On Saturday, thousands of people across the country and world participated in Climate Change Marches to protest the Trump administration’s rollbacks of climate change policies put in place by President Obama. It hardly seems like a coincidence that, less than 24 hours before the marches took place, The Environmental Protection Agency removed climate change from its website entirely.
The EPA stated that its website would be “undergoing changes” in order to more accurately represent the direction the agency plans to take. The now-deleted page included detailed explanations of the causes and effects of climate change.
“As EPA renews its commitment to human health and clean air, land, and water, our website needs to reflect the views of the leadership of the agency,” J.P. Freire, the agency’s associate administrator for public affairs, told The Washington Post. “We want to eliminate confusion by removing outdated language first and making room to discuss how we’re protecting the environment and human health by partnering with states and working within the law.”
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The website change was approved by EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier who once sued the organization he’s currently running. And Donald Trump has still failed to retract his now-infamous statement that climate change is a hoax created by the Chinese.
Environmental groups and activists are understandably distressed by this turn of events — but they’re certainly not giving up the fight to protect our planet from the very real and pressing issue of climate change.
A Sierra club spokesperson who participated in the Washington, D.C. Climate Change March told CNN the EPA’s move is "a sad reflection on the priorities of Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. If they haven't gotten the message yet, they're about to get it today. The American people want a government to fight for the health of this planet and for climate action to help protect all families in America."
The climate change information provided by Obama’s administration has been archived, so luckily it’s still available to anyone seeking information about the issue.