A Quick Word About Climate Change Data, Politics, Truth, and Science

The Trump administration has removed the words climate change and most references or data about it from government websites, including the Department of Defense, the USDA Department of Agriculture, the Department of Energy, and most eye-poppingly, the Environmental Protection Agency’s website. Fox News reports that the administration is “rebranding” what doesn’t align with the president’s agenda. Waaaa…what?

Can you rebrand the truth? Can you rebrand science? The answer given by this new administration is YES! If it helps advance your agenda, why not? Why worry about things when we don’t have to?  “Climate change is bad for prosperity” (Project 2025), so why mention it? While we’re at it, let’s not mention a city’s murder rate because, let’s face it, it’s bad for the city’s economy and, well, a big bummer. Heck, let’s not mention that there’s a deadly new virus because it will likely magically disappear. It’s easy when you understand how! Preschool children do it all the time; it’s called wishful thinking.

Banning mention of Climate change is like shutting down a school because your kid got bad grades.

Do you remember George Orwell’s 1984? In that dystopic world, the names of ministries are the opposite of their actual functions. The Ministry of Truth, for instance, is a propaganda machine meant to lead people into a somnambulic state so as not to challenge the social order. “Ignorance is Strength” is the motto. It seemed funny when I read that in high school: people would never ever fall for such nonsense or allow it. But lo, it’s happening right here. Right now. Here in our own country.

What the current administration is doing is a contemptuous act against science, truth, and every person living on this planet. In addition to hiding data, they are withdrawing hard-won investments in a liveable world for our children and grandchildren. Aside from its almost hilariously and childlike wishful thinking, it is deeply saddening. But sad as I am, the wrecking ball is swinging hard and fast in our most critical hour: we weren’t doing nearly enough to save our beautiful, green, and blue home planet from tipping into catastrophe before this administration.

All of this climate science isn’t theoretical. It’s not political. It’s just scientific truth.

It’s a scary truth, but scarier yet is more time lost. To survive as a species, we urgently need to access, process, plan, and discuss that data NOW. Access to scientific information about drought, extreme weather, and other climate impacts is essential to every person, business, and government planning office. Farmers in California rely on an interactive map published by the US Forest Service, which combines over 140 different datasets to help the public and farmers plan. The tool was taken down and is no longer available. Growers are now suing the Department of Agriculture, which was ordered to take the data down.

What to do? Get involved. Don’t sleepwalk through this critical epoch for humankind and our home planet. Write letters. Contact your representatives.

Ignorance is not strength. Ignorance is ignorance. Strength? That’s citizens fighting for truth.

Let’s leave 1984 where it belongs: in the fiction aisle.