Screenshot of the EPA climate science website, that was posted by the City of Chicago in response to the Trump administration's removal of climate science from the EPA site. Graphic: EPA / City of Chicago

By Fran Spielman
5 May 2017 CHICAGO (The Chicago Sun-Times) – Mayor Rahm Emanuel is accusing President Donald Trump of trying to erase what Al Gore has called the “inconvenient truth” about climate change, and doing his part to recoup that information. Emanuel has created a new city website titled, “Climate Change is Real.” It resurrects information about decades of research on the impact of climate change that, the mayor claims was “unceremoniously removed” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s own Climate Change website on April 29. “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 was quoted as saying in a press release. “We are going to ensure Chicago’s residents remain well-informed about the effects of climate change. And I encourage cities, academic institutions and others to…follow suit to ensure the important information does not disappear.” […] Emanuel warned of the “devastating” environmental impact of Trump’s proposal to gut funding for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. After hosting mayors and other representatives from 17 cities in 11 different countries at an Urban Waterways Forum in Chicago, Emanuel argued that the proposal to reduce annual funding from “north of $300 million” to $10 million threatened a return to the ugly days epitomized by his childhood swims in Lake Michigan. “You’d have to run into the water, dive under the dead fish, hold your breath, swim all the way 20, 30, 40, 50 feet [in a way that] tested your lungs, and then come up past that,” Emanuel recalled. “Those times where the dead fish just rolled in are over. It shows you that investing in that environmental cleanup has had a tremendous impact. In the same way that, we’re even having a discussion about swimming in a [Chicago] river that used to be dying and has now been reborn.” [more]

Rahm Emanuel recoups climate change info deleted from EPA website