It Sure Seems Like the Trump Administration Is Suppressing Reports of Climate Change at USGS

By Rafi Letzter 10 hours ago



A NASA photo shows James Reilly, now the Trump-appointed director of the U.S.
Geological Survey, aboard the space shuttle Atlantis in 2001. Reilly promised not to
let political influences jeapordize science during his confirmation hearing in 2018.
(Image: © NASA)


Trump administration officials are removing references to climate change from U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) press releases, according to a report from ClimateWire reporter Scott Waldman.

USGS scientists are responsible for, among other things Earth-related, assessing various kinds of disaster risks and publishing research about those risks. That work seems to be continuing apace. But now when those scientists put together press releases about their results — documents that can tip off reporters about important findings, so the news can reach the public — they're finding those documents altered to avoid mention of climate change and even held up for months before being released to the public, according to Waldman's reporting.

Waldman gave the example of a particular study published March 19 in the journal Scientific Reports examining climate risks along the California coast. Its conclusions were stark: [Ocean Acidification: The Other Carbon Dioxide Threat]

"Coastal inundation due to sea-level rise (SLR) is projected to displace hundreds of millions of people worldwide over the next century, creating significant economic, humanitarian and national-security challenges," the researchers wrote in that study. "We show that for California, USA, the world’s 5th largest economy, over $150 billion of property equating to more than 6% of the state’s GDP and 600,000 people could be impacted by dynamic flooding by 2100."

More:
https://www.space.com/federal-government-trump-climate-censorship.html