After Donald Trump returned to the White House, thousands of government data sets were changed or removed, including researchers and policymakers, including major tools used to track which community is the most dangerous due to climate change and toxic risks.
Eric Nost is a geographic and policy scholar of Canada’s Guelph University, which helps to track and back up these resources before these resources are lost to work with US -based environmental data and governance initiatives. He changes all administrative changes and changes in how the website changes and how data is presented or configured, but this time the situation is very different.
“When you start to withdraw this information, it is censorship and propaganda in the way that the problem is explained and misleading.” He said Yale Environment 360 About his efforts.
Yale Environment 360: What did the colleagues of environmental data and governance initiatives begin when it became clear that Trump could return to the White House in 2024?
Eric Nost.
GUELPH University
Eric Nost: Given the possibility of Trump’s elected, the Biden administration was closer to the work. Over time, Wayback Machine, which gets a snapshot on the page, is good for capturing static web pages. It doesn’t help you to keep your data set to click and download. So we contacted and started working with our partners, and eventually we Public environment data partner. We have often used hundreds of data sets that have been used frequently by the US federal agencies and performed public recommendations. The list has been turned out to be hundreds of data sets. From this, we whistled with the list of 60 data sets we thought we were actually in danger. We were divided and stored in various ways and downloaded so that it could be used in one way.
E360: What happened since Trump returned to the office in January?
Nost: Data.gov is a central repository of government data sets that can be found to index and find things more easily. There were about 2,000 records at the end of January. Missed In data.gov, out of about 308,000 people. It does not necessarily mean that data has lost forever in records. But it’s definitely not good because everything can be used less.
From the first day, Trump’s first action was actually aimed at DEI. [diversity, equity, and inclusion]In addition to the withdrawal of climate behavior such as the Paris Convention. It actually ordered what the agency did. For example, the 25 -year -old climate change center of the Ministry of Transportation was very fast. EPA Removal In the website navigation, “climate change” makes it more difficult to find the page.
The biggest change we saw is environmental definition and Dei (to remove language from language and data, and tools. What we haven’t seen is pure biological physical climate data removal. It is different from missing the entire NASA climate data set. There is a separate question of whether or not you can actually use it in the laptop of others.
“It seems very difficult for American colleagues. There may be more people who are not in the United States who are doing this kind of work. ”
E360: What important things have been removed?
Nost: Not only is it an important data, but there are also website code that people interact. There are many important tools. Even if the data is somewhere, it will not be used if all the files are applied.
The climate and economic judicial review tools were developed under Biden. Justice40 InitiativeThis was his initial administrative order, and he tried to assign 40 percent of climate investment to the so -called disadvantaged community. This tool helped to identify the community. Trump withdrew Viden’s administrative order and tools. Come down Within Trump’s inauguration within 72 hours.
However, it was developed as an open source tool from the first day, so the code was already available. So we have already made a copy. We could do it quite easily Rebuild the tool And we host ourselves Website.
similarly, EJSCREEN It was an EPA tool to understand the community at the forefront of toxic pollutants. EJSCREEN has many problems. There are certainly many restrictions. However, this tool was well used for community groups, state and local governments, subsidies, communication or advocacy. It was around after the Obama administration. It survived the first Trump administration. But it was suspended on February 5th. Again, because the code was released, we could create a copy of the data or in some cases reverse engineering. We could do it Make a copy And it makes it fully function again.
Click to enlarge. Left: December FEMA’s Climate Recovery Website. Right: After Trump took office in January, the same site has been removed for explicit mention of “climate change.”
Wayback machine
E360: When did you first participate in government data tracking?
Nost: Eight years ago, when Trump’s first administration began, he joined environmental data and governance initiatives. [EDGI, pronounced “edgy”]. The group was formed immediately after November 2016, and Trump’s first election threat Seriously dismantle the EPA. EDGI is a major organization that tracks changes in government websites.
E360: What is the work with EDGI?
Nost: We work on the Internet archives and on the wayback Machine. Basically, every week -and twice a week after Trump’s first victory, we will create a report in the government page link spreadsheet. Then we will pull this from customized software and volunteers will see: If so, is that page or that change is important?
E360: Who supports EDGI?
Nost: various VolunteerMost of the basics. EDGI funded the National Science Foundation. The fund was paid. If the timing was different, there would have been a problem.
“I’m really discouraged. What we see is a true excretion of public infrastructure and public capacity. ”
E360: Does it help Canada, not anyone in the United States?
Nost: There are all changes in NSF’s research funds. [National Science Foundation] And since then, it seems very difficult for some of the US colleagues to work productively for some of these. People who are not in the United States are doing this kind of work may be more affordable.
E360: What happened in Trump’s first administration?
Nost: The overall story of Trump 1.0 is that we haven’t seen much data missing. But what we saw was the removal and change of many other web resources. So the web page moved offline. The text of the web page has been revised to change how the climate problem is presented, and often weakens the climate language with an ambiguous statement. We saw it a lot. We published report 2019.
E360: Did the court be involved in missing data and resources?
Nost: This is not actually seen in the first Trump administration, but now we are seeing legal action. USDA [U.S. Department of Agriculture]For example, it has destroyed several climate -related resources. The farmers’ group is now suing to restore such resources. This follows a similar lawsuit filed by a doctor on the CDC. [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] If you remove many public health data sets and web pages. They were able to successfully insist that the CDC should bring it back for the benefit of public health, and they I did so.
President Trump signed an administrative order next to his cabinet members on February 14.
Andrew Harnik / Getty Image
E360: Is the record protection?
Nost: One of the reasons we haven’t seen a lot of biological climate data is still missing. For example, a report on how many greenhouse gases are released every year in the industry is parliamentary mandatory. It is the same as many NOAA data sets. The Trump administration, like other parliamentary requirements such as USAID, cannot say that it will not violate them at some point. [U.S. Agency for International Development] funds. But that’s why we don’t miss the data much.
E360: Of course, the data is not only missing, but only people’s jobs. Thousands of civil servants, including research scientists, have been fired. Is there an opinion about it?
Nost: I’m really discouraged. What we see is a true excretion of public infrastructure and public capacity. It is in terms of human and data set. They are invested in the public and data for decades by the public. What are we gutting for it? Tax reduction on the rich?
They are people who create, collect, and manage data. NOAA may be mandatory to collect specific data, but it is not mandatory to have a specific size of manpower. If there are no people to create data, there is a difference in the record.
“The US government is the world’s largest publisher. People around the world are transformed into sources of information. ”
E360: What is different from this administration?
Nost: One of these time we didn’t see for the first time is to remove information from people other than the United States other than the United States. tracking The risk of natural disasters is no longer available to people outside the United States.
E360: Why is this change important?
Nost: The Trump administration canceled 30 years of environmental definition by withdrawing Clinton’s 1994 administrative order. Required Institution to make EJ a part of the mission. For example, by evaluating whether the EPA is unbalanced in the black community. It didn’t necessarily have a lot of teeth, and many complaints were written over the years, but at least there. It disappeared on the first day.
The US government is the world’s largest publisher. People all over the world turn into sources of information. Therefore, it is censorship and propaganda that begins to withdraw this information and how the problem is explained, and in a way that is misunderstood.
E360: What should people do?
Nost: Advocation for policy changes. Join the same organization like EDGI -we always want more volunteers. Write a copy even if there is one more website that you use everyday. Wayback machine. Easy. Put the link. It helps to build this public backup and public record.
