时间:2025-04-03 01:16:08 来源:网络整理编辑:時尚
The Trump administration deleted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's main climate change webp
The Trump administration deleted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's main climate change webpage on Oct. 16, 2018. Now, it's back.
The EPA announced Thursday that it rebooted its climate webpage, which includes information about how the climate is warming and how the regulatory agency seeks to curb heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions. "Climate facts are back on EPA's website where they should be,"the newEPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement.
The government watchdog group Environmental Data and Governance Initiative(EDGI), which monitors federal websites, spotted the eliminated climate pages in fall 2018. Previously, in 2017, the Trump administration's EPA had only removed climate content from the pages, posting "This page is being updated." But eventually the administration just terminated the pages. "There's no indication now that there was even a climate change website," EDGI's Eric Nost, who reported the deletion, told Mashable at the time.
According to former EPA officials, the move to eliminate climate information was relatively straightforward. The EPA protects human health and the environment, in large part by limiting pollutants and emissions from the likes of power plants and automobiles. Yet the Trump administration sought to promote fossil fuel extraction and burning. This meant the EPA would need to curb or ease rules that limit the amount of heat-trapping carbon emissions that enter the atmosphere and add to Earth's skyrocketing greenhouse gas levels (they did).
But displaying climate science information, which shows how carbon emissions are heating the globe, is at odds with allowing largely unchecked emissions of potent planet-warming gases like CO2 and methane.
"They're protecting themselves from scrutiny — an uninformed public is key to shielding them from scrutiny," Joe Goffman, a former EPA senior counsel in the Office of Air and Radiation during the Obama administration, told Mashable in November 2018. Goffman has since rejoined the Biden administration's EPA.
"It’s sad, but straightforward," Stan Meiburg, a former acting deputy administrator of the EPA during the Obama administration, also told Mashable in November 2018. "It’s a consistent reflection of the position the [Trump] administration has taken about the lack of need to address greenhouse gas emissions," added Meiburg.
Earth is now reacting to the highest atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in at least800,000 years, but more likely millions of years. The consequences are clear:
Wildfires are surging in the U.S.
Major Antarctic ice sheets have destabilized, with the potential for many feetof sea level rise.
The ocean is absorbing unfathomable amounts of heat.
Heat waves are becoming longer and more frequent, while smashing records.
Storms are intensifying, leading to more billion-dollar floods.
Arctic sea ice is in rapid decline
The EPA has a clear authority from the U.S. Supreme Court to limit and regulate greenhouse gases, like it does the harmful air pollution from automobiles. As Mashable previously reported:
Settled by a five to four vote in 2007, Massachusetts v. EPAruled for the first time that heat-trapping greenhouse gases are pollutants, and that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can regulate them, just as the agency reins in pollution emitted by cars and trucks.
"I think Massachusetts v. EPAis the most important environmental decision the Supreme Court has ever decided," Ann Carlson, the director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law, said in an interview.
The new EPA administrator, Michael Regan, told the New York Timesthat the agency is now developing new emissions rules for power plants and vehicles.
As the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases on Earth, the U.S. has a critical role to play in curbing the planet's warming this century. Earth's warming has accelerated in recent decades, and currently shows no signs of slowing: 20 of the 21 hottest years have occurred since 2001.
MashReads Podcast: What makes a good summer read?2025-04-03 01:05
多特妖星因抨擊裁判遭4萬歐重罰 警方還介入調查2025-04-03 00:56
鄭智肩負重任工作量大 爭冠組群雄PK廣州隊難度高2025-04-02 23:57
哈維:客場擊敗拜仁並非奇跡 巴薩要打破不勝曆史2025-04-02 23:55
Fake news reports from the Newseum are infinitely better than actual news2025-04-02 23:53
國米憾負皇馬屈居第二 中場核心報複染紅藏大隱患2025-04-02 23:24
尤文VS馬爾默首發:迪巴拉小基恩先發 阿圖爾出戰2025-04-02 22:51
盛況絕無僅有?中超16隊7支選擇土帥 榜首三強期待改寫曆史2025-04-02 22:49
Hiddleswift finally followed each other on Instagram after 3 excruciating days2025-04-02 22:45
複刻阿紮爾!朗格萊輸球後大笑 與萊萬勾肩搭背2025-04-02 22:37
Cat gets stuck in the most awkward position ever2025-04-03 01:11
中超第二階段裁判名單敲定 馬寧等國際裁判員參與執法2025-04-03 01:08
廣州隊球員非常支持鄭智 洛國富蔣光太想踢第二階段比賽2025-04-03 00:50
馬德興 :國足換帥不是一換了之 李霄鵬與李鐵麵臨同樣業務問題2025-04-03 00:01
Despite IOC ban, Rio crowds get their political messages across2025-04-02 23:59
拜仁VS巴薩首發:萊萬穆勒先發 德佩登貝萊出戰2025-04-02 23:14
中超重新開啟各隊全華班頻現 本土球員迎來大展身手良機?2025-04-02 23:11
絕不手軟!拜仁小組全勝晉級 主客場雙殺巴薩入6球2025-04-02 22:51
Tourist survives for month in frozen New Zealand wilderness after partner dies2025-04-02 22:48
曝拉波爾塔正認真研究簽回蘇亞雷斯 哈維鼎力讚成2025-04-02 22:31