Suddenly, it’s a thing.
Perhaps climate science advocates are operating under an abundance of caution, but they’re willing to take that chance. Their goal is to protect painstakingly collected data and safeguard their work as they prepare to operate under an administration that is demonstrably hostile towards climate research.
Cartoon by Sidney Harris
“It’s truly remarkable the quick attention that it’s received and the number of people that are volunteering to help,” says meteorologist Eric Holthaus, host of the @ourwarmregards podcast, in a December 14 interview with Audie Cornish on NPR.
Legions of concerned scientists, along with colleagues working across several disciplines, are joining the effort. An announcement for the University of Toronto’s recent ‘Guerrilla and the recent Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump’ on December 17 served as a call to action for volunteers who are collectively “focused on preserving information and data from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has programs and data at high risk of being removed from online public access or even deleted. This includes climate change, water, air, toxics programs. This project is urgent because the Trump transition team has identified the EPA and other environmental programs as priorities for the chopping block.”
Toronto ‘guerrilla’ archivists to help preserve US climate data, BBC News, December 15, 2016.
U of T heads ‘guerrilla archiving event’ to preserve climate data ahead of Trump presidency: ‘What we’re seeing is environmental McCarthyism,’ activist says of incoming administration, Nicole Mortillaro, CBC News, CANADA, December 14, 2016.
Scientists Frantically Copying Climate Date Fearing It Might Vanish Under Trump, Dan Drollette Jr., Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December 16, 2016.
Christopher Weyant, The New Yorker
Tags: Archiving, Climate Data, EPA, Trump
Keep Tap Water Safe 
Leave a comment