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Climate Denial in Scientific Research

Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial in Scientific Research. Tabuchi, Hiroko. New York Times. Mar 2, 2020.

“An official at the Interior Department embarked on a campaign that has inserted misleading language about climate change – including debunked claims that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is beneficial – into the agency’s scientific reports, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times…The Interior Department’s emails, dating from 2017 through last year and obtained under public-records laws by the watchdog group Energy and Policy Institute, provide the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s widespread attacks on government scientific work. The administration has halted or scaled back numerous research projects since taking office, including an Obama-era initiative to fight disease outbreaks around the world – a decision that has drawn criticism in recent weeks as a deadly coronavirus has spread globally…The misleading language appears in environmental studies and impact statements affecting major watersheds including the Klamath and Upper Deschutes river basins in California and Oregon, which provide critical habitat for spawning salmon and other wildlife. In addition, millions of acres of farms in California’s agriculturally important Central Valley are supplied, in part, by the Klamath, which is California’s second-largest river by volume and is only slightly smaller than the Colorado River. Thirsty farms there have used increasing amounts of water at a rate that scientists say hurts wildlife and imperils the salmon industry.”

It would be useful to know which reports contain the language and if they are in the Federal Depository Library Program. Neither the New York Times article nor the Energy and Policy Institute mention the titles. I’ll inquire at the Institute in case they can provide.

co-published on govdoc-l and freegovinfo.info.

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


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