Alan: I am persuaded that ideologically-obsessed conservatives realize that their science denial is a lie
and that guilt provoked by falsehood plunges them into nonsensical assertions the moment they're "called out."
and that guilt provoked by falsehood plunges them into nonsensical assertions the moment they're "called out."
As Gov. Scott denies banning use of ‘climate change,' other agencies cite order
No one told Bart Bibler not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” during his six months on the job at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
Then, on March 4, he walked into a Florida Coastal Managers Forum, a teleconference with representatives from other state agencies.
When he introduced himself, Bibler congratulated everyone for the “exciting” work being done to address the impact of climate change, and then he mentioned his opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline project.
“The reaction was mostly shock,” Bibler said. According to Bibler, the forum moderator, Ann Lazar, said she hoped his advocacy on the conference call wouldn’t result in cancellations of future ones.
“Obviously, she’s nervous I had violated this unwritten policy of talking about climate change,” Bibler said. “I didn’t get the memo.”
Lazar declined to comment.
DEP officials put Bibler on a two-day leave. The letter of reprimand chastised him for expressing his personal views about the pipeline. It also stated that a summary of the meeting Bibler supplied to his supervisor “gave the appearance that this was Ann’s official meeting agenda that included climate change.”
The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting first reported Sunday that Gov. Rick Scott’s administration ordered DEP employees, contractors and volunteers not to use the terms “climate change” and “global warming” in official communications.
Scott’s office and a DEP spokesperson told FCIR that there is no policy on this. After FCIR’s story was published in the Naples Daily News, Scott told reporters in Miami: “It’s not true.”
Jerry Phillips, a former DEP attorney who runs the Florida chapter of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said he’s received more than a dozen complaints from DEP employees on this topic over the past five years.
“The complaints have been that if climate change projects can be put on the back burner, that’s what the administration would want to have happen,” he said. “The level of fear, in my opinion, is at an all-time high at the DEP. In general, they feel they are being muzzled and cannot do their jobs.”
On Tuesday, Ralph Wilson, with the environmental group Forecast the Facts, filed a complaint with the DEP’s inspector general office.
Now, employees from other state agencies have come forward to confirm the unofficial policy not to use these terms.
Bill Taylor was the assistant district right of way manager for the Florida Department of Transportation’s District 4 office in Fort Lauderdale. He retired last year after 19 years with the DOT. He said he was told not to use certain terms during a meeting of district managers.
“It was at a routine meeting in probably 2012 or 2013,” Taylor said. “At one point, it was mentioned very casually that in our future dealings with the public, we were not to use the terms ‘climate change’ or ‘global warming.’ But it was OK to talk about sea-level rise, because for some projects that had to be taken into consideration.”
“DOT has no such policy,” agency spokesman Dick Kane said. The department has worked with universities and communities to study sea-level rise, he added.
In an episode at the Florida Department of Health this year, first reported in the Washington Post Tuesday, an epidemiologist was told to remove all instances of “climate change” from a study on ciguatera poisoning in Florida.
Elizabeth Radke, who was writing the paper as a chapter in her PhD dissertation at the University of Florida, collaborated with a DOH employee for the study. As a result, it had to be reviewed by DOH officials in Tallahassee.
“The last round of revisions were sent at the end of January,” Radke told FCIR. “Each reference to climate change was underlined and the reason why was explained to me verbally.” She had to delete the words.
In January, the Tampa Bay Times reported on a DOH grant program “to explore the health impacts of a warming world.” A DOH spokesperson “was careful to avoid using the term ‘climate change’ in explaining its goals,” the Times reported. Instead, she said it focused on “health effects related to weather events.”
“There is no such policy at the department of health,” Nathan Dunn, a DOH spokesman said and referred to a January press release that included the term “climate change.”
The unofficial policy not to use the terms climate change and global warming seems to have created a censorship system that is somewhat porous. State documents are still being produced with those terms, but their use has decreased dramatically, FCIR found in an analysis of state documents.
Grant Smith of FCIR contributed data analysis to this report.
The Florida Center for Investigative Reporting is a nonprofit news organization supported by foundations and individual contributions. For more information, visit fcir.org.
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