I Know That Data Is Here Somewhere…

EPA blog/ Greenvesation(not envirosation) ^ | Friday, July 31st, 2009 | Ethan McMahon

[Delacon]

I have to admit that after 15 years of working at EPA, I still have trouble finding environmental data. Web searches don’t help that much so I rely on people like my friend Tim to email me data about hazardous waste. But I shouldn’t have to know every database manager to get EPA’s data.

It turns out that I’m not the only person with this problem. Last year EPA’s Office of Environmental Information hosted the National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information to learn about the information access needs of our major audiences. We held listening sessions throughout the country and encouraged people to comment using blogs and wikis. From the thousands of comments we received we developed EPA’s Information Access Strategy, which describes key themes and a direction for EPA to address these needs. One of the common themes was: we need environmental data, but we don’t know where to find it. In response to these comments we’ve built Data Finder, a single place to find EPA’s data sources, so people can access and understand environmental information.

Data Finder points to data sources: EPA-hosted web sites where numerical data can be downloaded. You can find data sources by clicking on key words or by typing terms into a search box. One click brings you to the source itself. By making data EPA information easier to find, understand, and use, Data Finder complements the Obama Administration’s commitment to a transparent and participatory government. It helps lay the foundation for more open conduct of Agency business and broader, more effective participation by the public.

I think Data Finder is a good first step for finding EPA’s data, but I know it only contains a subset of the data that’s out there. Please try Data Finder and tell us what information you’d like to see and how to make the site more useful. We’ll post your comments and tell you how we’re updating the site in response to your comments. And let’s leave Tim out of this.

About the author: Ethan McMahon has worked at EPA since 1994. Most recently he helped develop the Agency’s Information Access Strategy and the 40-page Report on the Environment: Highlights Document. Prior to working at EPA he evaluated alternative refrigerants and designed high efficiency heat pumps. Ethan believes that making information available can enable lots of people to find solutions to environmental problems.

[Delacon]

I went looking for a way for us to Freep the EPA since they could do more damage on Monday than the Copenhagen summit could do in a decade. On Monday the EPA may issue its Endangerment Finding on CO2, certainly by the end of the week. I found that it runs like a elementary school info blog. Maybe thats because it is. Maybe thats because thats the intellectual level of their audience. Anyway I thought the title was timely given climategate. You can still email the EPA specificly to this address: GHG-Endangerment-Docket@epa.gov.

[Delacon]

ping

[freedumb2003]

Tiny point, but it may help you in the future:

The word “data” is a plural noun (the singular is “darum”).

When dealing with people whose entire lives are about dealing with data, it might be better to use proper termenology.

e.g.: I know the data ARE here...

Please don’t take offense, this meant as gentle assistance and to help people who are reading along.

[freedumb2003]

r/darum/datum/

*DANG!* I hate it when that happens, especially when I am in finger-wag mode :(

[Delacon]

Well the singular is datum not darum(I am a member of the typing police) but no, data is now being used as both in the plural and singular context. ;)

[abigailsmybaby]

And the correct spelling of termenology is terminology.

[freedumb2003]

And the correct spelling of termenology is terminology.

Somehow my spell-check engine grabbed the Jeff Foxworthy database... You would amazed at the crap it lets me get away with ;)

[Delacon]

From the OED:

Is ‘data’ singular or plural?

Strictly speaking, data is the plural of datum, and should be used with a plural verb (like facts). However, there has been a growing tendency to use it as an equivalent to the uncountable noun information, followed by a singular verb. This is now regarded as generally acceptable in American use, and in the context of information technology. The traditional usage is still preferable, at least in Britain, but it may soon become a lost cause.

You keep up the good fight and God bless you. Did you know that certain language police way back in the old days hated the bastardization of God Bless Yee into goodbye?

[freedumb2003]

>>) but no, data is now being used as both in the plural and singular context. ;)<<

FWIIW, colloquially, that is true. But in academia, especially with folk that deal with longitudinal data, they still use it as a plural noun. As in “the dara say...”

It is one of the sticks up their reat ends....

[freedumb2003]

>>You keep up the good fight and God bless you. Did you know that certain language police way back in the old days hated the bastardization of God Bless Yee into goodbye?<<

Thanks and, wow! great factoid — sort of like how we “devolved” “God Speed You On Your Journey” into “Godspeed” (which, sadly, is all but gone).

“Data” shall be a plural noun for me and not a collective noun (IMHO people think it is the same as the collective noun “information”) until I take my dying breath.

[Delacon]

Dara? Go forth to a typing school now! Lol, It drives me up the wall when people say “same difference”.

[dr_lew]

data pl but sing or pl in constr

That's in Webster's Seventh Collegiate ( 1963 ), where data is listed as the plural under the entry for datum, and in Webster's Ninth Collegiate ( 1984 ), where data has its own entry.

i.e. do as you please.

[Delacon]

I love the beauty of our language. I wish Godspeed was still used.

[freedumb2003]

Oh come on! That was a joke play on my previous typo...

It is true what they say about the Internet — if we can’t see faces we gauge intent ;)

[Delacon]

Websters OED fight! Lol.

[freedumb2003]

Maybe I will start using it with my friends who fly weekly (as do I).

I’ll see if I can start a “Godspeed” movement.

[freedumb2003]

>>Websters OED fight! Lol.<<

Somehow I picture a “Far Side” cartoon with 2 professors swinging hard-bound dictionaries at each other ;)

[Delacon]

Hey you Data, Darum, Datum stone thrower. That was a biblical ref. ;)

[Delacon]

I owe you a beer if you ever drop by Wilmington DE because of the Far Side ref.

[Seaplaner]

Re "data"...In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”

This is, of course, nonsense.

As one who has worked as a scientist for decades, the practice I have observed is to keep original data, and to provide it to anyone who asks in order to replicate the work or to check the statistics.

I have never heard of papers published using raw data that had been "dumped" twenty years prior. If this were the case, there would be disclaimers; but the disclaimer would invalidate the research.

Research that cannot be replicated by peers is not valid research.

Consider cold fusion as an illustration.

.