WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Environmental Protection Agency has removed any mention of fossil fuels \u2014 the main driver of global warming \u2014 from its popular online page explaining the causes of climate change. Now it only mentions natural phenomena, even though scientists calculate that nearly all of the warming is due to human activity.<\/p>\n
Sometime in the past few days or weeks, EPA altered some but not all of its climate change webpages, de-emphasizing and even deleting references to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas, which scientists say is the overwhelming cause of climate change. The website\u2019s causes of climate page<\/a> mentions changes in Earth\u2019s orbit, solar activity, Earth\u2019s reflectivity, volcanoes and natural carbon dioxide changes, but not the burning of fossil fuels. Seven scientists and three former EPA officials tell The Associated Press that this is misleading and harmful.<\/p>\n \u201cNow it is completely wrong,\u201d said University of California climate scientist Daniel Swain, who also noted that impacts, risks and indicators of climate change on the EPA site are now broken links. \u201cThis was a tool that I know for a fact that a lot of educators used and a lot of people. It was actually one of the best designed easy access climate change information websites for the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the Trump Administration removed the national climate assessment<\/a> from government websites.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is outrageous that our government is hiding information and lying,\u201d said former Obama National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief and Oregon State oceanographer Jane Lubchenco. \u201cPeople have a right to know the truth about the things that affect their health and safety, and the government has a responsibility to tell the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n An October version<\/a> of the same EPA page, saved by the internet Wayback Machine, said: \u201cSince the Industrial Revolution, human activities<\/a> have released large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases<\/a> into the atmosphere, which has changed the earth\u2019s climate. Natural processes, such as changes in the sun\u2019s energy and volcanic eruptions, also affect the Earth\u2019s climate. However, they do not explain the warming that we have observed over the last century.\u201d<\/p>\n That now reads: \u201cNatural processes are always influencing the earth\u2019s climate and can explain climate changes prior to the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s. However, recent climate changes cannot be explained by natural causes alone.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike the previous administration, the Trump EPA is focused on protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback, not left-wing political agendas,\u201d said Brigit Hirsch, EPA spokesperson, in an email. \u201cAs such, this agency no longer takes marching orders from the climate cult. Plus, for all the pearl-clutchers out there, the website is archived and available to the public.\u201d <\/p>\n Clicking on \u201cexplore climate change resources\u201d on the EPA archived website<\/a> leads to an error message that says: \u201cThis XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Republican Governor Christie Todd Whitman, who was EPA administrator under George W. Bush, said, \u201cYou can refuse to talk about it, but it doesn\u2019t make it go away. And we\u2019re seeing it. Everybody\u2019s seeing it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe look ridiculous, quite frankly,\u201d Whitman told The Associated Press in an interview. \u201cThe rest of the world understands this is happening and they\u2019re taking steps… And we\u2019re just going backwards. We\u2019re knocking ourselves back into the Stone Age.\u201d<\/p>\n Democratic EPA chief Gina McCarthy blasted current EPA chief Lee Zeldin, calling him \u201ca wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing, actively spiking any attempt to protect our health, well-being and precious natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Nearly 100% of the warming the world is now experiencing is from human activity, and without that, the Earth would be cooling<\/a> and dropping in temperatures until the Industrial Revolution, Swain and other scientists said. The EPA listed natural causes \u201cmight be causing a very tiny amount of warming or cooling at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Marcia McNutt, a geophysicist and president of the National Academy of Sciences, said that there is consensus among experts from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, or NASEM, on the causes of climate change. <\/p>\n \u201cNumerous NASEM reports<\/a> from the nation\u2019s leading scientists<\/a> confirm that the climate is changing as a result of human activities,\u201d McNutt said. \u201cEven the EPA acknowledges that natural causes cannot explain the current changes in climate. It is important that the public be presented with all of the facts.\u201d<\/p>\n Former EPA climate advisor Jeremy Symons, now a senior advisor for Environmental Protection Network of former EPA officials, said: \u201cIgnoring fossil fuel pollution as the driving force behind the climate changes we have seen in our lifetime is like pretending cigarettes don\u2019t cause lung cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Michael Phillis contributed to this report.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Environmental Protection Agency has removed any mention of fossil fuels \u2014 the main driver…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":436921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[202140,64,202137,10109,10106,285,26137,202142,746,57,3755,202138,202139,202141,30093,202136,159,30094,61,67,132,68,93],"class_list":{"0":"post-436920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-brigit-hirsch","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-christie-todd-whitman","11":"tag-climate","12":"tag-climate-and-environment","13":"tag-climate-change","14":"tag-climate-science","15":"tag-daniel-swain","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-george-w-bush","19":"tag-gina-mccarthy","20":"tag-jane-lubchenco","21":"tag-jeremy-symons","22":"tag-lee-zeldin","23":"tag-marcia-mcnutt","24":"tag-science","25":"tag-u-s-environmental-protection-agency","26":"tag-u-s-news","27":"tag-united-states","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115693100895576643","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}