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Government The Internet United States Science

A New Report Documents Two Years of Science Being Scrubbed From .Gov Sites (vice.com) 373

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: A report published by the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) on Monday found that language related to climate change has disappeared at an alarming pace since Trump took office in 2016. Across 5,301 pages -- ranging from websites belonging to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) -- the use of the terms "climate change," "clean energy," and "adaptation" plummeted by 26 percent between 2016 and 2018. Of the pages where "climate change" was stricken, more than half belong to the EPA. The EPA homepage was the 1,750th most-visited website in the U.S. in early 2019, according to the report, giving it more reach than Whitehouse.gov. But "unlike the much-discussed White House effort to question climate change findings, website changes go unannounced and are often beyond immediate public recognition," the report argues. "They insidiously undermine publicly-funded infrastructure for knowledge dissemination."

According to the report, clear scientific terminology on government websites was often replaced with politicized language such as "energy independence," a buzzword ripped directly from Trump's "America First Energy Plan" which demands an increase in fossil fuel production. The watchdog also found evidence of "diminished connections" between climate change and its effects on government websites, or quite literally, the breaking of links between public information about the topic.

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A New Report Documents Two Years of Science Being Scrubbed From .Gov Sites

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  • ... of short-sighted, power-hungry, greedy morons. These people think they can discuss science away or simply hide it and reality will change.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:13PM (#58976690)

      These people think they can discuss science away or simply hide it and reality will change.

      This is the new newness ... opinions and ideology (t|T)rump facts, and the dumb shit you believe is true if you keep saying it to people who want to believe it.

      See, we're living in a post-truth era, where loudly expressed stupidity is held as just as valid as science, truth, and objective facts ... if reality doesn't fit your narrative, make up a new reality and know that the drooling idiots will still believe you, because they need to believe you and are incapable of recognizing blatant lies. They don't care about truth and facts.

      I'm terrified of the fact that we live in a world where the overwhelming majority of humans are completely irrational, and completely immune to facts and evidence.

      They just believe dumb shit like primitive people, and they are willing to be violent to defend those stupid beliefs.

      Western countries are increasingly in the grips of rabid idiots, and unfortunately, in developing countries the unwashed and uneducated masses are also prone to outbreaks of mass stupidity with some regularity.

      Humanity is pretty much fucked. The fucking stupid people are in ascendancy and rising up against facts, critical thinking, and science.

      If it clashes with their ideology it must be false, and being false it must be discredited and vilified. To the point words like 'treason' get thrown around if you dare disagree. Or, you know, 'send them back' ... the most scarily Nazi rally thing you can imagine in America.

      Kinda like burning witches, really. The idiots get whipped into a froth by the morons, and then you have a mob.

      Increasingly, the world is degrading into collective mob mentalities. And mobs don't like/b science.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      ... of short-sighted, power-hungry, greedy morons. These people think they can discuss science away or simply hide it and reality will change.

      On some level many republican in power probably know that bullshit only takes you so far, and that reality will eventually punish us for ignoring truth. Trump has even said words like you can only take a con so far or to that affect.

      Basically those in power, or a large amount of them at least, are simply playing for short term. They are okay with freedom burning, with truth burning, with decency burning, with ethics burning, going bankrupt, with the world's alliances fracturing and fraying, with the clima

      • ... of short-sighted, power-hungry, greedy morons. These people think they can discuss science away or simply hide it and reality will change.

        On some level many republican in power probably know that bullshit only takes you so far, and that reality will eventually punish us for ignoring truth. Trump has even said words like you can only take a con so far or to that affect.

        Unfortunately most Americans have proved that distance you can "take" a con can be quite large if you keep feeding them what they want to hear.

    • And, who's gonna stop 'em?

    • ... of short-sighted, power-hungry, greedy morons. These people think they can discuss science away or simply hide it and reality will change.

      Oh, if I were a betting man, I'd wager that all of the science is safe somewhere. Scientists do have a history of going to great lengths to protect their data. One of the most illustrative is the Leningrad seed scientists: https://www.rbth.com/blogs/201... [rbth.com] Starving while keeping seeds safe.

      This situation too shall come to pass

    • These people just think that they're going to be on top of the new order, just like they're at the top of this one. Their tiny little minds simply cannot fathom the idea that their money will not protect them when it all comes down.

    • This. A great way to identify the bad guys (or worse guys) in any conflict is to see which group is most hostile to science. It never fails. If the more science-denialist group ever seems to be the good guys, they will reveal themselves to be the bad/worse guys later (example: Soviets vs. Mujahideen).

  • by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:40PM (#58976804) Journal
    Add that to the list of crimes that Trump and company will eventually be charged with.

    Need I point out that destroying information like that is basically the same thing as burning books just like the Nazis did under Hitler? Didn't think of that, now did you all?

    Luckily for the rest of the world the Toddler-in-chief's reach does not extend to the governments of other countries nor into the private sector, so there's still plenty of real facts and real truth out there, he can't destroy it all.

    Of course you know the possible real reason some shitbag like Trump does things like this, don't you? They want to keep the general public in the dark, and nice and calm and quiet, and they'll keep telling everyone 'climate change is a hoax!' right up until it's too late, civilzation starts falling apart, then The Rich (and Trump and his conservative buddies) will retreat to their private, self-contained compounds, with their private armies to protect them, where they will live in comfort until The End, and their guards will shoot at the rest of the people who try to get in because they're starving, drowning, or baking to death in killer heatwaves.

    Vote Democrat in 2020, folks. We have to get the criminals out of our government before it's too late.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      To be fair, no information is destroyed. It's just removed from some servers, where it wasn't really doing a whole lot anyway.

    • by whoever57 ( 658626 ) on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @12:20AM (#58976930) Journal

      A lot of this is driven by the Koch brothers, who got their start in lobbying when they needed to cover up their theft of oil from native Americans.

      https://www.politico.com/magaz... [politico.com]

    • That's called Soylent Green.

    • This was pretty expected. There was a giant "backup and get the information into non-government hands" movement before Trump took office.

      You're wrong about his endgame though. He expects the cost for climate change not to hit til he's dead anyway, so why make his last few decades less comfortable? It's not like he cares about his kids or anything.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by strikethree ( 811449 )

      Grow the fuck up. Holy shit dude. There is NOTHING going on that is anywhere near comparable to the fucking nazis.

      Let's make it clear here:

      Using the term Nazi is effective because they intentionally murdered very large numbers of people in a passionless and industrial manner.

      Trump, his administration, the Democrats, NOBODY is fucking murdering millions of innocent people. There is nothing nazilike going on at all. Your insistence on bringing that element in shows that your thinking is twisted beyond help.

      Su

      • Oh look someone else who thinks government censorship is perfectly okay since it fits with his political agenda! Never mind the implication that if it can be done to scientific data (that you don't happen to like) it can be done to anything they please including things you might think are important. Put your glasses on old man your myopia is getting in the way of you seeing things clearly.
    • by Lennie ( 16154 )

      "Vote Democrat in 2020, folks. We have to get the criminals out of our government before it's too late."

      I would recommend: Vote only for candidates who don't take corporate/special interest, etc. money.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by argStyopa ( 232550 )

      Frothing, feral, extremist commentators like this make it likely that Trump will win in 2020, as much as we may all regret it.

      Your cartoonishly simple view of the world is, I'm sure, comfortingly validating to you and your fellow travelers, like Evangelical Christians affirmatively shouting "PRAISE JESUS" to each other at a revival tent meeting.

      What it disregards is that there are a lot of reasonably intelligent people who disagree with you, both politically and in regard to climate change.* Demonizing the

      • What the actual fuck makes you think that government censorship can't happen to something YOU think is important? You only talk the way you're talking because you don't think climate change is real therefore you shortsightedly don't give a shit but the fact of the matter is if they can silence scientific data and/or destroy it outright then they can do the same to you and things you think are important as well. Maybe you should be thinking a little farther ahead than just what you're having for your next me
  • Abend (Score:3, Funny)

    by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2019 @11:51PM (#58976846) Journal

    When I read the comments in any Slashdot article about climate change, or any science that's no approved by the Republican party, I can understand why so many smartphone apps are total shit. I think I've figured out who's writing the code.

  • Idiots (Score:5, Interesting)

    by TJHook3r ( 4699685 ) on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @12:51AM (#58976990)
    See, I would think that even an idiot would love renewable energy - it's like stealing free energy from the wind or the Sun! Apparently not though. This particular American thinks that non-fossil fuels are unAmerican and wants to convince everyone else of that 'fact'. The fact that scientific texts are being edited should make any reader of 1984 very nervous.
    • it's like stealing free energy from the wind or the Sun!

      It's not free.

      • Nothing is "free".

        In this case, the consumable is the hydrogen in the sun, the byproduct is helium, the net energy capacity of the sun decreases from the fusion reaction, there is a great deal of dispersion before that energy reaches the earth, and-- once here, energy absorbed in solar panels is theoretically energy that is not used by the biosphere (but more than likely, this is just a difference in albedo), The net consequence is that thermal energy is still the byproduct of that energy absorption (just a

        • If you want to make silly claims about wind patterns being changed from windfarms

          Is that true? Seems unlikely to be a major change.

          • I DID say it was a silly change.

            And yes, I have indeed seen that floated as a point of opposition to windfarm installation.

            This is because they really DO cause local alterations in weather, by causing increased surface turbulence.

            https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]

            But again- so does a forest. AND-- removing said forest, will remove that turbulence, and change the weather.

            BUT-- you dont see lots of people complaining about how cutting down all the trees for mad mad profits will alter local climate. Nope. Very

            • BUT-- you dont see lots of people complaining about how cutting down all the trees for mad mad profits will alter local climate.

              You do. Tree-huggers got their name for a reason.

      • Here's what I don't get about renewable energy... TPTB are running the show, no matter where the power comes from. Why not just use cronyism to make sure that big oil winds up owning all the wind and solar, instead of suppressing it for so long that the planet may become unlivable for most known life (by mass)? It's almost enough to make me believe in lizard people.

  • made them do it, the US Gov does not have as much power as you think, the US Gov is more like middle-management for the corporate fascists that really run the world, its the banking cartel & military-industrial complex that really rule the world,

    "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticise"
  • by archer, the ( 887288 ) on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @07:47AM (#58978136)
    https://globalclimatestrike.ne... [globalclimatestrike.net]
  • by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh.gmail@com> on Wednesday July 24, 2019 @08:41AM (#58978438) Journal

    Suck on this, Twitler!

    https://www.wired.com/2017/01/... [wired.com]

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov

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