Science in a World on Fire: The Impact of Donald Trump's Anti‐Climate Policies on Social Psychological Research

ABSTRACT On January 20th, 2025, United States President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to dismantle and halt all federal funding producing research and programmatic applications along any intersection of “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA), as well as programs and research on “environmental justice.” Policies such as the January 20th executive order, as well as the directives to halt all grant funding and research at large governmental agencies such as the National Institute for Health (NIH), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the Center for Disease Control (CDC), have direct implication for social psychology research on climate change, namely for those who use data from these governmental‐ and NGO‐ level agencies. These directives, even if not fully realized, carry unprecedented potential to directly undermine the ability of social scientists to engage in the critical scholarship necessary to understand the complexity and severity of negative social outcomes induced by anthropogenic climate change. For example, much of our research on the casual relationship between climate change and human violence comes from research produced by governmental‐level data on crime, war conflict, resource accessibility, immigration, and weather disasters. Without the systematic intention and efforts across disciplines and federal‐level agencies to produce, report, and share this data, we would not be able to raise awareness of the existential social and psychological threat posed by the climate crisis. This article outlines the severity of the impact of such policies on understanding the holistic nature of the social and ecological threat of climate change, and the ability for scientists to help aid policymakers in being proactive and prepared to address these issues. Additionally, we discuss the historical role of suppressing social psychological research to create sociological consent for the oppression and neglect of materially and socially marginalized people, such as racial outgroups, immigrants, and refugees.