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The New York Times is out with a new, explosive, leaked report that turned out to be neither now, explosive, or even secretive in any way.
Yesterday the Times published a story citing concerns the Trump administration could suppress what’s known as the “National Climate Assessment,” a project of the US Global Change Research Program.“The average temperature in the US has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration,” the Times piece begins. “The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now.”
There are just a few problems with it, however.According to the Daily Caller:
[A] draft government climate assessment The New York Times “obtained” and claims is not yet public has actually been available online since January, according to scientists who worked on the report.
The NYT reportedly obtained a draft copy of the upcoming National Climate Assessment (NCA), quoting unnamed scientists who feared “the Trump administration could change or suppress the report.” The NYT also reported that global warming skeptics were “equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger NCA, will be publicly released.”However, the draft NCA has been online since January. A couple of the scientists who worked on the NCA took to Twitter to let people know the draft has been online for months, despite The NYT’s reporting.
It's not clear what the news is in this story; posted draft is public review draft from Dec, and WH review hasn't yet missed Aug 18 deadline https://t.co/0sZxCCvoMn
— Bob Kopp (@bobkopp) August 8, 2017
The Internet Archive, a website that archives content published online, says it downloaded the report from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website in January 2017.
The Times' leaked draft has been on the Internet Archive since January, during the public comment period https://t.co/B8XLQ6omb2
— Bob Kopp (@bobkopp) August 8, 2017
Important to point out that this report was already accessible to anyone who cared to read it during public review & comment time. Few did. https://t.co/eYgsj09Z97
— Katharine Hayhoe (@KHayhoe) August 8, 2017
With reporting speed like this, hopefully the Times will report on the demise of the Trump-Russia collusion narrative sometime by 2024.
In the meantime, we’ll all keep our fingers crossed that Trump isn’t able to suppress a publicly available report that everyone can already read which is archived in cyberspace for eternity.
[Note: This post was written by Matt Palumbo. He is a co-author of the new book A Paradoxical Alliance: Islam and the Left, and can be found on Twitter @MattPalumbo12]
