Just one day before 200,000 people descended on Washington to protest the Trump administration’s stance on climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency scrubbed most of the information on the topic from its website.
Visitors to the climate change page on the EPA website are now directed to a message that says, “This page is being updated.” It does provide a link to an archived version of the page dated Jan. 19 that includes the climate change information and indicates it would archive all pages of the previous administration.
In a press release acknowledging the changes, the EPA said the changes “reflect the approach of new leadership,” according to CNN.
A President Barack Obama-era webpage on the Clean Power Plan, which was intended to reduce emissions from power plants, has also had its content scrubbed.
The changes were made to the webpages on Friday, one day before nationwide protests on Trump’s climate change policy were slated to begin.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has expressed doubt about climate change and said he questioned the role that carbon emissions play in an interview with CNBC in March.
“I think that measuring, with precision, human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact,” Pruitt said. “So, no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see.”
An archived version of the climate change page directly contradicts Pruitt’s statements.
“Recent climate changes, however, cannot be explained by natural causes alone. Research indicates that natural causes do not explain most observed warming, especially warming since the mid-20th century. Rather, it is extremely likely that human activities have been the dominant cause of that warming,” it read.
The change happened Friday after much speculation that it would come down following the transition to a Donald Trump presidency.
