UNITED State Science pushed the country to its current location as a power Biomedical developments, technological innovation and scientific research. The data produced by US government agencies is the jewel of the crown – it helps us to track how The climate changesImagine Air pollution in our societiesidentification Challenges for our health And provide a Panoply is one of the other basic uses. The change of climate, epidemics, and new risks to all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is crucial to our understanding of the dangers that these challenges bring and how to address them.
Many Thesedata are still out of sight for those who do not use it, although they benefit us all. During the past few months, Trump administration The insolence of our scientific institution through Agency launch operations Censorship and Funding discountsAnd it was targeted explicitly Data US taxpayers have paid for their price. They steal from us and put our health and welfare in danger – so we must now defend these federal resources.
For this reason we are General environmental data partners They maintain critical environmental data. We are an alliance of non -profit institutions, academic institutions, researchers and volunteers who work with federal data to support politics, research, advocacy and litigation. We are one knot in an expanded network of institutions fighting for the data made by the American taxpayers that all funds. The first stage of our work was to identify environmental justice tools and databases at risk through conversations with environmental justice groups and current and former employees in climate offices, local, state, federal and researchers. To date, we have saved more than a hundred priority data sets and have reproduced six tools.
We are not fighting for data for data; We are fighting for data because it helps us understand the world.
The benefit of many of these data and tools collections comes from the fact that they are routinely updated. Although our efforts guarantee that we have footage of these important data sources and tools, it will be a great loss if it stops updating it completely. For this reason, we are “blasphemy of life” outside the government-to stand on copies of them on unforgettable pages for the public and non-governmental-that we can return it to a future administration concerned with human and environmental health and is not considered a threat.
The second stage is to develop these tools, call for a better infrastructure for data, and increase general participation. There is a question of the domain – if the government stops sharing the data of the national administration in the oceans and the atmosphere, we do not have the resources necessary to start monitoring and tracking hurricanes. For many important data sources, the government is the only entity that enjoys and publishing the resources of this data – Think of me Thousands of weather stations It was prepared all over the world or Global air pollution screens or spray to Satellite It revolves around the Earth. On the other hand, we have experience in building environmental justice tools that best serve the societies that bear the weight of environmental injustice, by establishing these societies and building what we have saved from the government-like the council on environmental quality CEJSTEnvironmental Protection Agency ejscreenAnd centers of control over diseases and prevention Social weakness and environmental justice tools.
There is a common abstinence from the saboteurs is that if these functions that they target are important enough, then cases or private sector will intervene to fill the gap. While some federal government functions are repeated outside the government, privatization will make them less easy and more expensive and subject to market whims. The states can also intervene and fill some gaps – but it is better to address many of the challenges we face by a strong federal government. Moreover, many countries Fortunately, join this anti -science cruciate campaign. The climate and epidemics crisis does not politely stop at the borders of the state. If the collection of data is left to the United States, the next epidemic will not leave a state without touching it because it dismantles the Ministry of Public Health – but these procedures will leave a hole in our understanding of the dangers of the residents and neighbors of that state. Moreover, some countries do not have the resources needed to determine the infrastructure required to withstand the burden of data collection. Coordination between federal governments and state governments is necessary.
Data is stolen from us; Our ability to understand the world was stolen from us. Americans will die because Trump administration Its responsibility for people disappears – this control system will have severe consequences. For this reason we must defend science, we must be loud about the importance of federal data and we must put the brakes on the non -American Trump agenda.
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Jonathan Gilmore is a data scientist at Harvard Chan School for the public healthA colleague at the Asbin Academy of Policy, coordinated in public environmental data partners.
