The vision
“I just see this flattening of imagination. And that to me is the most terrifying thing. A lack of imagination leads to a lack of problem-solving, a lack of critical thinking. And that is what’s at risk here.”
— Emily Graslie, creator of The Brain Scoop
The spotlight
Last week, we shared a story about the shake-ups that workers, career coaches, and development experts are experiencing in the climate job market right now. I was really happy to see the piece making the rounds on LinkedIn, where several commenters noted that the words of advice, as well as the resources we rounded up at the end of the newsletter, were useful. But one quote in the piece, from Tom Di Liberto, a communications specialist whose job was recently cut at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has stuck with me — and seems to have struck a chord with others, too: “It’s not so much about me losing a job,” he said. “It’s about this job not existing anymore.”
Many people who have lost their jobs or their funding in the past few months were leading bodies of climate work that reached communities in ways that may have been easy to take for granted — and these cuts will also have ripple effects into spaces that aren’t immediately obvious. As we report on the changes wrought by Donald Trump’s administration, and what they mean for our country and our climate future, Grist also wants to help capture the stories of what is being lost. If you’re one of those affected, please reach out to share your story — you can reply to this email, or click here for secure ways to contact us.
Emily Graslie is one of those you might not think of when you picture the work that’s being lost as a result of federal staff and funding cuts. She’s a science communicator who creates YouTube videos explaining all kinds of scientific research in fun, easy-to-understand ways. You may have stumbled across her channel, The Brain Scoop — or others like it — in your YouTube browsing, where she’s covered topics ranging from what fossils can teach us about climate change to how the city of Chicago is addressing its rat problem. She’s produced hundreds of videos and gained over 600,000 followers. But she’s now facing an uncertain future for the channel, and her work.
“There might just be one day you log onto YouTube and none of your favorite creators are there anymore,” she said.
Graslie, who was featured on our Grist 50 list back in 2016, created The Brain Scoop over a decade ago. She ran the show for years as the first-ever “chief curiosity correspondent” for the Field Museum in Chicago, sharing the behind-the-scenes work of the museum, and then later relaunched it as an independent creator, partnering with museums, nature centers, and other institutions across the country to help tell the story of their research.
Emily Graslie, the creator of The Brain Scoop. Julie Florio
Graslie is closely involved with the community of science communicators, including a group of primarily women and nonbinary creators. “The majority of us own and manage our own production companies, which involves negotiating contracts on a per-project basis,” Graslie told Grist. “We’re most excited when we get money from a science org that ‘gets us’ — like from a science center, or through a library outreach grant.” So it was a dream come true when she landed a gig working with the National Institutes of Health to create videos sharing and demystifying work from the largest medical research organization in the world.
The National Institutes of Health, or NIH, is part of the Department of Health and Human Services and comprises 27 institutions, each with its own research focus. “One area in particular we were interested in highlighting was infectious diseases, which we know are only going to become more prevalent with a warming climate,” Graslie said. As a non-scientist herself — but as a science enthusiast and taxpaying member of the public — a big part of her work was to break down for a general audience the importance of the science that our tax dollars fund. “I can be a conduit into some of these pretty opaque institutions,” she said.
She was supposed to be on campus at the NIH in January of this year to begin shooting for the series, which had already been in development for a year. Instead, she received an email telling her that the project was on hold until further notice.
“I found out from the press — I found out from a news headline that there was this communications gag for NIH,” she said, referencing a memo issued by the acting Health and Human Services secretary within the first days of the Trump administration, halting nearly all external communications. “Because I’m considered a member of the media, I was unable to communicate with these people I had been partnering with for over a year.” In February, she was visiting family in the Washington, D.C., area and reached out to one of her collaborators at their personal email address. “What’s the chance that we could run into one another at a coffee shop?” she asked. “Just to gossip. Just to chitchat.” Through that unofficial meeting, she learned that her project was effectively canceled.
She hadn’t been paid for any of the preproduction work she did in 2024, and now her funding for the entire year had evaporated.
Although it was quite a blow, the impact to the work that she does extends beyond losing this opportunity at NIH. The Trump administration has also frozen funding from the National Science Foundation and made moves to eliminate the Institute for Museum and Library Services (actions that Graslie covered on her YouTube channel recently). Many people may not realize, Graslie said, that the federal funding that supports scientific research and programming at museums and libraries also often covered contracts with independent creators like herself, to help communicate the work to the public. Without it, she fears that work like hers will be increasingly difficult to sustain.
“Online science content has never been lucrative,” she said, and these cuts are likely to push many people out of the space — especially creators who come from marginalized backgrounds, and can’t afford to invest time and energy into these projects without adequate pay.
But having been in this line of work for over a decade, Graslie said she is proud of the community of science enthusiasts and curious minds she has fostered. She regularly hears from viewers about how the show has influenced them — including some who began watching in middle school and went on to become scientists or teachers themselves.
“One of the most significant things that The Brain Scoop did is just share the different kinds of work that happens at nature centers and museums across the country, across the world. I think the loss — it’s just a limiting of people’s understandings of what they’re capable of, who they want to be when they grow up, how they see the world around them,” Graslie said.
“I just see this flattening of imagination. And that to me is the most terrifying thing. A lack of imagination leads to a lack of problem-solving, a lack of critical thinking. That is what’s at risk here.”
Know of another climate leader with a story like Emily’s? (Are you that person?) Tell us more about how you’re feeling the impacts of federal cuts: Reach out to us here.
— Claire Elise Thompson
A parting shot
In 2020, Emily Graslie made her debut on public television, hosting and producing a show for PBS called Prehistoric Road Trip. She traveled through the northern plains of the U.S. to learn about archaeology and paleontology, and see some cool fossils. Here she is in a quarry in Montana with the bone of a sauropod — a group of dinosaurs that includes the largest animals that have ever lived on land.
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Claire Elise Thompson grist.org
