The USDA Was ‘Banned’ From Saying Climate Change – Let’s Do Something About it!

The Guardian recently brought to light alarming information about the Trump administration instructing the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to avoid using what is an “uncomfortable” term for the administration – “Climate change.” Instead of that unseemly expression, USDA staff is now to incorporate a milder alternative into their vernacular – “weather extremes.”

The instruction do not end at that – into the “avoid” category fall also such terms as “Climate change adaptation” which is to be replaced by “resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events: drought, heavy rain, spring ponding” and instead of “reduce greenhouse gases,” one should now use “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency” … which completely erases the focus on the major cause of human-driven change in climate.

The instruction was obtained by The Guardian through a series of government emails via the Freedom of Information Act. The emails show the blatant impact that the new administration has had on the language used by some of the federal staff when it comes to the issue at hand. Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, said in one of the emails that the “new language” was given to her staff and suggested to pass it on, adding that “the modeling” would not be changed, only “how we talk about it”. In another email, Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, stated that “prudence” should be used when talking about greenhouse gases and that the agency’s work on air quality in regards to the gases could be discontinued.

Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, said in one of the emails that the “new language” was given to her staff and suggested to pass it on, adding that “the modeling” would not be changed, only “how we talk about it.” In another email, Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, stated that “prudence” should be used when talking about greenhouse gases and that the agency’s work on air quality in regards to the gases could be discontinued.

A series of other emails show a great confusion about what language is allowed and what is not to be used anymore. Some of the employees were opposed to the new rules and emphasized the need to keep up the “scientific integrity of the work.”

The case of censoring the USDA’s language is a distressing development of the Trump administration’s stance on the most pressing environmental crisis we are facing today. Previously, Trump has questioned the authenticity of the phenomenon of climate change itself, suggested it to be a “Chinese hoax,” and, disastrously, started the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement. The forced change in the nomenclature is yet another step in the direction of making Climate change seem like something that is not a serious issue at all – or rather, not even as much as an existing phenomenon – despite the countless unquestionable scientific proof about its presence and the danger it poses to the world we live in.

“These records reveal Trump’s active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda,” said Meg Townsend, open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity in The Guardian.

The USDA is responsible for crucial climate-related work – and it cannot do it while, at the same time, censoring the very way the problem is spoken about to make it fit the administration’s agenda. Click here to sign a petition to the Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to voice your opposition to censorship of science!

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