{"id":11712,"date":"2018-03-27T02:16:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T02:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=11712"},"modified":"2018-03-28T02:22:12","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T02:22:12","slug":"buried-altered-silenced-4-ways-government-climate-information-has-changed-since-trump-took-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/buried-altered-silenced-4-ways-government-climate-information-has-changed-since-trump-took-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Buried, altered, silenced: 4 ways government climate information has changed since Trump took office"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morgan Currie<\/a>, Stanford University<\/a><\/em> and Britt S. Paris<\/a>, University of California, Los Angeles<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

After Donald Trump won the presidential election, hundreds of volunteers around the U.S. came together to \u201crescue\u201d federal data on climate change, thought to be at risk under the new administration. \u201cGuerilla archivists<\/a>,\u201d including ourselves<\/a>, gathered to archive federal websites and preserve scientific data.<\/p>\n

But what has happened since? Did the data vanish? <\/p>\n

As of one year later, there has been no great purge. Federal data sets related to environmental and climate science are still accessible in the same ways they were before Trump took office. <\/p>\n

However, in many other instances, federal agencies have tampered with information about climate change. Across agency websites, documents have disappeared, web pages have vanished and language has shifted in ways that appear to reflect the policies of the new administration.<\/p>\n

Two groups have been keeping a watchful eye on developments. We both belong to the Environmental Data Governance Initiative<\/a>, the organization behind the data rescue events. The initiative now monitors tens of thousands of federal websites with the help of specialized tracking software. In January, the group published a report<\/a> that describes sweeping changes to federal web resources. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Columbia University\u2019s Silencing Science Tracker<\/a> documents news stories about climate scientists who have been discouraged from conducting, publishing or otherwise communicating scientific research.<\/p>\n

These groups have documented four ways that climate-related information has become less accessible since Trump took office. <\/p>\n

1. Documents are difficult to find<\/h2>\n

Documents on existing international environmental treaties and national climate policy have been buried or removed from departments\u2019 current websites.<\/p>\n

The State Department\u2019s Office of Global Change, for instance, no longer publishes Climate Action Reports<\/a>, which the U.S. is obliged to produce under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The reports can no longer be found at their former addresses. Instead, they are archived at new addresses in the Department\u2019s Obama-era web archive, making the reports more difficult for the public to access. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"<\/a>
\n Climate reports removed from the State Department website. Versions from Jan. 20, 2017 (left) and Jan. 26, 2017 (right) on the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback Machine. URL: https:\/\/www.state.gov\/e\/oes\/climate\/climateactionreport\/index.htm.<\/span>
\n Environmental Data Governance Initiative<\/span>, CC BY<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In another instance, the Environmental Protection Agency removed links<\/a> to the Climate Change Adaptation Plan<\/a> documents, which offer guidelines on climate change mitigation. While the web pages still exist on the EPA server, links from key access points on the site have been removed or redirect to a \u201cThis Page is Being Updated\u201d notice. <\/p>\n

2. Web pages are buried<\/h2>\n

Some administrative pages have disappeared from agency sites and can be accessed only from the Obama-era web archive. <\/p>\n

The Bureau of Land Management\u2019s climate change page \u2013 which discussed the agency\u2019s climate-friendly approach to land planning \u2013 now exists only<\/a> in archival form. State Department pages describing the Montreal Protocol, a global effort signed in 1988 to protect the ozone layer, are similarly displaced<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The EPA appears to have been hit the worst<\/a>. Two hundred of the original 380 web pages on climate and energy resources for state, local and tribal governments are now accessible in archival form only. What\u2019s more, the word \u201cclimate\u201d is no longer in the official website\u2019s title. <\/p>\n

The EPA also removed the website for the Clean Power Plan, a signature Obama-era regulation that the current administration hopes to repeal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. Language has been altered<\/h2>\n

Departments have scrubbed websites of environmental terms. The term \u201cclimate change,\u201d for instance, no longer exists across certain web pages of several agencies, such as the White House, the Department of Transportation and the Department of the Interior. <\/p>\n

Within the Department of Energy, the Clean Energy Investment Center<\/a> removed the term \u201cclean\u201d from its title. The Government Accountability Office deleted<\/a> an online warning that \u201coil and natural gas development pose inherent environmental and public health risks.\u201d <\/p>\n

In other cases, language has been changed to reflect the new administration\u2019s agenda. For example, the Bureau of Land Management removed \u201cClean and Renewable Energy\u201d from its list of national priorities<\/a>, adding \u201cMaking America Safe Through Energy Independence\u201d and \u201cGetting America Back to Work\u201d instead. <\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n Bureau of Land Management\u2019s shifting priorities. Versions from Feb. 7, 2017 (left) and Nov. 26, 2017 (right) on the Internet Archive\u2019s Wayback Machine. URL: https:\/\/www.blm.gov\/about.<\/span>
\n Environmental Data Governance Initiative<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

4. Science has been silenced<\/h2>\n

But website changes and deletions are just the tip of the iceberg. <\/p>\n

Columbia\u2019s Silencing Science Tracker<\/a> records 116 instances when scientists have been obstructed. The list includes budget cuts, staff cuts, unfilled positions and suspended funds. Climate-related research projects have been canceled and climate fellowships rescinded. In some cases, advisory boards and research centers have been dismantled entirely. <\/p>\n

For instance, as of Dec. 31, 2017, the administration had filled only 20<\/a> science-related positions out of the 83 total. That pace falls short of both the Obama administration, who had appointed 63, and the Bush administration, who had filled 51, at the same point in time. <\/p>\n

The silencing suggests that the administration values<\/a> \u201cpro-growth\u201d policies over environmental goals and stands with industry<\/a>, no matter the cost. <\/p>\n

Why it matters<\/h2>\n

In most cases, it\u2019s not possible<\/a> to know who ordered and administered these changes, whether agency staff working independently or the Trump administration itself.<\/p>\n

History shows us<\/a> how public information on government activities has changed to reflect the policy directives of different administrations. The Bush era saw a similar chilling affect on scientific research and environmental regulation. Several scientists at the time came forward to accuse the administration of censoring public awareness<\/a> efforts about climate change. <\/p>\n

In recent years, the U.S. has reduced<\/a> its own greenhouse gas emissions. And the Obama administration invested in combating climate change and making related information more available to the public<\/a>. Now that information is being stifled, but climate change continues, whether it\u2019s documented or not.<\/p>\n

\"TheThese changes are not just damaging to those trying to address climate change. In our view, burying climate science diminishes our democracy. It denies the average citizen the information necessary to make informed decisions, and fuels the flames of rhetoric that denies consensus-based science.<\/p>\n

Morgan Currie<\/a>, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab, Stanford University, Stanford University<\/a><\/em> and Britt S. Paris<\/a>, Ph.D. Student in Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Morgan Currie, Stanford University and Britt S. Paris, University of California, Los Angeles After Donald Trump won the presidential election, hundreds of volunteers around the U.S. came together to \u201crescue\u201d federal data on climate change, thought to be at risk under the new administration. \u201cGuerilla archivists,\u201d including ourselves, gathered to archive federal websites and preserve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1862],"tags":[2944,139,4239,2615,1870,479,2956,1602],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11714,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11712\/revisions\/11714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}