Saturday, April 22, 2017

DNR Sec. Cathy Stepp marched...climate science off web pages

[Updated with corrected headline]

Scientists worldwide marched Saturday this Earth Day to call attention to science, climate change evidence and research being ignored undercut or ignored by the Trump administration.

Wisconsin's DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp had already marched...climate science right off the agency's taxpayer-financed webpages:
Climate change censors driven by science denial and obeisance to polluters these days at the GOP-managed, Scott Walker-redefined "chamber of commerce mentality" Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are at it again.
Not content with having already stripped content and links from an agency webpage about climate change - - deletions I documented some years ago and which I have frequently referenced - - the ideologues intent on scrubbing science off these pages and sowing doubt and confusion about the consensus view of experts worldwide about climate change have edited, deleted and otherwise compressed to whitewash long-standing concepts and facts off a climate change page about the Great Lakes...
Wisconsin DNR Secretary Cathy Stepp proudly shows off her first deer, taken opening weekend last year. In the upcoming TV Special "Deer Hunt Wisconsin 2012, Stepp urges male hunters to take more girls and women hunting. "The secret's out," she says. "Hunting is a lot of fun, so don't keep it to yourselves."  photo courtesy of Wisconsin DNR
And defended her actions:
In an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, DNR secretary Cathy Stepp said she believes there is substantial scientific disagreement on the cause of climate change, and that it “doesn’t matter” if her view contradicts the vast majority of scientists in that field...
While insisting that her personal view wasn’t relevant, Stepp said she believes there is still a significant scientific debate about the cause of climate change.
“I’ve read competing pieces so, yes, I would say there is debate out there,” Stepp said.
Stepp also said her actions put the agency in line with the Governor who appointed her - - right-wing Republican and fellow science opponent Scott Walker.

Walker has deeply cut DNR science staffing, and Republican State GOP Senator Tom Tiffany, a principal water-carrier for the proposed open pit iron mine which failed because there was too much water in the watershed ticketed for destruction said he asked Walker to get rid of DNR positions filled by scientists who applied climate science to their work.

Walker complied.

And, as predicted, has said nothing about today being Earth Day.

So we thank the marchers everywhere for calling attention to the climate science and valued research that Walker, Stepp and corporately-controlled Wisconsin State Legislators hide and deny.

2 comments:

  1. Cathy Stepp doesn't believe in climate change and I don't believe in Cathy Stepp!

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  2. Let me get this straight. Decades have passed since a nation achieved the first air flight, the first nuclear reactor, the Salk vaccine, the first moon landing, the Hubble Telescope, the Human Genome Project and the internet. Now, a major political party has successfully chosen an anti-science platform. Its rival party has positioned itself to be utterly without a defense. It can think of no way to effectively counter an openly science averse strategy. Which political party is foolish, hapless and dysfunctional? Has the two-party system officially collapsed upon itself?

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