NASA still displays scientifically correct info about climate change, but for how long?

By Anders Lorenzen

Climate science data is the bedrock of our ability to respond to the climate challenge. The data compiled by scientists gives us crucial info about the warming of our planet. And the data give policymakers around the world the tools with which to set meaningful climate policies. The fact that they don’t always use that data as they should is another story.

But now a lot of that data is under threat. As of last week, upon his inauguration, the 45th President of the US, Donald Trump, has started to remove such climate data references from government websites. At the time of writing it has not yet been removed from government science websites such as NASA, NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency. But it might very well have happened by the time you read this.

We have known for a long time that this was likely to happen, at least since Trump won the US election on November the 8th. Therefore we have been resigned to the fact that we would no longer be receiving credible information from the US government about our warming planet once Trump assumed power. This is bad enough; but on top of that, we have also learned that climate research programs at NASA and NOAA, which are some of the largest and most influential climate research bodies on the planet, could be discontinued. Knowing all this, it is really crucial to ensure that all these climate data, which has been compiled over the course of years and even decades, are not lost. That is why scientists have been frantically trying to retrieve climate data from the US government websites.

But it is a huge task. So if you’re sitting at home and feeling pretty helpless and wondering how you can add value in the wake of the Trump Administration’s activities, here are names of some of the important organisations you can help and support.

ProPublica

The former New York Times reporter, Andy Revkin has covered environmental issues and climate change for decades. He recently left to join ProPublica to focus on investigative journalism. He has made it one of his key projects to track the winds of change on climate change in the Trump Administration. This is a highly time-consuming and resource- demanding project. And in this article, he is asking for your help.  ProPublica is a non-profit organisation, and so you can also help and support their work on climate change and many other important issues, by giving as little as $5 a month or a one-off donation.

Climate Mirror

Climate Mirror is a distributed effort conducted by volunteers. They work in conjunction with efforts from institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, and the Internet Archive, to mirror and back up U.S. Federal Climate Data before the Trump Administration took office. While a lot of this has taken place already, it is an important organisation to support as it will take some time before the Trump Administration manages to remove all climate data. And looking ahead they conduct crucial work in continuing and protecting US climate data.

You can support them here.

Columbia Law School

Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center has launched a Climate Deregulation Tracker to identify and explain steps taken by the incoming administration to scale back or wholly eliminate federal climate mitigation and adaptation measures. They have also set up a database of existing US climate change regulations, which will be updated as they change.

The tracker will also monitor congressional efforts to repeal statutory provisions, regulations, and guidance pertaining to climate change, and to otherwise undermine climate action.

You can support them here.

Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI)

To fight back against Trump’s war on tackling climate change, EDGI has launched #DataRescue, which is an organised response to Trump’s climate rollback. In a blog post, they say they have taken action to systematically archive valuable environmental datasets, create usable nongovernmental data access, and preserve records of wide-ranging, ephemeral, web-based policy and program information. EDGI was formed as a decentralised team of about forty social scientists and researchers immediately after the election, EDGI has focused on these two primary goals: documenting and analysing the transition, and rescuing federally maintained data.

You can support them here.

You can of course also do your own investigations by tracking the changes to NASA, NOAA and the EPA.

We’re always happy to be contacted by our readers with any contributing information.