The Trump administration is moving from denying climate change to rewriting it. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a longtime oil industry executive, just announced plans to “update” past National Climate Assessments, the gold-standard, peer-reviewed reports that lay out the risks of the climate crisis in detail.
Scientists are calling this their “worst fears” come true. Why? Because this isn’t about adding new data, it’s about erasing inconvenient truths. The administration has already:
– Fired hundreds of scientists working on the next report.
– Pulled past climate reports from public websites.
– Released a so-called “study” by climate contrarians that downplays the danger of carbon pollution.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen political leaders try to rewrite reality. From the Bush administration editing climate reports in the 2000s, to authoritarian regimes rewriting history books, the tactic is always the same. Manipulate the facts so you can justify harmful policies.
Climate scientist Michael Mann compared it to “exactly what Joseph Stalin did”, because Stalin was infamous for altering historical records, airbrushing people out of photos, and replacing facts with state-approved propaganda.
And remember this isn’t just any official doing this. It’s an oil man in charge of the Department of Energy, reshaping science to serve the fossil fuel industry.
Once you change the official record, you can gut regulations, strip protections, and pretend the crisis doesn’t exist. It’s not just science under attack, it’s the truth.
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