Gretchen Gehrke, an environmental scientist who helped found the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, works at her home in Durham, N.C., March 17, 2025. Vast quantities of climate and environmental information have been removed from official websites in the past months, but scientists are trying keep it available. (Sebastian Siadecki/The New York Times)

By Austyn Gaffney | March 21, 2025

Amid the torrent of executive orders signed by President Trump were directives that affect the language on government web pages and the public’s access to government data touching on climate change, the environment, energy and public health.

In the past two months, hundreds of terabytes of digital resources analyzing data have been taken off government websites, and more are feared to be at risk of deletion. While in many cases the underlying data still exists, the tools that make it possible for the public and researchers to use that data have been removed.

But now, hundreds of volunteers are working to collect and download as much government data as possible and to recreate the digital tools that allow the public to access that information.

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