The U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ordered the U.S. Department of Agriculture to remove websites that document or refer to the climate crisis.
At the beginning of this week, the pages referring to the climate crisis on the U.S. Forest Service website for key resources and research and adaptation tools, including those providing vital assessments of context and vulnerability in wildfire situations, were closed, leaving behind an error message or just one line: "You do not have permission to access this page."
The government website was one of many sites affected on Friday by the new directives from the Trump administration regarding the information that federal agencies can publish.
Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper reported that, alongside the climate crisis, many other agencies' pages were shut down on Friday as they rushed to comply with the executive orders issued by Trump, which declared that his administration would recognize only two genders and ordered the termination of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The changes that occurred on the Forest Service website came in the wake of the directive issued by the Communications Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In the memo reviewed by The Guardian, officials instructed website managers across the agency to "identify and archive or unpublish any intentional pages focusing on climate change. It also included a deadline on Friday to include the references in a spreadsheet for further review.
On Friday, USDA officials clarified that the department should not delete any content. They stated to record-keeping requirements, so it would be better to archive or unpublish pages focusing on climate change.
The Guardian reports that among the climate change websites that were shut down are the website of the Climate Change Resource Center of the U.S. Forest Service, a website called "Climate Action Tracker," and the National Climate Change Response Roadmap website.
The websites contained important tools and information to help mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and research.
Currently, the administration has effectively blocked access to dozens of programs created to assist a wide range of communities, from farmers to firefighters, as they navigate changing conditions.
These changes are part of an astonishing series of orders aimed at reshaping the federal government's policies on global warming.
Furthermore, Trump canceled the environmental protections put in place by Joe Biden, declared a state of emergency in the energy sector to accelerate the already booming extraction of fossil fuels, and withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement.
The administration also added to the confusion and chaos within federal agencies by halting hiring and temporarily suspending projects, along with issuing a broad buyout offer that would guarantee federal workers' salaries and benefits until September 2025 if they resign within the next week. The changes that occurred in other federal positions indicated major shifts in American politics in general.
