When the White House took down a critical environmental justice tool just three days into President Trump’s administration, a team of data scientists and academics sprang into action.
They had prepared for this exact moment, having created a list of 250 online resources widely expected to be taken down during Trump’s second term. The Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool, a platform created to help federal agencies, states, and community organizations identify neighborhoods heavily burdened by pollution, topped the list. The team worked quickly to re-create the tool using previously archived data and host it on a new website. Two days later, the webpage was up and running.
In the two weeks since Trump’s inauguration, his administration moved swiftly to scrub government websites of information it objects to. Federal agencies have taken down critical environmental and public health datasets. The U.S. Global Change Research Program ended the National Nature Assessment, a sweeping review of the nation’s flora and fauna and its benefits to humanity. ... Read more
