The Donald Trump administration has told the United States Department of Agriculture to avoid using the phrase “climate change,” The Guardian reported. Instead, they have been told to call it “weather extremes”.
“Climate change adaption”, “reduce greenhouse gases” and “sequester carbon” are other words to be avoided, an email from the director of soil health, Bianca Moebius-Clune, to staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, a unit of the US Department of Agriculture, says. Instead, the email says to use the phrases “resilience to weather extremes,” “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency”, and “build soil organic matter”.
A series of emails between the employees also show that many of them are uncertain of the correct nomenclature, the report adds. Jimmy Bramblett, the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s deputy chief for programs, sent an email in January to many senior officials that hinted there may be a change in priority and policy because of President Trump.
“These records reveal Trump’s active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda,” Meg Townsend, an attorney, told The Guardian. She added that the fact that a government agency which reports about the air, water, soil and health of the country, itself, “must conform its reporting with the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric, is appalling and dangerous for America”.
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