Guerilla archiving
Trump is what he is, therefore scientists are racing to copy government data onto servers where Trump can’t delete everything.
Alarmed that decades of crucial climate measurements could vanish under a hostile Trump administration, scientists have begun a feverish attempt to copy reams of government data onto independent servers in hopes of safeguarding it from any political interference.
The efforts include a “guerrilla archiving” event in Toronto, where experts will copy irreplaceable public data, meetings at the University of Pennsylvania focused on how to download as much federal data as possible in the coming weeks, and a collaboration of scientists and database experts who are compiling an online site to harbor scientific information.
It will be publicly available, but it won’t be destroyable by the gilded monster who is about to become president.
In recent weeks, President-elect Donald Trump has nominated a growing list of Cabinet members who have questioned the overwhelming scientific consensus around global warming. His transition team at the Department of Energy has asked agency officials for names of employees and contractors who have participated in international climate talks and worked on the scientific basis for Obama administration-era regulations of carbon emissions. One Trump adviser suggested that NASA no longer should conduct climate research and instead should focus on space exploration.
It’s always a good idea when there’s a possible or likely danger looming to do everything you can to ignore and conceal it. That way you’re happy right up to the end.
Ophelia, please don’t call him ‘gilded’. Gilding is a coat of real gold; pinchbeck is more his style
I’m sorry that these scientists have to take these precautions, but I’m very glad that they’re able to do so. When our own petty tyrant activated the memory hole, Canada (and the world) lost decades of invaluable, irreplaceable data: http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/vanishing-canada-why-were-all-losers-in-ottawas-war-on-data/
Fair crack of the whip!
Trump is on a quest to “make America great again”. Fighting facts is just his way of doing it. Also use of smoke and mirrors.
It will not be long before the symbol of the US will have to cease being the sharp-eyed soaring eagle. That will no longer fill the bill.
A more realistic and inevitable choice of symbolic bird will be an ostrich, with its rear end raised high and its head buried deep in the sand.
Omar, they will never tolerate the ostrich. That is a “foreign” bird, not native to American soil. Can’t happen in a “great again” America! Immigrant ostriches? No way!
Acolyte @ 1 – Nonsense. It’s all real gold. That’s the whole point: to show off how rich he is.
Yeah, I read that story as a kid. The Emporer’s New Decor, I think it was.
I showed my daughter the pictures of his rooms that you posted a while back. “Money buys a lot, Dad” she said, “but it can’t buy class, can it?”.
,ere, this guerrilla archiving sounds like a lot of work. Don’t any of these scientists know any Russians? They seem awfully adept at collating data.