Climate education and literacy is an often overlooked climate solution. This week, we spoke to Rebecca Lindsey, project director of Climate.us. Her team of former Climate.gov staff rebuilt the federal government’s free climate science resource after 2025 federal cutbacks. Now an independent nonprofit, the site keeps climate science accessible to everyone.
For roughly 15 years, Climate.gov was the federal government’s public face for climate science. Launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 2010, the site translated NOAA’s climate research into expert blogs, data visualizations, and curriculum resources for educators.
But in 2025, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cut hundreds of jobs across NOAA, including most of the ten-person Climate.gov team. With no one left to maintain it, the site stopped publishing new content. And by June 24, 2025, Climate.gov’s URL redirected to a stripped-down NOAA webpage.
Rebecca Lindsey, Climate.gov’s former program manager and editorial lead, was one of those laid off. Rather than let over a decade of public climate education disappear with the site, she and two former colleagues spent months rebuilding it. The result, launched in June 2026, is Climate.us– an independent nonprofit now led by Lindsey as project director. The new site carries over much of Climate.gov’s content, including data visualizations, teacher resources, and a collection of Q&As that debunk common climate misinformation. “We try to help people see that [climate change] matters to everybody,” says Lindsey.
The idea that climate science should be accessible to everyday people, not just scientists and policymakers, traces back to the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The Act directed federal agencies to coordinate climate research and make it available for public use. Climate.gov, and now Climate.us, were built with the same mission in mind.
Lindsey argues that “learning about climate and being comfortable talking about it is an important action” for the public to take. She points to a pattern called the “spiral of silence”-- most Americans believe in human-caused climate change and want to act on it, but each assumes, wrongly, that this view is unpopular and therefore stays quiet. Breaking that silence is the first step in shifting the broader public conversation on climate. “No one has to become an expert,” Lindsey says, “but people need some basic facts.”
And operating as an independent nonprofit, rather than as part of a government agency, allows Climate.us to limit political interference. As Lindsey asserts, the new independent nonprofit model allows her and her colleagues to “tell stories and share information without anyone… telling us what we need to say to be consistent with someone else’s policy, view, or position.”
Rebuilding the site hasn’t been easy. Climate.gov once had a staff of ten, and now Climate.us runs on three people full-time. Lindsey says rebuilding the website itself has proved a challenge, as none of the three are web developers. Instead, they’ve had to rely on the expertise of outside contractors. The original site also had teams dedicated to interacting with specific audiences, including the general public, educators, and local and tribal decision-makers. Now, those roles fall to the same three people, meaning less capacity to engage with each group.
Fortunately Climate.us crowdsourced enough funds– roughly $280,000– to get the project off the ground. But Lindsey says existing funding will likely run dry in early 2027. Still, she sees the project as worth fighting for: “I’m not going to let this investment that the government made for 15 years… go without a fight”
Climate.us relies on a volunteer network of subject-matter experts to review content before it's published. Lindsey encourages scientists interested in joining to reach out to info@climate.us. The public can also support the project by engaging with the site or donating through its ongoing crowdfunding campaign.
Rebecca Lindsey is the project director of Climate.us. Based in West Virginia, she holds a biochemistry degree and a master’s degree in journalism.
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For a transcript of this episode, please visit https://climatebreak.org/preserving-public-access-to-climate-information-with-rebecca-lindsey/
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind, and you’re listening to Climate Break– climate solutions in a hurry. Today’s solution? Preserving public access to climate science. Rebecca Lindsey is the project director at Climate.us, a nonprofit built to keep climate science accessible after federal cutbacks in 2025 gutted the government’s climate.gov staff.
Climate.gov was launched by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2010 as a climate science resource for the public.
Ms. Lindsey: We had expert blogs where scientists talked about their domain of expertise and their research, and we had data visualizations and graphics. We had Q&As for debunking misinformation and all kinds of basic climate literacy information.
Ethan: But Lindsey and two former colleagues weren’t ready to let a decade-plus of climate education at climate.gov disappear, so they rebuilt the website at a new, non-governmental link called climate.us.
Ms. Lindsey: We hope that climate.us can provide people the resources that they need to understand climate well enough to be able to talk about it.
Ethan: She says this kind of public education is itself a climate solution. And because the nonprofit operates independently, it can avoid political interference. But they need support to keep the site operational.
Ms. Lindsey: We still have our crowdfunding campaign going on, and people can come visit the site and click on a link and make a donation to help keep it going. We also always have a need for subject matter expertise, so if you're a scientist listening to this and you wanna volunteer, you can write to us.
Ethan: To learn more about Climate.us’s mission to keep climate science accessible to all, visit climatebreak.org.