Climate scientists are downloading and copying publicly-available data because they are afraid President-elect Trump and his climate-change-doubting Cabinet may get rid of it.
The Washington Post reported the nominations of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency and Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, as well as the expected appointment of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry as secretary of energy, is scaring climate scientists.
Trump doesn’t believe mankind is causing climate change and the subsequent warming of the globe. People like Pruitt, Tillerson and Perry are seen as friendly to the fossil fuel industry. Trump has also promised to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, the world’s first agreement on climate change.
According to the report, Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist based in Arizona, asked on Twitter if there were any important government climate assets online. A Google spreadsheet has since been created and links to dozens of government databases have been added.
The Post reported investors are trying to fund efforts to copy the data, lawyers are offering free legal help and database experts are offering to organize the data and give it free server space.
“I don’t actually think that it will happen,” Holthaus said when asked if the Trump administration may remove the data from public view.
“But I think it could happen… All of these data sets are priceless, in the sense that if there is a gap, it greatly diminishes their usefulness.”
