Data rescue#Climate Mirror
{{Short description|Movement to preserve primarily government-hosted data sets}}
{{weasel words|date=May 2021|reason=Lots of 'others', 'often', etc.}}
Data rescue is a movement among scientists, researchers and others to preserve primarily government-hosted data sets, often scientific in nature, to ward off their removal from publicly available websites. While the concept of preserving federal data existed before, it gained new impetus with the election in 2016 of U.S. President Donald Trump. As Trump reemerged in 2025, there were renewed concerns about the need for data rescueChoo, E. (2025). Pulling resources and blocking access to key scientific data will cause untold long term harm. bmj, 388.
The concept of harvesting and preserving federal web pages began as early as 2008, at the conclusion of President George W. Bush's second term, under the name "End of Term Presidential Harvest."
"[https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc489971/ End of Term Presidential Harvest 2008]" University of North Texas Digital Library, retrieved March 4, 2017
Soon after Trump's election, scientists, librarians and others in the U.S. and Canada—fearing that the administration of Trump (who had denied the validity of the scientific consensus on the existence of climate change
Kenny, Caroline "[http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/11/politics/donald-trump-climate-change-interview/ Trump: 'Nobody really knows' if climate change is real]" CNN, December 12, 2016, retrieved March 4, 2017) would act to remove scientific data from government websitesDennis, Brady [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump/ "Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump"] The Washington Post, December 13, 2016, retrieved March 4, 2017—began working to preserve those data.
Quickly, the concept of data rescue became a grassroots movement, with organized "hackathon" events at cities across the U.S. and elsewhere, often hosted at universities and other institutions of higher education.
Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump
The Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump was a meeting arranged by two professors at the University of Toronto in December 2016,{{cite web|title=Guerrilla Archiving Event: Saving Environmental Data from Trump {{!}} Faculty of Information (iSchool) {{!}} University of Toronto|url=https://ischool.utoronto.ca/content/guerrilla-archiving-event-saving-environmental-data-trump|website=ischool.utoronto.ca|access-date=2020-08-29|archive-date=2017-02-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170205111601/https://ischool.utoronto.ca/content/guerrilla-archiving-event-saving-environmental-data-trump|url-status=dead}}{{cite news|title=Toronto group wants to save science and climate change data from Trump with internet archiving {{!}} Metro Toronto|url=http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/12/13/toronto-group-to-save-science-data-from-trump-.html|work=metronews.ca|date=13 December 2016|language=en|access-date=29 August 2020|archive-date=28 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328055807/http://www.metronews.ca/news/toronto/2016/12/13/toronto-group-to-save-science-data-from-trump-.html|url-status=dead}} in an effort to pre-emptively preserve US government climate data from possible deletion by the first Trump Administration.{{cite news|title=Academics are in a 'race against time' to protect climate science from Donald Trump|url=http://europe.newsweek.com/protect-climate-science-data-donald-trump-542416|work=Newsweek|date=15 January 2017|language=en}}{{cite news|title=Scientists are Racing to Save Climate Data Fearing Trump Administration|url=https://www.yahoo.com/news/scientists-racing-save-climate-data-210038533.html|work=Yahoo News}}
=Background=
During his run for presidency, President Trump expressed, in various occasions, climate change denialism{{cite news|last1=Foran|first1=Clare|title=Donald Trump and the Triumph of Climate Denial|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/donald-trump-climate-change-skeptic-denial/510359/|work=The Atlantic}} calling climate change a "Chinese hoax" "in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive", and voiced his hostility towards climate science and Paris climate agreement.{{cite news|last1=Wong|first1=Edward|title=Trump Has Called Climate Change a Chinese Hoax. Beijing Says It Is Anything But.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/19/world/asia/china-trump-climate-change.html|work=The New York Times|date=18 November 2016}}{{cite news|title=Donald Trump would 'cancel' Paris climate deal|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36401174|work=BBC News|date=27 May 2016}} In early December 2016, a prominent climate change denier, Scott Pruitt was selected as a new administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).{{cite news|last1=Milman|first1=Oliver|title=Donald Trump picks climate change sceptic Scott Pruitt to lead EPA|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/07/trump-scott-pruitt-environmental-protection-agency|work=The Guardian|date=8 December 2016}} These proceedings raised concerns among the academic community that the scientific opinion on climate change might be suppressed during Trump's presidency. Indeed, according to Reuters sources, on 25 January 2017, Trump's administration instructed the United States Environmental Protection Agency to remove climate change page from their website.{{cite news|title=Trump administration tells EPA to cut climate page from website: sources|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-epa-climatechange-idUSKBN15906G|work=Reuters|date=25 January 2017}}
=The event=
Fearing for possible deletion or alteration of the US government websites containing government climate data, as happened in Canada{{Citation needed|date=September 2022}}, people from various academic backgrounds and training such as coders, environmental scientists, social scientists, archivists, and librarians gathered together in order to save US government websites at risk of changing or disappearing during or after government transition.{{cite news|title=U of T Hosts Successful Climate Data Archiving Event|url=http://thevarsity.ca/2017/01/08/u-of-t-hosts-successful-climate-data-archiving-event/|work=The Varsity|date=8 January 2017}}{{cite news|title=Scientists are frantically copying U.S. climate data, fearing it might vanish under Trump|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/13/scientists-are-frantically-copying-u-s-climate-data-fearing-it-might-vanish-under-trump/|newspaper=Washington Post|date=13 December 2016}} The event collaborated with the Internet Archive's End of Term project.{{cite news|title=Toronto 'guerrilla' archivists to help preserve US climate data|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38324045|work=BBC News|date=15 December 2016}}{{cite news|last1=Kim|first1=Peter|title=University of Toronto professors 'race against time' to save environmental data ahead of Donald Trump presidency|url=http://globalnews.ca/news/3133382/university-of-toronto-professors-race-against-time-to-save-environmental-data-ahead-of-donald-trump-presidency/|work=Global News|date=17 December 2016|language=en}}
Climate Mirror
Climate Mirror is "an open project to mirror public climate datasets",{{Citation |author=Climate Mirror |title=Climate Mirror: an open project to mirror public climate datasets |url=http://climatemirror.org/ |accessdate=2017-02-02 |postscript=.}} that is, an open access project to mirror (to back up) the data of publicly owned datasets from climate science, such as data from U.S. federally funded research. Datasets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and NASA are considered primary examples.
The idea behind Climate Mirror is comparable to the notion that lots of copies keep stuff safe from disappearing through censorship, link rot, lapses of professionalism in preserving the integrity of the scientific record, or lack of digital permanence. It offers a parallel type of massive backup.
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{URL|climatemirror.org}}
- {{URL|http://github.com/climate-mirror/datasets#dataset-mirroring}}
- {{URL|https://www.datarescueproject.org/}}