions & academia, it’s the Liars & Cheats are the ones who get to the top.
And it’s politicians who’ve made ‘climate change’ into the magic money tree.
Memo to all snakeoil distributors and salesmen:You may not call it snakeoil any longer. Instead, call it “Health Enhancing Elixir”.
I thought this was a fact rather than a question.
Ask Al Gore.
From the article: “DOGE is going to have to dig a lot deeper than the titles of research grant proposals, to prevent dissembling climate scientists from making a mockery of the Trump Administration’s efforts to direct how federal grant funds are disbursed.”
Yes, DOGE is going to have to assign people to actually read the research grants to determine if CO2 and the climate are subject matters.
I would say that people who change the title of their research grant in order to avoid being denied, are committing fraud. They know if the aim of their research is about the climate, they have to hide this fact to get a grant, so they are deliberately lying and deliberately defrauding the American taxpayers.
I’m willing to volunteer in that effort!
“Yes, DOGE is going to have to assign people to actually read the research grants to determine if CO2 and the climate are subject matters.” Not necessarily! That’s why access to the various data bases is so critical to the DOGE “AI” users. This is especially true for the payments data.
The 1st argument IDs the low hanging fruit. While each ensuing argument IDs the next level of associated grants, contracts, and Agency missions, etc.
Rinse and repeat. And it won’t matter which party is in control, as the targets will change, but the process will/can continue to highlight budget off-mission/policy extravaganzas.
Highlighting failed/ing Federal Agencies as measured in accordance with mission success,will become target rich environments for budget cuts. USAID, Education and Defense spring immediately to mind.
How does a scientist study the effects of CO2 on temperature without having empirical physical evidence and a mathematical functional relationship that describes how the effect is created?
They need to throw away all “climate” study requests unless it has to do with creating a functional relationship between CO2 and temperature. If one is going to base temperature on the CO2 concentration, then one needs to know the relationship. That is the most fundamental research that is required to support the GHE theory.
But how will they continue to fund all those snazzy supercomputers to play climate computer games on? Won’t anyone think of the computer scientists? /snark
Not entirely true (but mostly is I grant). There have been many applications in the past that added a genuflection to the climate gods in order to even get the application read in the first place. Also many unrelated papers have had to add a paragraph or two discussing climate change to get the paper by the gate keeping peer reviewers. Sometimes the scientist is at the mercy of the powerful. It is part of why I tend to scoff when some teleprompter reader on TV goes on about “peer review” as the gold standard of trustworthiness.
If the mention of climate change was solely to “check the box” in the past, then removing those mentions will be a liberating experience for many.
They have been lying all along, of course they are going to continue to lie.
Does a bear…you know what…in the woods? Is this a Geico commercial?
I think you are trying to ask if the bear is Catholic….
Is the bear Pope-ing in the woods ?? (:-))
or is it a cardinal sin ?
Is this a Geico commercial?
I thought it was Charmin
This is the consequence of riding the climate train to gain $$ for research by linking it all to climate. I have read a number of papers that mange a slight connection to climate in the conclusions of the research.
Payback is hell.
I attended a presentation about ocean sediment cores. In the middle suddenly there was one slide that said this was important because of climate change. Then, the next slide went back to the topic.
I recently attended a mining reclamation landform design luncheon talk. I’m in Alberta, Canada. Differing durability criteria are applied depending on size and risk of human or ecological damage that would result from a failure.
A question was asked about snowmelt events and the return of ice ages. The presenter, with over 25 years of design experience, noted that snowmelt rates need to be considered but that there won’t be a recurrence of the ice age because of climate change. My respect for that institute is now gone.
Quite a few years ago I went to a similar seminar about the carbon cycle funded by one of the agencies that was reasonable but ended with a global warming slide. Somebody in the audience said something like that’s horrible, speaker said nothing and seminar ended. I suspect that most of us took it with less than a grain of salt. I wonder if all this statistical mess is an attempt to sound scientific because while the main features of the cycles are well known, the devil is in the details.
Climate research should go the way of other research and set up a charitable organisation foregoing dependence on public coffers. If climate apocalypse is true monies will roll in from the grateful public and concerned celebs, if not the industry will die a deserved death.
With the many $billions siphoned off from government largess for globalists goals, there is plenty of money to support all ‘climate’ studies. BUT, those same people are greedy, and live like kings instead.
In the early days, pre-IPCC, the UN Environmental Group formed a team to study climate change BOTH human caused and natural.
Then came Clinton-Gore and immediately the quest was to determine the impacts of CO2 on climate. This has been rolling for decades.
Perhaps it is time to go back to the initial charter. Nix the CO2 from the conversation and study how the weather (and weather averaged climate) work and the natural and human factors involved.
In other words, progress from a high school science project to real science.
“Are Climate Scientists Lying About Their Work to Secure US Research Grants?”
Are Bears defecating in the forest?”
If we find only 1 scientist that is not lying, does that mean Bears do not dodo?
Just feed all of those papers / grant applications electronically to a GPT. It would be an almost trivial exercise to pick out those dealing with climate. I’m willing to bet that Elon or his minions have already thought of that.
This is known as “agency capture” in the business world. The revolving door
in the food industry’s FDA & USDA where “scientist’s” work for the government regulating
agency’s then at the companies they are supposed to be regulating. The best scientist’s
money can buy.
My outrage is over the grants are being approved. It appears no one is paying attention to the content.
Oh, they are. They just think if they keep from drawing attention they can ignore the executive orders and continue to quietly support “The Cause”TM.
Are “climate scientists” lying? Are their lips moving? Are they writing/publishing? Does the Pope claim to be Catholic?
Everybody’s going for the money
Thinkin’ that it makes the world go ’round
But this old world keeps turnin’ on and on
Even when you’re six feet underneath the ground
It has always been a scam. Quite a successful one, but still a scam.
Funds for research are subject to politics and lobbying. At the same time, politicians are ignorant of science. There are few exceptions.
Why do you think Johannes Kepler was funded?
To construct more accurate astrological charts for wealthy patrons.
Like Dillinger said, ‘That’s where the money is’.
In an ideal world, all science would be supported at an appropriate level.
We do NOT have an ideal world.
So, Musk is planning to send six unmanned missions to Mars. Great, if Mars happens to be your area of study. Other science will be neglected. It is always thus.
Trump should launch an investigation into Mann’s work.
No need. Mann will live to see his predictions a laughing stock.
Michael Mann needs to PAY, …so far he has gotten away with “murder”.
He won’t be able to do to Trump & Musk what he did to Mark Steyn in that awful trial in DC !
I think we need to move carefully with people like Mann. If we pass laws to make it possible to prosecute Mann for being wrong, such laws will one day be turned on people we support.
If Mann has committed actual crimes, by all means prosecute him. But we need to leave space for scientists to be completely, ludicrously wrong – or we remove the space scientists need to be right when everyone disagrees with them.
Maybe get Elon Musk and DOGE to find out how much money Michael Mann owes the US taxpayers from his fraudulent work!
Today’s science grant proposal is not, first and foremost, an exposition of an exciting scientific goal to be funded. It is a maneuver through and around compulsory components – DEI, outreach, and climate, among others.
‘Reaching out’ is critically important.
Research universities now have large services to support grant writing since so large a fraction of every proposal is simply the critical boilerplate. Universities are well aware of the critical nature of the compulsory components. There is never enough money to fund more than a small percentage of proposals (Trump or no Trump), so an easy means to eliminate a large fraction is eagerly sought by bureaucrats. The bureaucrats understand nothing of a science proposal BUT do understand boilerplate, hence boilerplate is critical.
Write a proposal to research COAL, and no matter how excellent, it will never be considered at all, unless the compulsory boilerplate is there, including an ardent affirmation that the research is aimed at the abolition of COAL in the interests of climate and ‘saving the Earth’.
The boilerplate must be convincing, preferably written by CHATGPT to have the correct flavor, especially if the researcher is lukewarm about the DEI, outreach, and the other boilerplate REQUIREMENTS which are evaluated first before the consideration of the proposal itself.
Yep, and we were gleefully un-word-salading all our grant applications when the EO was signed.
In gaining grants, you have to please the patron. Except for a few independently wealthy researchers in history, it has ever been thus.
YES.
next . . .
Here is the thing grants are not given on the basis of the title. In order to receive a grant you need to submit a grant request. I’ve never written a grant request, never read one, never seen one. I can’t imagine that the request doesn’t list the things they are going to look at or for, the methods they intend to use, the questions they are looking to answer and so on. It is the meat of the request that will determine whether the grant is given or not. If the title is misleading or false that is a major reason to refuse the request. In other words these people will play by the rules or go somewhere else for their money.
In an ideal world (i.e. one on which none of us lives), that would be the process. Too often, the grant request for proposals go out telling the researcher what they will find. The researcher that best sucks up to that end-result gets the funds. It also leads to a large number of papers that conclude that the data was inconclusive even though a perusal of the supplemental materials shows that the data didn’t support the predetermined conclusion. The researcher would like to continue receiving grants so they fudge the results so as not to directly contradict the grantor’s prejudices.
Eliminating the word climate in the title is a nice start, but it needs to be expanded to not being in the Paper, ditto carbon dioxide or CO2. We have thousands of those Papers all saying the same thing: “CO2 is the climate control knob, more research is required.” (send money). We don’t need thousands more.
Yes, yes and yes. And yes.
Science in general is in disarray, completely corrupted in many ways. ‘climate’ science as well as medical science are at the top (or is it bottom) of the pile.
Exaggeration, lies by omission, manipulation of data, and outright lies are the norm. Until proven otherwise, it is best assumed that any scientific publication is wrong, misleading or is dressing up some trivial result as a Nobel worthy breakthrough.
I find it difficult to beliveve that all of these so called climate scientists actually believe their own hype. I suspect some do to an extent. It’s difficult to admit even to yourself that that your life’s work is garbage.
Others might be activists. Many will be cynical opportunists, saying what they need to say or going along with the concensus in order to secure funding.
Funding proposals themselves are an exercise in shameless lying. Academic integrity and self awareness are major impediments to writing such works of fiction.
I don’t necessarily blame them, especially the younger ones. They don’t really have a choice if they want to thrive, get permanent positions, get promotion, or even keep their jobs.
This is part of a wider problem in science. Every aspect of academia, scientific bodies, publishers has been captured by a certain managerialist mindset and crowd. The system is perfectly set up to be corrupted by ideologies and political agendas, bought off by policy makers and financial interests.
Great post!
Academic publish or perish.
Perhaps I am swinging and whiffing, but I look at climate adaptation research and wonder if perhaps it is worthwhile. To my simple mind, adaptation means to evolve to co-exist with whatever nature throws our way.
To be fair, a lot of grants probably included “climate” or “equity” in the description in order to get funded in the first place, while the work itself may or may not have related to those topics very much