The website of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources no longer says that humans and greenhouse emissions cause climate change.
The new language says that causes of global warming are “are being debated and researched by academic entities.” It is not true that the causes of global warming are being heavily debated. Almost all climate scientists already agree that human-made greenhouse gases are responsible for climate change, and that global warming is a pressing issue. Before the revision, the site’s text reflected that consensus, saying “human activities that increase heat–trapping (“green house”) gases are the main cause.”
The last thing we need is state agencies denying science, too
DNR spokesperson Jim Dick told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel in an email that the “updated page reflects our position on this topic that we have communicated for years, that our agency regularly must respond to a variety of environmental and human stressors from drought, flooding, wind events to changing demographics.” This does not address the question of why the new language implies that we do not know what causes climate change.
This is the latest anti-environment move from Wisconsin’s government, which has de-emphasized global warming since Republican Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011. For example, the DNR site once had a lot of information from a 2008 Task Force on Global Warming. That’s no longer there. Walker has also introduced legislation to block clean energy, resisted Obama’s Clean Power Plan, and postponed pollution standards.