Scientists race to rescue taxpayer-funded data purged from websites
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As the Trump administration continues to purge troves of information related to climate change and other topics from government websites, a coalition of researchers is working to salvage critical data.
Katie Hoeberling, director of policy initiatives at the Open Environmental Data Project, said local governments, natural-disaster planners, insurance companies and others depend on reliable scientific data from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, NASA and NOAA.
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"To understand where the highest risks are, and how to make infrastructure upgrades to prevent the worst flooding in the most vulnerable communities, how to accurately price insurance plans," Hoeberling outlined.
President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax, and has again withdrawn the U.S. from a global effort to mitigate impacts. The administration has ordered federal agencies to scrub websites of all information related to climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion, a topic it said is divisive.
Hoeberling pointed out purging data limits the ability of communities to hold polluters accountable. It also erases an official body of evidence showing how communities of color continue to disproportionately experience air and water pollution, on top of poverty and historic and structural racism.
"A lot of these tools aggregated all of that information together," Hoeberling noted. "Because when it comes to environmental justice and climate justice, we're always talking about multiple burdens adding up and layering on."
Hoeberling believes removing data paid for by American taxpayers not only limits support for communities most at risk in a changing climate, it hides the effects already being felt from wildfires, prolonged drought, extreme flooding and more.
"Everyone who has paid taxes in the last two decades helped create this information," Hoeberling stressed. "The fact that it's been taken down, not only is it kind of erasing the history of our country, it feels like theft."
