NOAA researchers working for the public sector collect and provide vital coastal health data that businesses, individuals and other scientists rely on. (Image credit: NOAA National Ocean Service)
While it may seem like information on the Internet lasts forever, it actually only lasts as long as people want it to.
This is becoming clear as the second Trump administration actively questions the work of scientific agencies and the data and web resources they use to communicate with the public. The areas affected range from public health and demographics to climate research.
We are a research librarian and a policy scientist who are part of the Public Environmental Data Partners network, a coalition of nonprofits, archivists, and researchers who use federal data in their analysis, advocacy, and litigation, and who work to keep the data accessible to the public.
In the first three weeks of the Trump presidency, we have seen agencies shut down access to at least a dozen tools for analyzing climate and environmental justice. The new administration has also removed the term “climate change” from government websites, along with words like “sustainability.”
Here's why and how Public Environmental Data Partners and other organizations ensure continued access to climate science that is critical to society.
Why Government Websites and Data Matter
The Internet and access to data are vital to driving innovation, research and everyday life.
Climate scientists analyze NASA satellite data and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather records to understand changes in the Earth system, what’s causing them, and how to protect the climate that underpins our economy. Other researchers use these sources, along with Census Bureau data, to figure out who’s suffering the most from the effects of climate change. Every day, people around the world visit the Environmental Protection Agency’s website to learn how to protect themselves from threats and what their governments are doing or not doing to help.
If the data and tools needed to analyze complex data suddenly disappear from the web, the work of scientists, civil society organizations, and government workers could grind to a halt. The generation of scientific data and its analysis by government scientists is also essential. Many state governments have environmental and public health programs that depend on science and data collected by federal agencies.
Removing information from government websites also makes it difficult for the public to actively participate in key democratic processes, including changing regulations. For example, when an agency proposes to repeal a rule, it must gather feedback from the public, who often rely on government websites to find information related to that rule.
And when web resources are changed or taken down, it creates mistrust of both government and science. For years, government agencies have collected climate data, conducted sophisticated analyses, provided funding, and made the data publicly available. People around the world understand climate change in large part because of data provided by U.S. federal agencies. Removing it deprives everyone of important information about the world.
Goodbye, data?
The first Trump administration eliminated discussions of climate change and climate policy from all government websites. However, in our research with the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, we found no evidence that datasets were permanently deleted over the first four years.
The second Trump administration appears to be characterized by faster and broader deletion of information.
In response, groups participating in the Public Environmental Data Partners program are archiving climate datasets that our community considers a priority, uploading copies to public repositories, and cataloging where and how they can be found if they disappear from government websites.
Sourse: www.livescience.com
