The news site Mashable reported that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has “disabled the climate change section on its website,” suggesting the section could be altered to reflect an unscientific view of global warming.
Except it’s not true. A quick Google search will bring up EPA web pages on climate change, and the agency’s website features at least seven links to climate change web pages.
What Mashable is referring to is the main climate change web page — with the URL www.epa.gov/climate. The EPA took that page down April 28 as part of updates to the site to reflect President Donald Trump’s priorities. There are still several other web pages on EPA’s website regarding climate change, though they aren’t as prominently featured as during the Obama administration.
The EPA is “updating language to reflect the approach of new leadership, is intended to ensure that the public can use the website to understand the agency’s current efforts,” according to an agency release in April.
Mashable’s Andrew Freedman reported there is “still no new EPA climate change website” after three months of being disabled. Freedman reported the “old section also contained numerous critical datasets and climate change indicators, from greenhouse gas emissions to Arctic sea ice loss.”
However, the EPA’s webpage on “climate change indicators” was still online at the time of publication, as were six other web pages full of data on the topic.
The climate change pages could eventually be taken down for updating or be rearranged altogether, something new administrations typically do. But for now, they are still online.
Freedman also pointed out the old site contradicted “what Trump and his EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, have said about climate change” and “repeatedly noted how humans have contributed to climate change.”
Steve Everley, an energy and public affairs expert, was the first to point out Freedman’s folly.
That's the entire basis for @mashable's silly story. Reporter visited a couple URLs, they were broken, so BAM! False story. pic.twitter.com/iCFqRM6rQT
— Steve Everley (@saeverley) August 11, 2017
The funniest part of all: it took me literally 30 seconds to search Google and find all of this. Thirty. Seconds.
— Steve Everley (@saeverley) August 11, 2017
Freedman did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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