Scientists Scrambling To Save Climate Change Data.
TAPPER: We're back with our politics lead, with just 36 days to go before President-elect Trump officially moves into the White House, climate science agencies and academic organizations are planning ahead. They are apparently rushing to stash all data on climate change, fearing their research could essentially be wiped clean or may not be as easily accessible once the Trump administration takes over. CNN's Rene Marsh joins me now. Rene, you say this is now a movement within the science community. What exactly are they doing?</s>RENE MARSH, CNN GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: It's not just a movement. It's a frenzied movement happening across the country even in Canada. We are talking about scientists and researchers at several universities there organizing hack a-thons to quickly pull publicly available data from databases. They are also downloading huge amounts of information and transferring it to secure websites. The fear, the incoming administration's denial of climate change may mean data will disappear from government websites.</s>DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: We are going to end the EPA intrusion into your lives. I will also cancel all wasteful climate change spending.</s>MARSH (voice-over): It's comments like those from the president-elect that have sparked this.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Science and research is under attack. What do we do? Stand up, fight back.</s>MARSH: Scientists and researchers taking to the streets. Not a group known for protesting, they are now at the forefront of a nationwide race to retrieve and save massive amounts of climate change data from government websites. They fear years of research that could not be recreated will become less accessible or worse under a Trump administration.</s>MICHAEL HALPEM, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SCIENCE AND DEMOCRACY: There is a lot of critical information that the government collects. Some of it is the health of our rivers. Some of it relates to how much the seas are rising. Without that information, we're making decisions in a vacuum.</s>MARLO LEWIS JR., SENIOR FELLOW, COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE: There is no evidence that the Trump administration plans to deep six any of this data or hide it. If they're worried about this, it's probably because they know that that's how the Obama administration acted.</s>MARSH: But this trifecta of cabinet appointments has raised concerns. Scott Pruett, tapped to head the EPA, an agency he sued multiple times as Oklahoma's attorney general. ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson tapped for secretary of state, Rick Perry, former governor of oil-rich Texas picked to run the Energy Department. All staunch fossil fuel supporters who have expressed doubts about the urgency of climate change. Another concern, Attorney David Schnair.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The questions we have tonight are not is there global warming. The question is how certain are we of it?</s>MARSH: As part of the Trump transition team, he is helping staff up the EPA. He works for a non-profit that sued the EPA, NASA and universities that have done work on climate change.</s>HALPEM: Scientists are very ready to push back against any types of politicization of science.</s>MARSH: But there are federal laws against deleting certain data. Critics say the movement screams of paranoia.</s>LEWIS: Sometimes data is very hard to retrieve from the government after a period of years goes by. That does not indicate, though, any ill intent. It's just a matter of the churn of business in Washington.</s>MARSH: Scientists I spoke to said beyond the concern the data will be less accessible, the larger fear is that the data won't be collected at all and, without it, tracking trends and mitigating climate change would be nearly impossible. We did reach out to the Trump transition team. We have not received a comment on this just as yet.</s>TAPPER: Rene Marsh, thank you so much. That's it for THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper turning you over now to Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM." Thanks for watching.