In 2013, Jim Harper, a nature writer in Miami,
had a contract to write a series of educational fact sheets about
how to protect the coral reefs north of Miami. ‘We were told not to
use the term climate change,’ he said. ‘The employees were so
skittish they wouldn’t even talk about it.’
John Van Beekum
For the Miami Herald
The state of Florida is the region most susceptible to the
effects of global warming in this country, according to scientists.
Sea-level rise alone threatens 30 percent of the state’s beaches
over the next 85 years.
But you would not know that by talking to officials at the
Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the state agency on
the front lines of studying and planning for these changes.
DEP officials have been ordered not to use the term “climate
change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails,
or reports, according to former DEP employees, consultants,
volunteers and records obtained by the Florida Center for
Investigative Reporting.
The policy goes beyond semantics and has affected reports,
educational efforts and public policy in a department with about
3,200 employees and $1.4 billion budget.
“We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global
warming’ or ‘sustainability,’” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney
with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to
2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our
superiors in the Office of General Counsel.”
Kristina Trotta, another former DEP employee who worked in Miami,
said her supervisor told her not to use the terms “climate change”
and “global warming” in a 2014 staff meeting. “We were told that we
were not allowed to discuss anything that was not a true fact,” she
said.
This unwritten policy went into effect after Gov. Rick Scott took
office in 2011 and appointed Herschel Vinyard Jr. as the DEP’s
director, according to former DEP employees. Gov. Scott, who won a
second term in November, has repeatedly said he is not convinced
that climate change is caused by human activity, despite scientific
evidence to the contrary.
Vinyard has since resigned. Neither he nor his successor, Scott
Steverson, would comment for this article.
“DEP does not have a policy on this,” the department’s press
secretary, Tiffany Cowie, wrote in an email. She declined to respond
to three other emails requesting more information.
“There’s no policy on this,” wrote Jeri Bustamante, Scott’s
spokeswoman, in an email.
But four former DEP employees from offices around the state say
the order was well known and distributed verbally statewide.
One former DEP employee who worked in Tallahassee during Scott’s
first term in office, and asked not to be identified because of an
ongoing business relationship with the department, said staffers
were warned that using the terms in reports would bring unwanted
attention to their projects.
“We were dealing with the effects and economic impact of climate
change, and yet we can’t reference it,” the former employee said.
Former DEP attorney Byrd said it was clear to him this was more
than just semantics.
“It’s an indication that the political leadership in the state of
Florida is not willing to address these issues and face the music
when it comes to the challenges that climate change present,” Byrd
said.
Climate Change Denial
Climate change and global warming refer to the body of scientific
evidence showing that the earth’s environment is warming due to
human activity, including the burning of fossil fuels and
deforestation. It is accepted science all over the world.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established by the
United Nations, wrote in a 2014 report for world policy makers:
“Human influence on the climate system is clear, and recent
anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases are the highest in
history. Recent climate changes have had widespread impacts on human
and natural systems.” The report’s authors were scientists from 27
countries.
Still, many conservative U.S. politicians say the science is not
conclusive and refuse to work on legislation addressing climate
change. This type of legislation, such as a carbon tax or policies
to encourage more sustainable energy sources, could be costly to
established industry.
Among the politicians who refuse to acknowledge climate change is
Gov. Scott. During his first campaign for governor in 2010, Scott
told reporters who asked about his views on climate change that he
had “not been convinced,” and that he would need “something more
convincing than what I’ve read.”
In 2014, Scott said he “was not a scientist” when asked about his
views on climate change.
In response,
a group of Florida scientists requested to meet with Scott and
explain the science behind the phenomenon. Scott agreed. The
scientists were given 30 minutes.
“He actually, as we were warned, spent 10 minutes doing silly
things like prolonged introductions,” geologist and University of
Miami professor Harold Wanless recalled. “But we had our 20 to 21
minutes, and he said thank you and went on to his more urgent
matters, such as answering his telephone calls and so on. There were
no questions of substance.”
Scott’s predecessor, Charlie Crist, had been proactive on climate
change, forming a statewide task force and convening a national
summit in Miami in 2007. But evidence the issue has fallen out of
favor during the Scott administration is apparent.
One example is the Florida Oceans and Coastal Council’s Annual
Research Plan, put together by DEP and other state agencies. The
2009-2010 report, published the year before Scott was elected,
contains 15 references to climate change, including a section titled
“Research Priorities — Climate Change.”
In the 2014-15 edition of the report, climate change is only
mentioned if it is in the title of a past report or conference.
There is one standalone reference to the issue at the end of a
sentence that sources say must have slipped by the censors. “It’s a
distinct possibility,” said one former DEP employee.
Instead, terms like “climate drivers” and “climate-driven
changes” are used.
Orders From the Top
Christopher Byrd said that he was warned not to use “climate
change” and related terms during a 2011 staff meeting shortly after
Scott appointed Vinyard as DEP director.
“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.”
Morgan did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2011, Scott tapped Vinyard, a onetime law partner of powerful
ex-Sen. John Thrasher, to lead the DEP in spite of a lack of
experience with an environmental regulatory agency.
Under Vinyard, the DEP was repeatedly embroiled in controversies,
from the suspension of its top wetlands expert after she refused to
approve a permit to a failed effort to sell off surplus park land.
Longtime employees, including Everglades scientists, were laid off
or fired, while top jobs went to people who had been consultants for
developers and polluters. Meanwhile the emphasis in regulation
shifted from prosecuting violations to helping industry avoid fines.
DEP dismissed Byrd in 2013. His termination letter states: “We
thank you for your service to the State of Florida; however, we
believe the objectives of the office will be accomplished more
effectively by removing you from your position.” Byrd, now in
private practice as an environmental lawyer in Orlando, said he was
fired because he repeatedly complained the DEP was not enforcing
laws to protect the environment.
Although he disagreed with the policy, Byrd said he nonetheless
passed the warning down to the various offices he worked with,
including the Coral Reef Conservation Program at the Biscayne Bay
Environmental Center in Miami.
“As you can imagine with the state of coral reef protection,”
Byrd said, “sustainability, sea-level rise, and climate change
itself were words we used quite often.”
The Coral Reef Conservation Program is where Jim Harper, a nature
writer in Miami, was working as a consultant in 2013. He had a
contract to write a series of educational fact sheets about how to
protect the coral reefs north of Miami. Climate change was one of
the issues Harper and his partner on the project, Annie Reisewitz,
wanted to address.
“We were told not to use the term climate change,” Harper said.
“The employees were so skittish they wouldn’t even talk about it.”
Reisewitz confirmed Harper’s story. “When we put climate change
into the document, they told us they weren’t using the term climate
change,” she said.
Harper and Reisewitz completed the assignment as instructed.
A year later, in November 2014, the Coral Reef Conservation
Program held a meeting to train volunteers to use a PowerPoint
presentation about the threats coral reefs faced. Harper attended
the meeting, held at DEP’s Biscayne Bay office in Miami. Doug Young,
president of the South Florida Audubon Society and a member of the
Broward County Climate Change Task Force, also attended.
Two DEP employees, Ana Zangroniz and Kristina Trotta, showed the
presentation to the volunteers and then asked if anyone had a
question.
“I told them the biggest problem I have was that there was
absolutely no mention of climate change and the affect of climate
change on coral reefs,” Young said.
He continued: “The two young women, really good people, said, ‘We
are not allowed to show the words, or show any slides that depicted
anything related to climate change.’”
Young and Harper said they could not participate if climate
change was not mentioned. “The women kept saying, ‘Work with us; we
know you are frustrated,’” Harper said.
On Nov. 19, 2014, the DEP’s Zangroniz wrote Harper and Young an
email stating she had talked to her manager about their concerns.
“Unfortunately at this time,” she wrote, “we can’t make any
alterations or additions to the presentation. … If you do choose to
continue as a volunteer, we would have to request that you present
the information as is. If you choose to add in an additional
presentation or speaker that addresses climate change and coral
reefs, there would have to be a very clear split between the two.”
Trotta left her position as a field and administrative assistant
in January. She told FCIR that when it came to scrubbing the term
“climate change” from projects, she was following orders. Those
orders came from Regional Administrator Joanna Walczak during a
staff meeting in the summer of 2014.
“We were instructed by our regional administrator that we were no
longer allowed to use the terms ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change’
or even ‘sea-level rise,’ ” said Trotta. “Sea-level rise was to be
referred to as ‘nuisance flooding.’”
When staff protested, Trotta said, “the regional administrator
told us that we are the governor’s agency and this is the message
from the governor’s office. And that is the message we will
portray.”
The order pained her, said Trotta, who has a master’s degree in
marine biology, because she believes climate change is an imminent
threat to Florida.
Walczak declined to comment citing DEP policy.
While state officials are still not using the terms ‘climate
change’ and ‘global warming,’ any prohibition of the term “sea-level
rise” seems to have ended. In a February press conference, Scott
unveiled $106 million in his proposed budget to deal with the
effects of rising oceans. But $50 million of that is for a sewage
plant in the Keys, and $25 million is for beach restoration, which
critics say is hardly a comprehensive plan to protect homes, roads
and infrastructure.
Wanless, the University of Miami professor, said the state
government needs to acknowledge climate change as settled science
and as a threat to people and property in Florida.
“You have to start real planning, and I’ve seen absolutely none
of that from the current governor,” he said.
In Florida it will be hard to plan for climate change, he said,
if officials can’t talk about climate change.
“It’s beyond ludicrous to deny using the term climate change,”
Wanless said. “It’s criminal at this point.”
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