The EPA has removed climate science from its site in order that the site contents better reflect Donald Trump's perspective.
From Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin at the Washington Post:
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday evening that its website would be “undergoing changes” to better represent the new direction the agency is taking, triggering the removal of several agency websites containing detailed climate data and scientific information.
One of the websites that appeared to be gone had been cited to challenge statements made by the EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt. Another provided detailed information on the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, including fact sheets about greenhouse gas emissions on the state and local levels and how different demographic groups were affected by such emissions.
The changes came less than 24 hours before thousands of protesters were set to march in Washington...
Go to that article to get the gory details.
By the way, given what is happening at the New York Times, the Washington Post has become the US national level go-to major media for climate change. It helps that Chris Mooney is there, and his coverage is excellent, though there are lots of other writers who cover environmental and climate issues as well. If you happen to be a member of Amazon Prime
- Log in to post comments
The new aim of our government (I use the "our" loosely) is to keep as much real information from the people as possible. It's not a new thing for the GOP. I believe that it has been already been done in the case of government research into guns and their effects on our society and on expunging mention of rising sea level from government publication by certain coastal state governments. I await correction if I'm wrong in this belief.
#1
I cant help but laugh a little at this.
What are they gunna do? Censor USA science journals?
Censor overseas journals?
The USA gov is not the only source of
information and research on climate and the environment.
There is zero chance any wierd USA government machinations
will stop knowledge being gained and dispersed to interested readers about climate.
Theres a sort of centrism or even exceptionalism on display sometimes that makes this reader uncomfortable.
"What are they gunna do? Censor USA science journals?"
Cut funding for any scientist who dares to accept the reality of AGW, and fire any who insist on doing so.
Remember all that whining about how it's a scam for grant money? Remember the number 1 tell of the rightwingnutjob, projection? They were just saying what they'd be doing if they were in power.
Well, now they're in power and they're gonna do it.
#3
"Cut funding for any scientist who dares to accept the reality of AGW, and fire any who insist on doing so."
Jeez, that would be nearly every scientist.
I dont think thats gunna happen somehow.
Thats big league conspiracy thinking as befits those
denier wankers, always going on about the UN and
Commies and NASA lies.
But even if it did, even if hypotheticly ALL USA
research stopped, theres, ya know, the rest of
of the planet, full of diligent, competent, ethical
people, making observations, challenging nulls,
building on the work done before them, in every
field, including every area related to AGW.
Thats my point. Science is waaaaaay bigger than
USA.
Im the very first to sympathise with whats going on,
I fear Sagans slide into superstition and darkness,
but be gladdened by the fact america, that science
dosnt cease because of your own internal bullshit
in this period, and the american public will always
be able to access it, if they are interested.
There seems to be a sort of nervous hysteria about
post #1 and yours wow, that im not sure is validated.
With reguard to #4, the bigger implication for the
biosphere is not a lull in USA research, but USA
legislation and governance allowing a carry on attitude
to emissions, ignoring good science done already by
people in all countries. Such is the volume of USA emmissions.
Such is the threat.
Makes me a little hystericly nervous.
Makes one curious actually, how has the
USA federal gov historicly responded to science
and research that is not indigenous?
Do they take the results at face value?
Double check?
Such a stance would seem fairly irrational but i
understand the exceptionalist streak in USA
culture.
Are there any examples of enacted policy
purely based on overseas research?
Epidemiology comes to mind as a possibility.
Curious if any reader knows. Thanks.
"I dont think thats gunna happen somehow."
Oh, they're already trying. See ATL for example.
"Do they take the results at face value?
Double check?"
Well they didn't take Piltdown Man as real, though that may partly have been because NIH, and for the Europeans, IWIH (It Was Invented Here). Though look at the crying about Pluto and there's a lot of american identity politics in their discoveries, even to the extent (as exemplified by Apple Corp) of expropriating other people's work as if they invented it.
So, a mixed bag, pretty much like every other country of moderate sanity.
ATM, though, with the nutjobs in power, expect a lot less sanity and a lot more North Korea/Cold War Kremlin outpourings. Once you have self-deception, you can do any shit that "feels right" because you just have to tell yourself it feels right. Or even just pisses off those you think are The Bad Guys (tm), because for the authoritarian and mean minded, anything that griefs "the bad guys" is justified by the ends.
Undoing the work of protecting the environment or welfare or anything Obama did is "right" because it MUST be that anything that nigger (and I use that term precisely because that is the term they are thinking when they think of any black guy who doesn't play subservient, I'm not going to pretend they're less irrationally racist than they are merely so I don't use the terms they would when presenting their "feels", even if I think the term is terrible. They use it BECAUSE it's terrible, and censoring them in description only makes them seem less batshit) did MUST be wrong. Because he's both the wrong party and, more importantly, the wrong race.
Whether their anti-science really extends beyond taking a massive public shit on anything Obama did remains to be seen, but I don't see them being really worried about long term killing of the USA by killing science because they don't like the inconvenient ramifications of the conclusions.
#7
Thanks for reply. Could you
briefly expand the acronym ATL,
in line three, so I may look it up,
and for clarity for other readers who also
may not know. Thanks.
Above The Line.
Unlike IWIH, that wasn't one I made up on the spur of the moment, it's a term of art (tm) in blogs and op ed pieces with comments.
ATL: the stuff written by the oped which the comments are about
BTL: Below The Line: the comments.
The line being the line separating the oped from the comments.
#4, re your comment about my post: I am certainly nervous about the future but I don't accept the "hysteria" part. I made my comment on the basis of (1) what Republicans have already done when and where in power and gave two actual examples -- and (2) what they have said they are going to do. .
Of course, you are correct in saying that they can't stop research elsewhere. I don't see how that helps the cause of humanity much when it comes to preparing for and mitigating the effects of AGW. We are a major contributor of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. If we don't lower that contribution it's bad for everyone else too and it also favors the argument: why should we cut our emissions if the Americans don't. That very argument was used here vis a vis China.