Under the heading, The Great Lakes and a changing world, the department removed any words asserting that humans and greenhouse gasses were responsible for climate change. Instead, the first paragraph reads: “As it has done throughout the centuries, the earth is going through a change. The reasons for this change at this particular time in the earth’s long history are being debated and researched by academic entities outside the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.”
For people reading the paragraph, we have a falsehood. The reader is led to believe that climate change is still being debated by scientists and academics around the world. Not true – Over 97 percent of scientists believe that climate change is anthropogenic, caused by humans.
This overwhelming consensus of scientists on climate change is based on an analysis of peer-reviewed studies on the topic of global warming and climate change analyzed over the last 21 years that clearly stated the cause of recent global warming that we are experiencing today is human-made or anthropogenic global warming.
The Wisconsin DNR site used to be entitled “Climate Change and Wisconsin’s Great Lakes,” and the page on the site used to correctly assert that “human activities that increase heat–trapping greenhouse gasses are the main cause” of climate change, according to Gizmodo. Perhaps more distressing is the DNR’s removal of an 86-page online activity guide for students in grades 7 through 12.
Called Climate Change in Wisconsin Activity Guide, it was, and is an excellent teaching guide for classroom discussion, along with activities that help in explaining both the scientific issues of climate change as well as the social issues that can be encountered.
Removal of the teaching guide has many educators and concerned citizens wondering just what Wisconsin plans to teach our next generation about climate change in the world. The move by the DNR sort of makes anthropogenic climate changes a very large elephant standing in the middle of the room. Everyone knows it’s there but no one wants to talk about it.
The Verge points out that this “latest anti-environmental move” seems to be typical of Wisconsin’s governor, Republican Scott Walker, who has been in office since 2011. As an example of the state’s anti-environment movement, the DNR got rid of a lot of information from a 2008 Task Force on Global Warming.
Walker has also introduced legislation to block President Obama’s Clean Power Plan and has postponed pollution standards. There is concern by many scientists and environmentalists that under President-elect Trump’s reign, many of our environmental successes will end up being scrapped, and if this should happen, other states could follow in the steps of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin is bordered by two of the Great Lakes – To the north, Lake Superior forms the largest expanse of freshwater in the world. To the east lies Lake Michigan. Over 1.6 million people in the state get their drinking water from the two lakes. Interestingly, the Wisconsin DRN website states that “polluted runoff and sediment from farm fields and cities, habitat loss, invasive species, toxic sediments and climate change continue to threaten our Great Lakes.”