The Green Scare

The Trump Administration Has Been Censoring Government Scientists, Sidelining Federal Workers and Discounting Evidence of Climate Change. Is It Too Late to Save the Planet?

- Ciara O'rourke

On November 8, 2017, exactly one year after Donald Trump was elected president, the official Twitter account of Joshua Tree National Park had something to say. “An overwhelming consensus — over 97 percent — of climate scientists agree that human activity is the driving force behind today’s rate of global temperature increase,” the account tweeted. “Natural factors that impact the climate are still at work, but cannot account for today’s rapid warming.”

It was a sunny, dry desert day in Joshua Tree, with temperatures climbing to 75 degrees. Only five months earlier, President Trump had withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement, a commitment by 184 countries to curb global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by implementing new environmental policies. As Joshua Tree’s Twitter feed stated in a follow-up tweet, “Emissions from burning of fossil fuels have increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This amplifies the greenhouse effect. Human activity is affecting the land, oceans, & atmosphere, altering the balance of the climate system & causing global changes.”

Michael Mann, an outspoken climate scientist and Pennsylvania State University professor who earlier that year had rebuked a congressional committee for dismissing scientific research, thanked @ JoshuaTreeNPS for its tweets, albeit with an ominous note. “I hope this account remains active and in your hands…,” he posted.

Perhaps more than any president before him, Trump understands the power of social media, and @JoshuaTreeNPS’s tweets undercut the president’s views on climate change. Trump has called global warming a Chinese hoax and doubts whether