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Wisconsin DNR removes mentions of climate change and muddies issue on website

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Paskil

Member
I didn't see anything about this posted elsewhere. It's interesting to see the Walker administration and their impact on the various state departments.

http://www.wpr.org/why-was-climate-change-language-stripped-dnr-web-page

References to climate change, rising temperatures and the human activities that cause them have been removed recently from a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources web page.

The revisions were caught by James Rowen, a former reporter and editor at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who now blogs about state politics. He said this isn't the first time Gov. Scott Walker and his administration deliberately carried out politicized changes to state-sponsored websites, and that it's a reflection of the "chamber of commerce mentality" coming from the state Capitol.

"I noticed that even though it's a website about the impact of climate change on Wisconsin and the Great Lakes, most of the references to climate change, as well as the specific words 'climate' and 'climate change,' were no longer on the page," Rowen said.

As recently as October, the heading of the web page read "Climate Change and Wisconsin's Great Lakes" in big, bold letters, and then went on to explain human activities are increasing greenhouse gases and contributing to the warming of the planet.

Example:

Before
DNRScreengrab.jpg

After

I haven't dealt with lot of meddling under the three Secretary's I have served under in my department, especially given the political nature of the SNAP program. There has been a definite push towards drug testing and I have had to give answers to the executive and legislative branch that they probably didn't like, but when a programs benefits are 100% federally funded, there isn't a lot the state can do to meddle when extensive public law and federal regulations define nearly every aspect of a program.
 

Dyle

Member
Hell no, Wisconsin GAF, protest this shit.

No doubt, but unfortunately this kind of nonsense will become stand operating procedure here until, by some miracle, the Wisconsin democratic party, along with the national party, can get their shit together and gain majority power in 2018. I'm already planning on protesting in Madison on inauguration day, but that alone will only do so much when dealing with ant-intellectual authoritarianism.

No idea how they'll do it, but Feingold, Tammy Baldwin, and Dem leaders here need to make the pitch to voters in 2018 that Wisconsin should return to being The Progressive State and reinvest in education, natural resources, and culture before it's too late. Unfortunately people here are too insular to remember or to have ever learned how much the state benefited from the turn-of-the century progressive movement
 

Durden77

Member
I can kind of only lol at this point

Like why do some people hate the idea of trying not to destroy the planet as much so much
 

Foffy

Banned
I can kind of only lol at this point

Like why do some people hate the idea of trying not to destroy the planet so much

Because it breaks the images, ideas, and values they've ascribed to.

Imagine the horror one may feel if they actually stand and represent a way of life that will cause uncountable harm and go down in the history books as a threat to life on Earth. Their love for money, which isn't wealth, will harm the innate wealth of this very planet, and one has to bullshit themselves to justify it. Acting it like it's not happening is the easiest way to do so.

Delusion or sociopathy are the only ways to normalize it, and I doubt all of the GOP are sociopaths. Though I do believe socially they are like terrorists. Homies like Noam Chomsky referred to them as "The most dangerous organization in world history," so you can see I'm being gentle.

“Apart from the last phrase, all of this is uncontroversial. The last phrase may seem outlandish, even outrageous. But is it? The facts suggest otherwise. The party is dedicated to racing as rapidly as possible to destruction of organized human life. There is no historical precedent for such a stand.”

His words, not mine.
 
here's the thing I was thinking about today. Pretty unrelated but close enough.

Republican voters tend to be the more religious type, the type that would believe the earth is only 6000 years old and was created specifically for us special little snowflakes.

Shouldn't they uhh...not want to fuck up this planet they believe was a gift just for us? Like thanks for this sweet new white couch god, Imma take real good care of it....then fuckyourcouch.gif
 

Instro

Member
LOL I thought it might be some minor changes, but it's completely gutted and rewritten with conservative approved language.
 

Biske

Member
We are so screwed.

We needed aggressive action on this, yesterday. Years ago, decades ago. We don't have time for years of trying to convince people to do something.


Ship is sailing away folks.


More and more its time to start thinking of how we will live on this wild and wacky changing earth.
 
Cos those same people believe in Intelligent Design and that God has given us the earth as a gift for us to use. They also believe that God has given us the gift of intelligence and resources to deal with everything that may occur as a result of our wonderful use of His gift.
 

Dierce

Member
here's the thing I was thinking about today. Pretty unrelated but close enough.

Republican voters tend to be the more religious type, the type that would believe the earth is only 6000 years old and was created specifically for us special little snowflakes.

Shouldn't they uhh...not want to fuck up this planet they believe was a gift just for us? Like thanks for this sweet new white couch god, Imma take real good care of it....then fuckyourcouch.gif
They also voted for a racist, serial adulterer, sexist, rapist and possible pedophile. To those people religion is just a means to clear themselves from responsibility.

It's the same reason why they blame minorities for their personal problems and deficiencies.
 

Air

Banned
here's the thing I was thinking about today. Pretty unrelated but close enough.

Republican voters tend to be the more religious type, the type that would believe the earth is only 6000 years old and was created specifically for us special little snowflakes.

Shouldn't they uhh...not want to fuck up this planet they believe was a gift just for us? Like thanks for this sweet new white couch god, Imma take real good care of it....then fuckyourcouch.gif

Climate change denial isn't a religious issue. It's an economic one. There's a poll showing the majority of the country accepts man-made global warming (or something to the effect. The issue is when you have oil companies with their hand in the government. Religious ex uses are probably sound bites they have on hand to justify their case to a particular audience, but it's not the origin of the denialism
 

AoM

Member
here's the thing I was thinking about today. Pretty unrelated but close enough.

Republican voters tend to be the more religious type, the type that would believe the earth is only 6000 years old and was created specifically for us special little snowflakes.

Shouldn't they uhh...not want to fuck up this planet they believe was a gift just for us? Like thanks for this sweet new white couch god, Imma take real good care of it....then fuckyourcouch.gif

Nope. Not when they believe there's another life after this one.
 
Nope. Not when they believe there's another life after this one.

That is so troubling..
Actually think about that, everyone.

The majority of those guys quite actually believe that after their body dies and their brain ceases functioning, and their matter decomposes, that because they made a pact with a supernatural entity, they will continue living among their friends and family in heaven a realm outside of reality.

This is fucking crazy. How can you trust people who are that insane?
 

Hale-XF11

Member
Wisconsin, much like North Carolina, is the testing grounds for all nationwide republican legislation. Pay attention, because this is what's coming to the rest of the country over the next 4 years.
 

Foffy

Banned
That is so troubling..
Actually think about that, everyone.

The majority of those guys quite actually believe that after their body dies and their brain ceases functioning, and their matter decomposes, that because they made a pact with a supernatural entity, they will continue living among their friends and family in heaven a realm outside of reality.

This is fucking crazy. How can you trust people who are that insane?

I never got that argument, though.

Even if there's another life -- and there can't be for "you" as "you" but for the sake of argument, let's say there is -- why disregard this one?
 

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
American anti-intellectualism isn't new. An awful lot of people, especially in rural states, have always distrusted "smart talking" that tries to trick the common sense of decent ordinary folk with ideas that seem counter intuitive. The fast-talking city slicker with a college ed-chu-ma-ca-shun is a stock character in American fiction of the early-to-mid 20th century.

Republicans have just been doing a fantastic job of promoting distrust of intelligence, education, and science through their media outlets for like a generation now. They hooked into the existing anti-intellectual resentment of "elites" and ran with it.

I mean it can be fought, it has to be fought, there is no choice. People are going to have to be spry about it though. There is real danger of another generation of people growing up and being educated with a propagandized worldview and basic set of facts that literally don't match up to the rest of the modern world.
 

Jackpot

Banned
It's staggering to think that meetings must have been held about what to do with this accurate scientific data and signings-off on the level of vagueness of the rewrites.
 
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