Minibabble: How US cuts will devastate global science

Posted on August 12, 2025August 12, 2025 by suki

The Babblery

Minibabble: How US cuts will devastate global science

00:00 / 14:20

How are the Trump Administration’s cuts affecting the global science system? Dr. Heather Ford is an American climate scientist working in London. In this mini-episode, she explains how scientific research is interconnected with education and immigration, and how cuts to agencies like the National Science Foundation will impact research around the world. [Click for transcript]

For more information please visit the full episode page, “Scientist Navigates a Changing Climate: In Conversation with Dr. Heather Ford.”

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[00:00:32] Heather Ford: as an international scientist and living abroad, just knowing how international science is and, and seeing those opportunities lost for collaboration and international exchange is, really disappointing.

[00:00:48] Voiceover: This is your host, Suki Wessling, and this is a Minibabble. Today I’ll speak about the international community of scientists with climate scientist, Dr. Heather Ford. This Minibabble is based on a full episode, which you can find at babblery.com.

[00:01:03] Heather Ford: My name’s Dr. Heather Ford. I am a climate scientist and what I do is I look at climate over really long, geologic time periods to understand basically how do we use past climate to help understand future climate change.

[00:01:18] Voiceover: The post-World War II system set up to support and nurture science education and research in the US is currently being dismantled. It’s been my experience that few people outside that system really understand how it functions. Heather explains the way that federal dollars both nurture future scientists and also repay themselves manyfold as they support research and development at universities.

[00:01:41] Heather Ford: if I’m a US based scientist, I either instruct students so they learn things, or a lot of times what happens is that you’ll apply for a grant with the National Science Foundation and that money will come with some undergraduate support.

[00:01:56] So you’ll have an undergraduate researcher or sometimes many undergraduate researchers who might work in your lab. And so, my understanding is that there was a lab in Stanford where the two people who basically spun out, um, Google were working as undergraduates thinking about kind of the, what are the, you know, mechanics of kind of indexing and searching and that sort of stuff, right. And that basic research which was funded by the National Science Foundation, they were able to use the skills and kind of the, the knowledge that they gained in that lab, in that undergraduate research experience and, and spin out Google, right?

[00:02:31] It’s like you get kind of the seed funding from the National Science Foundation. So either sometimes, you know, professors will, um, do some kinds of research and then that will be spun out into a company. and so like the National Science Foundation like gives seed money to a lot of things that go into the broader economy.

[00:02:53] So it’s not just basic research that that gets funded with National Science Foundation. So again, that impacts like United States competitiveness, it, it impacts our economic futures. Like if we’re not funding that kind of basic research that gives people opportunities that can, ideas that can eventually spin out into the economy, what happens?

[00:03:12] Voiceover: What happens, indeed? Heather points out that while other parts of our economy get more attention, NSF funding is the spark that starts the fire under an enormous engine of prosperity.

[00:03:24] Heather Ford: A lot of the gains that the United States economy has had, has been in science, in technology, right? Like a, a huge amount of the GDP is related to science and technology that’s seeded by National Science Foundation, basic research. One of the pushes like a lot of things, oh, you know, AI is just gonna replace all of this and it’s so not true because you know these people need training. They need a need, need creative spaces to do basic research and the universities provide this. And that’s the other part of like, not only are are you seeing an attack on science in these federal agencies, but the universities themselves are also being attacked, right?

[00:04:06] So not only are they having their funding, pulled or, the agenda items changed, um, but the, the very process of the university is being challenged, now, and that is also very frightening. It’s devastating to think about the experiences that students will no longer have access to.

[00:04:26] Voiceover: No matter that American culture at this moment seems desperate to close our borders. Science is an international system, and nowhere do you see that more clearly than in the huge cooperation of scientists around the globe to solve our climate crisis.

[00:04:41] Heather Ford: I think one of the biggest things, even as a international scientist is that the cuts basically carve out a lot of, the science that we do, basic science. Um, and he’s specifically really cutting out climate science because, you know, the ‘woke climate agenda,’ and, you know, any sort of, you know, ridiculous, adjectives that he, that he uses to describe like, a multifacet, multi-agency endeavor to understand future climate change. And the cuts that he’s proposing to a variety of, federal agencies -because climate science, um, envelopes so much of, of, the scientific enterprise right now. It cuts across multiple different federal agencies. So one of the, sort of the crown jewels of the scientific process in the United States is the National Science Foundation. And then there are other cuts that are proposed, like the National Um, Protection Agency, the EPA, over 50% of it’s budget is gonna be cut. NOAA, um, is is looking at a similar 25% cut. It’s looking specifically at the climate kind of science division and ocean, divisions. NASA, um, which a lot of people think of as, as, as looking at space, um, you know, going to Mars, going to the moon.

[00:05:51] But huge part of the science that happens within NASA is observing the, you know, the earth from space. So another thing that’s being cut from NASA is basically a lot of the science, satellite systems that we have that observe the earth from space. And a lot of those are really key for providing climatological, observations that we use and that we need for, you know, understanding hurricane pathways, um, a lot of things that, that impact everyday people in a huge, big way come from some of those devices. And I cannot overstate how like, just devastating these cuts are to the climate community and especially the climate science community. Everybody that I know is just walking around completely depressed about this, and it’s, it’s really, um, it’s really, it’s really heartbreaking. That’s kind of the only way to describe it.

[00:06:41] Voiceover: Heather says that the community of climate scientists feel like they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them, and there’s confusion about what will happen next.

[00:06:49] Heather Ford: And I think that that’s the part that makes me personally, makes me frustrated. Like I, um, you know, the, the type of work that I do specifically doesn’t necessarily impact the day-to-day of, of a, of a US citizen, but there’s so much of what’s being cut that does impact people’s lives. And I think that’s the part that is really frustrating.

[00:07:14] Like if I, if I talk to my friends who kind of do similar work, like they’re like, what’s the point? In some ways, like they are, they are really despondent because if the work that we aren’t doing that sort of goes towards building the, the bigger knowledge around climate science, if we can’t, if the, if the US government, if Trump and his, you know, ‘syncopaths’ are, are, aren’t gonna take this seriously, like, what’s the point? Because these people will suffer and they’re only going to suffer because. People wanna line their pockets with more money than they, than they can already spend. Right. And it’s, it’s average people who are just gonna get hurt by not having the support of these federal agencies.

[00:07:58] Voiceover: But the suffering won’t be limited to the United States. We get back to the fact that the enormous engine of modern science was built on the system of funding American universities to do basic research.

[00:08:10] Heather Ford: I think that cutting science and how it goes into our education, it’s gonna, it’s gonna impact American competitiveness, right? the United States has such a huge role in international science like, so for instance, one of the impacts that we have for like, using, climate models, so computational simulations to project future climate change.

[00:08:32] There’s a huge amount of international collaboration that happens to be able to do those models, and so much of, of international collaborations depend on data and infrastructure provided by the United States that Trump has basically dismantled, that has these cascading impacts for our international collaborators and other powers will fill that void that the United States has leaving, which means that we’re basically, we’re gonna be removed from this international collaboration, which means that, you know, students aren’t gonna be able to learn about these things, they’re not gonna be able to benefit from the international, practice of science as well from a really like basic standpoint.

[00:09:17] Our students are gonna lack in preparedness, right? If they don’t have a understanding of how climate science works, how the, how humans interact with the landscape and how the an how the landscape can change and will change with climate change, they’re going to be at risk for their lives. They’re gonna have risk for their communities, how they fit into the communities, their economic development. All these things are at risk.

[00:09:44] Voiceover: Heather points out that the attack on science is also part of the attack on immigration, which is a fundamental aspect of how the American scientific research system works. The US attracts the best and brightest from abroad who come to work and study at universities, and often end up giving immense amounts of value to the American economy.

[00:10:03] Again, citing Google, founder Sergei bryn is an immigrant from Russia.

[00:10:08] Heather Ford: As an international scientist and living abroad, just knowing how international science is and, and seeing those opportunities lost for collaboration and international exchange is, really disappointing.

[00:10:23] And you know, a lot of those students end up staying in the United States and some of them end up going back to their countries of origin and that also improves the richness of those collaborations, right? Because they’ll go into their, the country bringing ideas, you know, stimulating their own economy or, stimulating the process of science there, the, the scientific enterprise and, you know, the, the ridiculousness of like, oh, somebody, a graduate student was jaywalking and had a ticket, and now like, they’re not allowed, they’re deported from the country. Right. It’s like, why, why?

[00:11:02] Voiceover: Despite all the frustration and heartbreak, Dr. Heather Ford explains how the practice of science continues to give her hope for the future.

[00:11:10] Heather Ford: Like I have the best job in the world in many ways. Like at times it can be frustrating and, you know, my, my job is at risk because of, cuts and stuff like that. Um, but I get to work with emerging adults who are really smart and really like the kinds of questions that they ask are so big and so important, and it is such a privilege to teach people about climate change and to think about how systems are connected and how our communities are connected with the landscape that we live in.

[00:11:51] There’s also so much hope about climate change and especially with, with younger people, like so many of them, are trying to organize, are trying to build the future that they want, are trying to decarbonize and I think for them, the kinds of ways that they’re thinking about their future is really inspiring. And I think that that is kind of the hope that I have for climate change is that they are like, they want a better future for themselves. I think that they get really frustrated and disenfranchised by our political theater that’s happening at the moment.

[00:12:29] I think that people, people themselves want better for themselves and they want better for their, for their children. So I think ultimately everybody’s just trying their best out there, so I will always have hope.

[00:13:06] Voiceover: Thanks to Dr. Heather Ford for sharing her work her joy and her hope with us. You can learn more by checking the show notes at babblery.com. The song intertwined is by Unwoman at Unwoman.com.

[00:13:18] Thanks for listening.

[00:13:19]