Censoring Climate Change -by the Trump Administration- The New York Times

It is truly horrible that it is 2017 and this is allowed to happen.



Censoring Climate Change - The New York Times
Nov 22, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/censoring-climate-change.html
Toly Rinberg and Andrew Bergman

Scott Pruitt during an interview in his office at the Environmental Protection Agency in October. Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

The Trump administration is making it harder to find government information about climate change on the web..............................................

Since January, our organization, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative, has monitored changes to tens of thousands of web pages across federal agencies. While we haven’t found examples of altered data, it is clear that the administration is intent on making it difficult or impossible to find information on its web pages about climate change.

Of all the government websites we’ve been monitoring, the E.P.A.’s has been hit hardest. Terms like “greenhouse gases,” “carbon” and “climate change” have been replaced by vague descriptors like “sustainability” and “emissions.” In addition, web resources about specific regulations have disappeared.

One website that has vanished concerned the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electric power generation. It was replaced by a single web page containing only information about a presidential order calling for a review of the plan. Months later, the E.P.A. announced that it would seek to repeal the Obama plan. Removing information about the plan’s benefits has made it difficult for citizens to provide informed comments during the repeal process.

The agency also removed its website for “Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments” and replaced it with one called “Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments,” eliminating over 200 web pages, including almost all of those pertaining to climate change. In a recent letter to Mr. Pruitt about this overhaul, seven Democratic senators asked for an explanation and demanded that the site be revived, calling its removal “part of a sequence of disturbing E.P.A. actions that appear designed to censor dialogue about climate change.” In particular, the senators argued, the alterations removed information to help local communities protect themselves “from extreme weather events and sea level rise driven by climate change.”

Climate change websites at several other federal agencies have been altered, too........................


By altering and removing climate websites built over years and paid for by tax dollars,...................................

A lot more is on the line if the Trump administration proceeds toward this vision and continues its assault on the government’s climate change information: access to scientific data, continuing data-collection efforts, the integrity of the digital infrastructure that stores important information and statistics about the climate and, ultimately, the scientific research programs that help us understand what’s coming next and contribute to the well-being of Americans and people everywhere.