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The scramble to save critical climate data from Trump’s war on DEI

When the White House reduced the critical ecosystems tool only three days in the management of President Trump, a team of data scientists and academics grew up.

They were prepared exactly this moment, after they created a list of 250 online resources that are expected to be widely dropped during the second period of Trump. The list tops the climate and economic justice tool, a platform created to assist federal agencies, states and community organizations, to determine the large heavier in pollution, in the list. The team quickly to re -create the tool using pre -ordered data and host it on a new website. Two days later, The web page has been operated.

In the two weeks since the opening of Trump, his administration has quickly moved to clean government sites for the information that is objecting to it. Federal agencies have dropped environmental and public health data groups. The American Global Change Research Program has ended the national evaluation of nature, a comprehensive review of the country’s plants and animals and its benefits for humanity. The departments in all parts of the executive have changed the websites to eliminate any indication of the inequality of women, colored people and other marginalized societies they face.

Researchers and preachers whose work revolves around the treatment of these disparities and the reduction of the effects of climate change have told Grist that they find these disturbing changes.

“One of the concerns is when you start to bring down such resources, you start building the field of knowledge that does not recognize the existence of the injustice of the environment or climate,” said Eric Nost, a geographical and assistant professor at the university. From jelph. NOST, which studies the role of data technology in the environmental policy industry, is part of the environmental data and governance initiative, one of many organizations that track Trump’s management changes on federal sites and resources.

Footage of the drop -down menu from the Environmental Protection Agency on its main page before and after the installation of Trump.
Environmental Data Management Initiative

Many of these changes are a direct response to executive orders He released the president within hours of assuming his position To end the “radical and luminous government DEI programs and expose” and defend “women from the extremism of gender ideology.” Many of them correspond to the cancellation of their executive during the Clinton era, which requires federal agencies to consider the impact of their policies on areas with high poverty rates and large minority population. Trump also canceled justice 40, which is President Biden’s policy of guaranteeing the so -called “deprived” societies by 40 percent of the benefits of spending on climate and energy. Some of the resources have been dismantled in the past two weeks, including climate examination and economic justice tool, have been created to help achieve these goals.

Environmental Protection Agency has deleted pages Offer the work of American employees of African origin. It also removed the stock plan, “Diversity and Inclusion” section On its functional page, “Environmental Justice” and “Climate Change” from the home page menu. Disease control and prevention centers have reduced data and resources related to individuals, HIV and environmental justice. The Ministry of Energy has been eliminated Online resources Anyone is struggling with energy bills. The web page previously included in government assistance programs such as a low -income home energy assistance program, which helps low -income families pay the price of electricity. The agency also killed A special version of the environmental justice tool.

A screenshot of the EPA page dedicated to African American employees files
The Trump administration has dropped the Environmental Protection Agency page dedicated to highlighting the African American employees.
Environmental Data Management Initiative

Besides making taxpayers more difficult to access information that can reduce their bills and navigate some of the effects of climate change, these steps make it difficult to judge effectively. “Policy makers, public and societies need good information to make the best political decision, whatever it is,” said Carrie Jenx, CEO of Harvard’s Environmental and Energy Law Program. “To the extent that no data management is used or does not allow data access, this will always be anxious to us.”

the The law tracks The Trump administration has declined to environmental rules and environmental justice policies since its first term. A handful of other groups consisting of academics, wealthy, students, and environmental organizations, followed similar efforts and launched an initiative called General Environmental Data Project. The environmental data and governance initiative is part of the voltage, as well as the Internet archive, which is not profitable Since 1996 Web pages, and the end of the duration, are a group of federal sites that have been archived since 2008 at the end of each presidential administration.

Other environmental groups are the archiving of the taxpayer -funded data groups on a smaller scale. For example, the Urban Ocean Lab Lab, a research tank that helps coastal societies to design climate and ocean policy, began to collect research and data on climate change in Custom section From its website last summer. The group “Resources Center” started to help cities easily identify the best available climate science. When Trump won the elections in November, I realized that dozens of data collections and research hosted on government sites may disappear and began to archive the additional policy papers and data. These resources were especially relevant because the laboratory found that many cities used old information to make planning decisions.

“We remember what happened during the last Trump administration, as a large amount of relevant environmental information has been reduced or changed, and we wanted to make sure that the resources we posted on our website will continue to live on,” said Alex Miller, an analyst there.

What is happening now is in many ways to repeat the efforts made by the Trump administration during its first term, when As 20 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency website has become not possible for the public. The use of the term “climate change” decreased by more than a third. The first Trump administration also Try to decrease work in the national climate evaluationAn important synthesis of the state of climate science that forms federal policy.

This time, Trump officials are trying to control more tightly on how to assemble the evaluation and want to reduce the scientific standards it hires, According to report reports, E & E News. While the document is likely to be deployed in a form within two years, the administration has won another environmental review.

Last year, the Biden Administration announced the natural evaluation of nature, a comprehensive review of the literature of nature in the United States. It was designed after climate evaluation and recruited dozens of researchers to calculate all ways in which nature is valuable. Last week, the administration told researchers who spent nearly a year in the report that he was closing the effort. Alessandro Regolon, an architect and scheme studying at the University of Utah and studying the benefits of green spaces, was working with other researchers to determine the effects of nature on physical and mental welfare. Reginon said he was informed of the administration’s decision a few days after a Fairmont meeting with these colleagues.

Because those who work on the report were volunteers, Regolon said they were trying to find a way to continue their work.

“We are committed to writing this method or another,” he said. “I almost saw a reflection of this work and prepared to accomplish it after completing the work without explanation.”


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