Within seconds of the outrageous nightmare scenario being announced as reality, scientists around the world started to mobilize to capture key science information and data from US government websites to maintain knowledge in what some suspected would be a Dark Ages period. Some thought this is absurd, that the Trump-istas just wouldn’t go there.
They’ve been going there. By mid 2017, thousands of climate references had disappeared from US government websites.
5. Here is a summary table showing December 2016 and today: USGS #Climate Change webpage resources. pic.twitter.com/28zE9Uqvq7
— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) September 18, 2017
In the intervening months, the climate zombies have extended their reach and extended the darkness.
The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative has just released a report Changing the Digital Climate documenting “how climate change web content is being censored under the Trump Administration”. As Vice put it, Trump is hiding climate change.
Anyone looking at the official websites of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, or the White House might be under the impression that climate change isn’t a threat.
That’s because the Trump Administration has been systematically scrubbing its online references to climate change,
This isn’t an issue of ‘just’ Polluting Pruitt at EPA or Zinke at EPA, but is one of the few things that Team Trump looks to be effective at across the board.
the words “climate change” and “carbon” have been stripped from government websites across a wide range of agencies, including the departments of Health and Human Services, Transportation, the Interior, Energy and State, the report found. They have been replaced with vaguer terms like “sustainability” and “emissions.”
The group also found a wide swath of alterations to climate change webpages.
- The White House no longer lists climate change as a priority.
- EPA, along with the departments of State and Energy, removed language related to U.S. international obligations to address climate change.
- Hundreds of pages at the EPA site that were designed to help local and state governments mitigate the effects of climate change have been removed.
- The Interior Department scrubbed a website for tribal climate programs of the word “climate change.”
- The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences dropped a link to an educational fact sheet about climate change and human health.
- the Bureau of Land Management altered and removed language and links about climate change, renewable energy and the overall mission of the agency and took down its climate change webpage without replacing it.
When it comes to climate science:
“We’re sorry, that page can’t be found.”
Every day is pretty good until we remember that these destructive fossil fools are in control of the U.S. government. And, from promoting polluting fuels to damaging the development of science to reducing data collection to disappearing basic science from government websites, Team Trump is choosing to #ActOnClimate: to act to make the climate situation worse.
3 responses so far ↓
1 John Egan // Jan 12, 2018 at 12:49 am
Although I am not pleased with the censorship of climate change data by the Trump administration, I am not surprised. You should not be either.
One of the reasons that I became an out-and-out climate skeptic was the repeated refrain, “The debate is over.” Such a chorus was, for me, in complete contradiction of the corpus of western inquiry and, specifically, the scientific method.
The overwhelming politicization of climate research – with no better example than the repeated attacks on Dr. Judith Curry –
allowed for no possibility of dissent. It played out most viciously in the near-strangulation of publication and presentation by academics with views outside of the accepted mainstream.
The litany of those who have repeated the mantra, “The debate is over” include Barack Obama, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, David Suzuki, Bill McKibben, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, etc., etc.
And this website –
http://theconsensusproject.com/
The Consensus Project? What an oxymoron!
Yet again, climate activists have shown absolute political ineptitude. When you try to silence those who express opinions differing from yours – even to the point of arguing that climate “denial” should be criminalized – you shouldn’t be surprised when the tables get turned.
2 John Egan // Jan 16, 2018 at 9:43 am
Adam –
You really – – really – – do not get it.
Doubling down on all your positions – as you have done above – is like American tourists in Guatemala shouting English louder.
Although it may not be for you, for most of the electorate in the U.S. and Europe, climate change is a second-tier issue. (Meteor Blades really seethes when I say this.)
The past decade of election results in multi-part systems seems to confirm this. Although Green parties surged in the 1990s, since 2010 they have stalled and even lost ground. Not everywhere, every election – but overall.
In Austria, the Green Party was voted out in the recent election that produced a government with far-right ministers. In Sweden the Green Party is on the cusp of missing the 4% threshold in the 2018 election. Meanwhile, the far-right Sweden Democrats poll around 18%. In the Netherlands, the Green Party did expand its vote share, but via the mass exodus from the Dutch Labour Party. The net was a significant shrinkage of the left vote with gains accruing to Geert Wilders’ PVV.
Here’s where you and most climate activists really do not get it. You lack the ability to compromise and to form coalitions. For you it is either all or nothing.
Which means you will likely get nothing. Your boo-hooing of Dr. Curry is a perfect example.
Not to mention your antipathy towards me.
In the U.S. two-party system, for better or worse you have to win over the middle. The climate left has not only been pathetic in doing so, but they act almost identically as the WCTU did a century ago. A holy, moral crusade that is off-putting to all but the true believers.
But it is more than just the political failures of the climate left, per se. The climate left has fractured the left in the U.S. and throughout Europe – in the face of the far-right onslaught. Sorry, but for most Americans, jobs, housing costs, quality schools, and access to medical care take precedence over climate – even if they tell pollsters they consider climate change a serious problem.
Yes, that is why I blame you and other climate activists for the very problem you bring up in this post. It is YOUR actions that have gotten us to this point. Sad thing is – you are totally unable to see it.
3 John Egan // Jan 16, 2018 at 9:44 am
PS – Your use of Dr. Curry’s first name is classic sexism.