America is slashing its climate research

The Global Change Research Act of 1990 requires the American government to regularly produce “National Climate Assessments”—weighty scientific tomes that detail the impacts of climate change and the ways in which people and businesses throughout the nation might best adapt to them. John Holdren, who was Barack Obama’s science and technology adviser, recalls that, when he visited the offices of “mayors and city planners and governors [they would] ask me to sign their copies of the document, because they found it so useful”.