AP: “Websites that displayed legally mandated U.S. national climate assessments seem to have disappeared, making it harder for state and local governments and the public to learn what to expect in their backyards from a warming world. [Note – this article includes full text PDF copies of the disappeared reports] Scientists said the peer-reviewed authoritative reports save money and lives. Websites for the national assessments and the U.S. Global Change Research Program were down Monday and Tuesday with no links, notes or referrals elsewhere. The White House, which was responsible for the assessments, said the information will be housed within NASA to comply with the law, but gave no further details. Searches for the assessments on NASA websites did not turn them up. NASA did not respond to requests for information. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which coordinated the information in the assessments, did not respond to repeated inquiries. “It’s critical for decision makers across the country to know what the science in the National Climate Assessment is. That is the most reliable and well-reviewed source of information about climate that exists for the United States,” said University of Arizona climate scientist Kathy Jacobs, who coordinated the 2014 version of the report. “It’s a sad day for the United States if it is true that the National Climate Assessment is no longer available,” Jacobs said. “This is evidence of serious tampering with the facts and with people’s access to information, and it actually may increase the risk of people being harmed by climate-related impacts.” Harvard climate scientist John Holdren, who was President Obama’s science advisor and whose office directed the assessments, said after the 2014 edition he visited governors, mayors and other local officials who told him how useful the 841-page report was. It helped them decide whether to raise roads, build seawalls and even move hospital generators from basements to roofs, he said.”
LA Times: ”
- The U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website, globalchange.gov, was taken down along with information on how global warming is affecting the country.
- President Trump has criticized the government’s handling of climate science, saying federal agencies have used a “worst-case scenario” of warming.
- One climate scientist says the website had valuable “scientific information that the American taxpayers paid for, and it’s their right to have it.”
The Trump administration on Monday shut down a federal website that had presented congressionally mandated reports and research on climate change, drawing rebukes from scientists who said it will hinder the nation’s efforts to prepare for worsening droughts, floods and heat waves. The U.S. Global Change Research Program’s website, globalchange.gov, was taken down along with all five versions of the National Climate Assessment report and extensive information on how global warming is affecting the country. “They’re public documents. It’s scientific censorship at its worst,” said Peter Gleick, a California water and climate scientist who was one of the authors of the first National Climate Assessment in 2000. “This is the modern version of book burning.” The climate reports were required by Congress, and there will still be alternative ways of finding them even without the website, Gleick said. “But this information will be harder and harder for the American public to find.”
