US federal department censoring use of term 'climate change'

Staff at the US Department of Agriculture have been told to avoid using the term climate change and use 'weather extremes' instead.

An email thread obtained by the Guardian shows the exchange of conversation between staff at the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a USDA unit that oversees farmers’ land conservation, that the incoming Trump administration has had a stark impact on the language used by some federal employees around climate change.



Director of soil health, Bianca Moebius-Clune, lists terms that should be avoided by staff and those that should replace them. "Climate change" is in the 'avoid' category, to be replaced by "weather extremes". Instead of "climate change adaption", staff are asked to use "resilience to weather extremes," reported the Guardian. 

The primary cause of human-driven climate change is also targeted, with the term "reduce greenhouse gases" blacklisted in favour of "build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency".

Moebius-Clune shared that the new language was given to her staff and suggests it be passed on. She wrote that "we won’t change the modeling, just how we talk about it, there are a lot of benefits to putting carbon back in the sail [sic], climate mitigation is just one of them", and that a colleague from USDA’s public affairs team gave advice to "tamp down on discretionary messaging right now".



Trump has repeatedly questioned the accuracy of climate change research, he also suggested that it is part of an elaborate Chinese hoax.

The president has started the process of withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement and has instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to scrap or amend various regulations aimed at cutting greenhouse gases, and has moved to open up more public land and waters to fossil fuel activity.