The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has started deleting references to climate change from its website, a move that has sparked concerns about the Trump administration's stance on environmental issues. The agency's "climate resilience" webpage has been rebranded as "future conditions," with subtle hints at climate change remaining, but lacking the urgency of the previous warnings.

The changes come as the Trump administration continues its efforts to dismantle federal agencies and eliminate initiatives deemed unnecessary. The administration has already targeted websites and scientific research mentioning words like "women," "minority," and more, as part of its anti-diversity crusade.

Despite overwhelming evidence linking greenhouse gas emissions to extreme weather disasters, President Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change "a hoax" and campaigned on plans to "drill, baby, drill." It's no surprise, then, that information about climate change is being purged from government websites to align with the administration's pro-fossil fuel message.

The original "climate resilience" webpage stated, "Climate change is the defining crisis of our time. From extreme heat, drought and wildfires to more severe coastal storms, sea-level rise and inland flooding, the consequences of climate change are all around us." The revised paragraph now reads, "Disaster incidents are rising due to increased human vulnerability, exposure and a changing climate. From extreme heat, drought and wildfires to more severe coastal storms, sea-level rise and inland flooding, the consequences are all around us."

An analysis by the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) found that the term "climate change" has been removed from the webpage, along with several other mentions of climate. The group, formed in 2016 to document potential changes to public environmental data under the Trump administration, discovered a nearly 40% drop in the use of the term "climate change" across federal environmental agency websites during the first Trump administration.

FEMA's role in coordinating federal responses to disasters makes it crucial for the agency to acknowledge the effects of climate change. Ignoring these effects could lead to a major blindspot in its work, as seen in the deadly Los Angeles wildfires, which were made more likely by climate change.

FEMA faces further existential threats under the Trump administration, including an executive order establishing a "review council" to assess the agency's ability to "capably and impartially address disasters," citing "serious concerns of political bias in FEMA." The agency did not respond to a request for comment, and the intention behind the website changes remains unclear.

Other government agency websites have a mixed approach to mentioning climate change. The Department of Transportation removed a webpage for "climate and sustainability" from its "priorities" website, while other longstanding resources on climate remain online. Groups like EDGI are racing to archive federal webpages and datasets, but the bigger question remains: what happens if these agencies stop paying attention to climate change altogether?

As the saying goes, "you can't manage what you don't measure." The purge of climate change references from FEMAs website raises concerns about the Trump administration's commitment to addressing environmental issues and its willingness to ignore scientific evidence.