In a move that’s not at all surprising given that the current president thinks climate change is a Chinese hoax, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has removed virtually all references to “climate change” from its website. The word “climate” survived this purge, though it will undoubtedly be replaced by “Mad Max-like hellscape” now that there seems to be a federal mandate to ignore global warming.
As New York Magazine reports, the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative has been keeping tabs on the ongoing edits to the NIH site, releasing its own report about the changes earlier this month. Along with taking the “change” out of “climate change,” the NIH has also stopped linking to a document titled “Climate Change and Human Health,” which does such tedious, un-dynamic things as list “all the environmental dangers—flood, drought, wildfire, air quality—and the ways in which they can negatively impact your body.” The document’s still hosted on the NIH site; it’s just tucked away where no one can read it by accident, which is one of this administration’s biggest fears.
This latest attempt to erase climate change from the public consciousness follows America’s Trump-led withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, which came mere weeks after the EPA hid its climate change page from view. Because if we all just clap our hands over our eyes, ears, and mouths, we won’t hear the rushing waters or notice the rising CO2 and sea levels.