The administration has taken a hatchet to climate change language across government websites. Here are several of the more egregious examples
During inauguration day on 20 January, as Donald Trump was adding "American carnage" to the presidential lexicon, the new administration also took a hammer to official recognition that climate change exists and poses a threat to the US.
One of the starkest alterations to the White House's website following Trump's assumption of office was the scrapping of an entire section on climate change, stuffed with graphs on renewable energy growth and pictures of Barack Obama gazing at shriveling glaciers, to be replaced by a perfunctory page entitled "An America first energy plan".
Key
Under Obama
President Obama believes that no challenge poses a greater threat to our children, our planet, and future generations than climate change
President Obama believes that no challenge poses a greater threat to our children, our planet, and future generations than climate change
Sources: Obama White House Archive and White House
Under Trump
Under Trump
President
Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such
as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule.
Sources: Obama White House Archive and White House
In the more than 100 days since, the administration has largely opted
for a chisel and scalpel approach to refashioning its online content,
but the end result is much the same – mentions of climate change have
been excised, buried or stripped of any importance.
Federal government websites are being combed through to apply new verbiage. The state department’s office of global change, for example, has removed links to the Obama administration’s 2013 climate action report and mention of the latest UN meeting on climate change. Text relating to climate change and greenhouse gases has also been purged.
Federal government websites are being combed through to apply new verbiage. The state department’s office of global change, for example, has removed links to the Obama administration’s 2013 climate action report and mention of the latest UN meeting on climate change. Text relating to climate change and greenhouse gases has also been purged.
Under Obama
The
climate action plan, announced in 2014, highlights unprecedented
efforts by the United States to reduce carbon pollution, promote clean
sources of energy that create jobs, protect communities from the impacts
of climate change, and work with partners to lead international climate
change efforts. The working partnerships the United States has created
or strengthened with other major economies has reinforced the importance
of results-drive action both internationally and domestically and are
achieving measurable impacts now to help countries reduce their
long-term greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: The old US Department of State page for Office of Global Change (dated Jan 20)
Trump’s desire to champion the coal industry is reflected in the
Department of Energy’s online pages aimed at educating children.
Sentences that point out the harmful health consequences of burning coal
and other impacts of fossil fuels have gone.
Under Obama
In
the United States, most of the coal consumed is used as a fuel to
generate electricity. Burning coal produces, emissions that adversely
affect the environment and human health.
Source: EIA Kids website, page on Coal
Source: EIA Kids website, page on Coal
Under Obama
Underground mines have less of an impact on the environment compared to surface mines. The
largest impact of underground mining maybe the methane gas that must be
vented out of mines to make the mines a safe place. Surface mines
contributed about 2% of total U.S. methane emissions.
Source: EIA Kids website, page on Coal
Under Trump
Underground mines generally have a less effect on the landscape compared to surface mines. However the ground above mine tunnels can collapse, and acidic water can drain from abandoned underground mines.
Alterations to the Department of the Interior’s climate section
weren’t quite as subtle. A nine-paragraph description of melting
glaciers, wildfires and invasive species driven by climate change has
been pared down to a single, noncommittal line.
Under Obama
The impacts of climate change are forcing us to change how we
manage these resources. Climate change may dramatically affect water
supplies in certain watersheds, impact coastal wetlands and barrier
islands, cause relocation of and stress on wildlife, increase wildland
fires, further spread invasive species, and more.
Source: The old Department of Interior website under Obama, and the
existing one
Under Trump
The impacts of climate change have led the department to focus on how we manage our nation’s public lands and resources
And then there’s the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the target of severe cuts to its climate programs by the administration and led by an administrator, Scott Pruitt, who has defied basic scientific understanding of climate change.
On 28 April, the EPA announced in as quiet a way possible – it was a Friday at 7pm – that its website was “undergoing changes that reflect the agency’s new direction” under Trump and Pruitt. This would involve “updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership”.
Under Trump
We are currently updating our website to reflect EPA's priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.
“Across multiple agency websites, we have seen a reduction in usage of terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘greenhouse gases’, and an overall reduction in access to information pertaining to climate change,” she said.
“In a few cases, we have also observed shifts in economy- and business-oriented language, where the descriptions of the office focuses have increased their mentions of helping to grow infrastructure, create jobs, and stimulate the economy.
“On certain DOE (Department of Energy) pages, in particular, we have seen a shift in emphasis away from renewable energy and, in some cases, towards usage of fossil fuels.”
Anjur-Dietrich pointed out that federal government websites have always been regularly updated, either during an administration or its transition. But unless care is taken, broad, important themes such as climate change can become obscured.
“It is when web pages are changed without transparency, explanation, or careful documentation that the public’s access to information – and thus the ability to understand the implications of that information – is imperiled,” she said.
Activists have sought to resurrect removed information through the so-called Beetlejuice provision, which is where three separate freedom of information requests for the same thing requires the content to be publicly displayed.
The Beetlejuice tactic has been used on a range of agencies – including Nasa and the EPA – for climate data, renewable energy information and other content. Researchers fret that changes to online generalities aimed at the public may ultimately grow to become threat to their work.
“It’s a serious concern that we will lose this information because long-term, large-scale environmental data is very hard to come by,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who submitted one of the freedom of information requests.
“At this stage it’s a fear – I haven’t had colleagues saying they tried to get data and it’s no longer there. But this has to be viewed in the context of an administration that’s very hostile to science. I mean, we have a president who has said climate change is a Chinese plot.”
Amy Atwood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, added: “Scrubbing information about climate change will not make it any less dangerous.
“We’re going to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to bury the science showing the dangerous impacts of climate change at every turn.”
Links
On 28 April, the EPA announced in as quiet a way possible – it was a Friday at 7pm – that its website was “undergoing changes that reflect the agency’s new direction” under Trump and Pruitt. This would involve “updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership”.
Under Trump
We are currently updating our website to reflect EPA's priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.
Source:
EPA
Immediately, the EPA’s climate change section disappeared, to be replaced by a static holding page. This page linked to a “snapshot”
from 19 January that includes copious information on the basics of
climate change, the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the US,
temperature data and how the EPA is helping tamp down emissions.
 |
| The placeholder snapshot of the EPA’s climate change webpage pre-Trump administration. Photograph: EPA |
These changes have caused deep alarm among environmental groups and
some scientists, who fear that tweaked online language may soon morph
into reams of climate data being deleted. While the record-keeping rules
of the EPA and other agencies demand that data is retained, there is
little to stop the administration hiding it from public view, only to be
obtained via freedom of information laws.
Groups such as DataRefuge and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)
have swung into action to monitor and archive climate and other data,
just in case. EDGI uses a team of volunteer analysts to track changes to
around 25,000 pages across multiple government agencies.
Maya Anjur-Dietrich, member of EDGI’s website tracking committee,
said the initiative has “observed several emerging patterns, which
notably concern climate change and renewable energy”.“Across multiple agency websites, we have seen a reduction in usage of terms like ‘climate change’ and ‘greenhouse gases’, and an overall reduction in access to information pertaining to climate change,” she said.
“In a few cases, we have also observed shifts in economy- and business-oriented language, where the descriptions of the office focuses have increased their mentions of helping to grow infrastructure, create jobs, and stimulate the economy.
“On certain DOE (Department of Energy) pages, in particular, we have seen a shift in emphasis away from renewable energy and, in some cases, towards usage of fossil fuels.”
Anjur-Dietrich pointed out that federal government websites have always been regularly updated, either during an administration or its transition. But unless care is taken, broad, important themes such as climate change can become obscured.
“It is when web pages are changed without transparency, explanation, or careful documentation that the public’s access to information – and thus the ability to understand the implications of that information – is imperiled,” she said.
Activists have sought to resurrect removed information through the so-called Beetlejuice provision, which is where three separate freedom of information requests for the same thing requires the content to be publicly displayed.
The Beetlejuice tactic has been used on a range of agencies – including Nasa and the EPA – for climate data, renewable energy information and other content. Researchers fret that changes to online generalities aimed at the public may ultimately grow to become threat to their work.
“It’s a serious concern that we will lose this information because long-term, large-scale environmental data is very hard to come by,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who submitted one of the freedom of information requests.
“At this stage it’s a fear – I haven’t had colleagues saying they tried to get data and it’s no longer there. But this has to be viewed in the context of an administration that’s very hostile to science. I mean, we have a president who has said climate change is a Chinese plot.”
Amy Atwood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, added: “Scrubbing information about climate change will not make it any less dangerous.
“We’re going to fight the Trump administration’s efforts to bury the science showing the dangerous impacts of climate change at every turn.”
Links
- Trump begins tearing up Obama's years of progress on tackling climate change
- Trump to sign executive order undoing Obama's clean power plan
- White House calls climate change funding 'a waste of your money' – video
- Trump budget would gut EPA programs tackling climate change and pollution
- Trump begins rollback of Obama's car pollution standards to curb emissions
- EPA head Scott Pruitt denies that carbon dioxide causes global warming
- EPA staff experiencing stress and fears Trump will suppress climate science
- Outgoing EPA chief reveals fears Trump administration will halt climate action
- Climate change denial in the Trump cabinet: where do his nominees stand?
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