Canceled four years ago by a president who considered global warming a hoax, climate crisis information has returned to the website of the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of Joe Biden’s promise to “bring science back”.
The revival of a page dedicated to the climate emergency reverses Donald Trump’s order in 2017 to drop all references to it from government websites, and prioritises the Biden administration’s pledge to “organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis”.
In a statement, Michael Regan, confirmed by the US Senate last week as the federal agency’s new head, said: “Climate facts are back on the EPA’s website where they should be. Considering the urgency of this crisis, it’s critical that Americans have access to information and resources so that we can all play a role in protecting our environment, our health and vulnerable communities.”
Trump’s decision to drop the EPA’s climate informational page was just one of many controversial moves that angered environmentalists during his single term of office. He pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement, rolled back countless environmental regulations and protections and appointed a scandal-ridden climate change denier, Scott Pruitt, to lead the EPA.
Analysts, however, considered the Orwellian removal from the world wide web of scientifically accepted climate data and information to be especially heinous.
In a Guardian article last October, Michael Mann, one of the world’s most eminent climate experts, likened the following month’s presidential election to “a Tolkienesque battle between good and evil” and said Trump’s re-election would have made it “essentially impossible” to avert a global climate catastrophe.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
