Badlands National Park Goes Rogue, Tweets Climate Change Stats

The Badlands National Park’s official Twitter account went rogue on Tuesday, tweeting out a flurry of climate change statistics and facts in defiance of Donald Trump.

The sudden burst from the agency’s account came after the Trump administration froze all grants and contracts by the Environmental Protection Agency and instituted a media blackout barring employees from speaking about it to the press or posting about it on social media.

“Today, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is higher than at any time in the last 650,000 years. #climate,” one of the Badlands tweets read.

“Burning one gallon of gasoline puts nearly 20lbs of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere. #climate,” read another.

The messages were deleted a few hours later, but not before they were captured for posterity.

Tuesday’s outburst follows a brief suspension of all National Park accounts after the National Park Service tweeted a side-by-side photo comparing the size of Obama’s 2009 inauguration crowd and the crowd that showed up for Trump.

In response, the administration asked the Interior Department to stop using Twitter.

“We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you,” the agency later tweeted.

The Democratic National Committee responded with it own tweet: “Vladimir Putin would be proud.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump signed executive orders to revive the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, raising concerns among climate change scientists and advocates.

Trump has famously said that climate change is a “hoax” invented by the Chinese. His pick to head the EPA, Scott Pruitt, sued the agency  14 times as Oklahoma attorney general.