Chicago Publishes Deleted EPA Climate Change Facts on Its Own Website

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t exactly the poster child for doing right by the people. But on climate change, the Chicago mayor just gave a big middle finger to the Trump administration and its team of climate change deniers.

This weekend, the City of Chicago published on its website the climate change and energy information that was recently deleted by the Environmental Protection Agency run by science enemy Scott Pruitt. In late April, Pruitt approved the deletion of decades worth of valuable scientific information, including tips on what citizens can do to reduce their carbon footprint. That idiotic act of censorship occurred the night before hundreds of thousands of protesters descended on Washington to participate in the People’s Climate March.

In a message on its site at the time, the EPA said it was “updating our website to reflect EPA’s priorities under the leadership of President Trump and Administrator Pruitt.”

But to prevent the EPA’s treasure trove of climate change information, some of which had been published as far back as 1997, from disappearing permanently, Chicago decided to be proactive.

In an accompanying statement, the city said:

The City of Chicago wishes to acknowledge and attribute this information to the United States Environmental Protection Agency and other federal agencies for the decades of work that they have done to advance the fight against climate change. While this information may not be readily available on the agency’s webpage right now, here in Chicago we know climate change is real and we will continue to take action to fight it.

Politico reports that the mayor also will add to the site in coming weeks using city resources.

“The Trump administration can attempt to erase decades of work from scientists and federal employees on the reality of climate change, but burying your head in the sand doesn’t erase the problem,” Emanuel said, according to Politico.

Climate change is the third issue in less than two weeks that Emanuel has blasted the president over. Speaking on Chicago’s sanctuary city status in late April, the mayor said, “The United States government cannot coerce the city, cannot blackmail the city, cannot punish the city into changing its value system,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

He also criticized Trump’s tax reform proposals.

Meanwhile, the EPA has since deleted even more information, this time a website that helped kids learn about climate change, called “A Student’s Guide to Global Climate Change.”