The White House has directed NASA to prepare termination plans for two climate-monitoring satellites—OCO-2, in orbit since 2014, and OCO-3, installed on the International Space Station in 2019. Together, they deliver the world’s most precise measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide, mapping where it is absorbed by forests and oceans and where it is emitted by human activity.
The satellites have provided critical data for farmers, climate scientists, and policymakers—helping predict drought, verify national climate pledges, and track the planet’s carbon balance in near-real time. NASA’s own review rates the data as “exceptionally high quality.” Annual operating costs are just $15 million, a fraction of the agency’s $25 billion budget, and both missions could continue for years.
Under the plan, both would be shut down, deorbited, and burned up in the atmosphere. Former NASA scientists warn the move “makes no economic sense” and may even be illegal under existing appropriations.
NASA’s own review calls the data “exceptionally high quality.” The cost to run both is about $15 million per year—pocket change in a $25 billion budget. They could keep going for years.
Make no mistake: this is not a budgeting choice.
It is deliberately killing the evidence—so that the destruction of a safe, livable climate for today’s young people and all future generations can continue in the shadows, unmeasured, unproven, and unpunished.
This Isn’t Random—It’s a Pattern of Canceling Science
The satellite cuts are just the latest in a coordinated campaign to dismantle climate science in the United States:
⚠️ Turning off the OCO-2 and OCO-3 CO₂ monitoring satellites—blinding humanity to real-time atmospheric carbon trends.
https://futurism.com/white-house-orders-nasa-destroy-important-satellite
⚠️ Canceling the Mauna Loa CO₂ observatory, breaking the world’s longest-running atmospheric carbon record.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/01/climate/trump-cuts-mauna-loa-keeling
⚠️ Ordering the USDA to erase climate change from its websites, scrubbing public access to facts.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/f9889776-3528-4e7a-90e4-bd20662cd14e
⚠️ Revoking the scientific finding that greenhouse gases harm human health, removing the legal foundation for regulating fossil fuels.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/6cceb988-511f-4caf-8efd-481a9f7fc113
⚠️ Withdrawing from UNESCO, severing ties to global science and education networks.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/6de42ceb-f273-4136-a950-cdde75560063
⚠️ Rolling back the Inflation Reduction Act, including killing the $7 billion “Solar for All” program for low-income households.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-solar-clean-energy-epa-zeldin-19c838ee2d9be3e80aadb5dfe0526891
⚠️ Dismantling parrt of NOAA—firing scientists, privatizing the National Weather Service, erasing climate databases.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/7f4e6820-6411-4f52-9021-136bdef0a5dc
⚠️ Eliminating the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, laying off over 1,100 scientists—the agency’s scientific heart.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/eed85e8e-b44d-4a58-a84d-da9bed2115eb?utm_source=url-copy&utm_medium=wdht-rn-app-share&utm_campaign=Rentzhog
⚠️Mass deletion of climate data and tools, including climate .gov and the Environmental Justice mapping platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/01/climate-change-reports-removed-trump?utm_source=chatgpt.com
⚠️Defunding and dismantling the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)
https://cen.acs.org/environment/climate-change/White-House-dismantling-basis-US/103/web/2025/07
In short. Trump is following the Poject 2025 playbook. And we know this is just the beginning.
https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/a6a9d925-1282-43a8-920b-d4cc9894cbfc
Each of these moves strips away our ability to measure, understand, and respond to the climate crisis. Together, they form a single strategy: If you can’t win the debate on facts, erase the facts.
We Don’t Have Time—But We Do Have Power
This is an attack on truth itself. The antidote is mass awareness and action.
That’s why We Don’t Have Time has launched #MakeScienceGreatAgain—to defend scientists, data, and the right of every community to know the truth.
💚 Stand With Science
💚 Donate or volunteer your time
💚 Share this post and pressure lawmakers to keep OCO-2/OCO-3 and restore climate science across agencies
Read more & join the campaign:
https://wedonthavetime.org/msga
If millions understand what’s happening and rise up—online, in offices, and in the streets—we can stop this. Public outrage has saved programs before. It can again.
If they destroy the instruments that tell us what’s happening to our planet, we fly blind into catastrophe.
They’re counting on our silence.
Let’s give them a roar instead.
