Modern Book Burning: When Fiction Becomes Fact, Reality Becomes Abstract
But preserving scientific data is complicated
When fiction is presented as fact, false data can seem valid. If the data isn’t accessible or destroyed, it could become more difficult to tell the difference between the two. The destruction of data, a modern-day version of book burning, is a legitimate concern, especially when politics guides decision-making. The wholesale destruction of data can be couched in “cost saving measures,” which is happening in Canada. The closure of Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries north of the border resulted in loss of or eliminated access to some government data collected 30 years ago. Some of the printed archive was taken by private companies at no cost, and some was thrown away. To date, the government hasn’t followed through on a commitment to digitize and share any of the paper-based material.
So when Republican Scott Pruitt, who vowed to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency (E.P.A.) in the past, was appointed to head that government entity, the fear that climate data could be destroyed became very real. Now, the removal of scientists from the E.P.A. review board in an apparent move to make room for industry advocates the agency is supposed to regulate, creates a blatant conflict of interest that heightens the specter of data destruction. Many scientists and concerned citizens anticipated these developments in late 2016 and started planning.
Photo by Pixabay
Grassroots Data Preservation
DataRescue, Environmental Data Governance Initiative (EDGI), Climate Mirror, ProjectARCC, #ProtectClimateData and other collaborations brought together scientists, academic institutions, librarians, archivists and individuals interested in science to preserve at-risk environmental data. The groups developed protocols and software for identifying, reviewing and flagging data sets for archiving. One primary goal is to safeguard the data by keeping it in the public domain. More than 40 data archiving events have been held to date, and more are scheduled.
Some crowd-sourcing events jump started Data Rescue, the name given to the overall movement, garnered media attention when everyday people sat next to tech geeks and scientists to find data sets stored on government websites.
“Almost all of these events happen at universities and are supported by universities and libraries at universities,” says Toly Rinberg, member of the EDGI Steering Committee. “A lot of the time, [participants] are just concerned about data or want to find something to do in response to what’s happening in the country. We had so much interest … we wanted to capitalize that.”
Transparency and availability around scientific data has been growing over the years, according to Ge Peng, research scholar with NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites in North Carolina (CICS-NC).
“U.S. federal mandates require that federally funded research data and results be archived and made publicly accessible in a timely fashion,” she says. “Federal funding agencies have developed data access and sharing policies or guidelines.
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