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National Park Service Continues To Talk Climate Change Despite Administration's Position

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Published Date

April 9, 2017

Is the National Park Service an outlier in the Trump administration when it comes to climate change?

That question arises not only when you look at the president's efforts to halt President Obama's work on climate change, but also in light of news that the U.S. Department of Energy's website recently was sanitized of climate change materials adopted by the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the Park Service just rolled out a four-color brochure on climate change impacts around the country. 

Gone from DOE's site are a video about the 2016 Paris climate agreement, the link to climate.data.gov, another link to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration's National Climate Data Center, and one to the National Climate Assessment. The changes were reported last week by E&E News.

The site does have a link to the president's Climate Action Plan, but it leads to a page with the message, "Thank you for your interest in this subject. Stay tuned as we continue to update whitehouse.gov"

Interestingly, that page does offer a link to the Obama Archive, which takes you to another page listing President Obama's work on health care, climate and energy, American leadership, economic progress, and equality and social progress. 

As for the Park Service, the agency just released a brochure that discusses the many challenges the National Park System is facing due to climate change. It touches on melting glaciers, rising seas, altered ecosystems, and species endangered by climate change. Too, it mentions cultural aspects of the National Park System, such as Civil War-era Fort Jefferson at Dry Tortugas National Park, that are threatened by the changes.

Fort Jefferson sits at the water’s edge at Dry Tortugas National Park. Sea level has risen steadily since completion of the fort in 1875, threatening several islands of the Dry Tortugas.

The Park Service also took time to include information on the human causes of climate change and how they can be mitigated.

Using historical climate data, scientists create climate models to project potential future climate changes. Continued GHG emissions will cause further warming and long-lasting changes, increasing the likelihood of irreversible impacts.

However, limiting climate change is not beyond our control. Substantial and sustained reductions in GHG emissions now, along with efforts to adapt to change that is inevitable or already happening, can limit climate change impacts.

The NPS recognizes that human activities—especially fossil fuel use and transportation—are changing the Earth’s climate. Together with our communities, we are taking action to reduce our own GHG emissions and model climate-friendly behaviors through sustainable operations and adaptation efforts.

 

Comments

Esteemed Comrade, one of the greatest threats we all face these days is the incredible amount of misinformation and outright deceit to be found on the Internet.  Too many people are content to allow their opinions to be driven by round-robin echo chambers masqurading as factual sources.

The site cited by David appears to be a sincere attempt to present legitimate information from both sides without taking sides.  It's one of the best I've seen.

On the other hand, popular technology . net is honest enough to describe itself as a site that is dedicated to trying to put down AGW "Alarmism."  Here is their own description:

Popular Posts. 1350+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skeptic Arguments Against ACC/AGW Alarmism

Hardly an objective source.  Anyone, including you and I who is sincerely interested in finding the truth about warming, MUST seek information from unbiased sources without any agendas.  Even then, we must carefully examine the credentials and sponsorship of any information on either side. 

Unfortunately, for every "study" that has been "filtered through the leftist environment or agenda driven agency in which they work," there are at least an equal number that have also been "filtered through the rightist environment or agenda driven agency in which they work."

It requires an incredible amount of effort to find studies that have been done with no agenda other than finding solid factual information and reporting upon it.

Truth, I'm afraid, has become a casualty of the Internet.

Despite all that, we must remember that good science itself depends upon argument and back and forth challenging of ideas.  That is what Peer Review is all about.  What I'm seeing in the examination of warming is a direct reflection of the raging controversy that was in full bloom in the early 1960's when I was an undergraduate studying geology.  At that time, the point of contention was something called Plate Tectonics and Continental Drift.  Papers flew back and forth from both sides.  The department faculty at Kent State was just about equally divided and open warfare wasn't far away.

Yet, I don't remember that there was any political involvement in that controversy as there currently is with this one.  Perhaps it was because there was no threat to profits of Big Energy Companies that we didn't see Congress becoming involved.  We didn't see lawmakers and a presidential administration taking sides and even trying to hamper the scientific inquiry by imposing restrictions, censoring, or cutting off funding.  That is what I find most disturbing about what's happening today.

But finally the dust settled.  Enough evidence had been collected, analysed and accepted from the field until there was no longer any room to argue that the idea was a fraud as many maintained.  Today, Plate Tectonics and drifting continents has become settled science. 

Someday, hopefully, the same will happen with this argument.  But when profit margins and politicians try to influence the science of science, it's much more difficult.

Try to keep an open mind, Esteemed Comrade.  And when you are finally proven wrong, let's go have a steak dinner to celebrate.

 

 


Lee, you need to stop worrying about the source and focus on the content. Dig deeper than your friends that want rely on the words of a comedian and an actor. 


Lee  -  you need to remember to first verify the source of information and evaluate it for credibility and then judge the content accordingly.


Which is, Rick, why you have such a myopic view on so many topics.  You dismiss pertinent information merely because it has been aggregrated by someone with which you disagree.  The quoted abstracts were from reputable researchers.  Do you think the Huffpo would publish those rebuttals?  Of course not.  Which is another example of the self filtering bias of many of these so called studies.  


Unfortunately, the source too often dictates the content.  That's why it's vital to examine both as you try to evaluate validity.  Esteemed Comrade, an unfortunate reality of modern life dictates that some sources are simply unreliable. As I mentioned above, when science begins to threaten someone's profit margins or political powers, there will be attacks on the science.  Ugly and unfortunate.

But we're going nowhere with this.  Another circular round of opinions.  As I said, let's let science be science and when the time comes, I'll buy that steak for you.


Thanks for the link David. I'll have to do some more reading and look at the sources used but I very much like the no nonsense pro/con format.


 As I mentioned above, when science begins to threaten someone's profit margins or political powers, there will be attacks on the science.

So which of the abstract authors is having their profit margins or political powers threatened?  Or is that just your typical smokescreen to cover up the fact that the facts are against you?  

An aggregator, in this case, popular technology, was not "the source" but merely a reference to the work of others.  Those others are the source.  The fact that one gets to their work through "popular technology' is totally irrelevant.  You want to examine the motives of the actual authors - no gripes there, but you didn't do that and even if you did that alone is not justification to totally dismiss their input. 


Oh, I get it now.

It's okay for those who doubt climate change to claim that some scientists' data and findings are tainted by their political leanings or those of their institutions but to ignore that possibility if they produce anything with which the denier agrees.

Thanks for pointing that out.


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