The researchers found that Donald Trump's administration had removed a quarter of all climate change references from federal government websites since 2016.
One report warned that a growing number of environmental terms used by agencies, which "undermine clear badysis," increased at a similar pace over the same period, resulting in a "considerable weakening of Public access to information ".
The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGS), which published the research, has badyzed more than 5,300 pages on the websites of 23 federal agencies.
We will tell you what is true. You can form your own view.
Of 15p $ 0.18 $ 0.18 $ 0.27
one day, more exclusive, badyzes and supplements.
He noted that the use of the terms "climate change", "clean energy" and "adaptation" has dropped by 25% since Mr. Trump's inauguration as president. The websites badyzed in 2018 made 4,912 mentions of "climate change", against 6,552 in 2016.
According to researchers, during the same period, the frequency of use of "generic terms used to undermine the clear badysis" increased by 26%. The terms cited in the report include "energy independence", "resilience" and "sustainability".
The report stated: "The website changes we are documenting are actively eroding the digital" bridge "through which publicly funded research is contextualized and shared with those who need information, including the general public and the public. decision-makers from state, local and tribal governments. .
"Rather than cultivating the information resources needed to cope with climate change, the Trump administration has attempted to remove the subject from the websites of federal agencies, a clear policy indicator going in the direction of withdrawing from the government. Paris Agreement and the revocation of the Clean Power Plan.
"While prominent political, journalistic and scientific entities refine the language they use to describe the climate crisis, we see precisely the opposite of this administration: the removal of the term" climate change "and its replacement by a less clear language. "
Trump has repeatedly called climate change a "hoax", ignoring the scientific consensus and even warnings from his own federal agencies that global warming caused by man would have catastrophic consequences.
The president overthrew Obama 's policies aimed at curbing climate change and environmental pollution. In 2017, he announced that he would withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, under which the signatories committed to work to limit temperature increases to 1.5 ° C compared to pre-industrial levels. .
The EDGS badysis revealed that references to climate change had been entirely removed from the 136 pages of the government.
More than half of these pages were on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) website. Researchers said in their report: "Such withdrawals are significant because EPA.gov was the 1750th most visited website in the United States in early 2019, giving it even greater reach than WhiteHouse. gov. "
The amendments highlighted in the report include the EPA reclbadifying the work of some of its researchers in the "ecosystems" category instead of "climate science", and the administration of occupational safety and health removing any reference to "climate change" on one page staff can manage health risks related to heat at work.
In other cases, entire resources have simply been removed, such as the Ministry of Transport's Climate Change Clearing House, which details potential impacts on the transportation sector.
Support freethinking journalism and subscribe to Independent Minds
"Although our research does not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn about motivation in any case, changes to sites often result from direct politicization, that is, from high orders. government officials and policy makers, "wrote the researchers at the EDGS.
They spoke about lobbying of far-right groups such as the Heartland Institute, which denies the existence of climate change. Last year, he wrote to the White House to complain about climate-related government web pages.
The report also suggested that there could be an "indirect self-censorship" in government agencies, where staff would "change the content on climate change so that it" goes under the radar "of the higher instances named by politicians.
The White House did not immediately respond to L & # 39; Independentrequest for comments.
In March, the US Geological Survey issued a press release regarding research that may be useful for infrastructure planning along California's coastline. The statement did not mention the main finding of the study, which had warned that the state's economy was threatened by climate change.
Three federal officials said Climate wire The Trump administration had ordered that references to climate change be removed from the release, which was delayed by three months.