Mitch Perry
President Barack Obama has been lambasted by many for his administration’s refusal to address the terrorist threat around the globe as “Islamic terrorism.”
“We are not at war with Islam,” the president said last month at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism last month. “We are at war with people who have perverted Islam.”
Nevertheless, critics say that the failure to specify who the U.S. and the rest of the West is at war with has deleteriously affected his strategy in combating ISIS and related terrorist groups.
That’s obviously debatable.
So now what are we to make of the report published this past weekend by Tristam Korten of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting that says Department of Environmental Protection officials have been ordered since 2011 not to use the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails, or reports?
The story says that the policy went into effect at the Department of Environmental Protection after Scott took office in 2011 and appointed Herschel Vineyard Jr. as the agency’ director.
Christopher Byrd, a counsel with DEP, said he first heard about the policy at a staff meeting in 2011.
“Deputy General Counsel Larry Morgan was giving us a briefing on what to expect with the new secretary,” Byrd recalled. Morgan gave them “a warning to beware of the words global warming, climate change and sea-level rise, and advised us not to use those words in particular.”
Added Byrd: “I did infer from this meeting that this was a new policy, that these words were to be prohibited for use from official DEP policy-making with our clients.”
DEP officials and Gov. Rick Scott‘s office have responded that there is no such policy in effect.
If the story is accurate it is chilling, but should we be surprised?
The issue of whether Scott truly does think there is climate change going on and affecting Florida became a story during the 2014 gubernatorial campaign. Scott infamously declared he’s was “not a scientist,” when asked his views on the issue, but after his Democratic rival Charlie Crist met with a group of scientists, Scott did the same in his office in August.
“We’ve spent $350 million in flood mitigation,” he told reporters in Brandon the day after he met with those scientists. “We’ve spent $100 million to protect our reefs. Charlie Crist didn’t invest a dime. We have record funding for springs. I’ve also come out with my environmental policy that’s talking about $500 million for new springs. We already have a record amount invested in springs. Five-hundred million dollars to focus on alternative water sources. We’ve got to continue to solve these problems.”
So does that make everyone feel better?
One of those scientists who met with the governor last year, David Hastings, a professor of marine science and chemistry at Eckerd College, said after that meeting that “There was in fact no acknowledgement of the seriousness of the issue” from the governor, adding that Scott “did not reflect on the science, either.”
