Politicians have been known to employ an arsenal of tactics aimed at confusing the public about what scientists know about climate change: citing widely discredited experts, often paid by fossil fuel companies, or throwing snowballs on the floor of the US Senate, for example. But, in Florida, state officials appear to be using a more blunt, Orwellian, tool of misinformation. Former employees and contractors that work with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) say they were told not to use the terms "climate change," "global warming," "sustainability," or "sea level rise" in any form of official communication or in published reports, according to a report by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting (FCIR), published yesterday in the Miami Herald. The order came shortly after Governor Rick Scott appointed Herschel Vinyard Jr. as the director of DEP, Christopher Byrd, a former agency attorney, told VICE News. At a 2011 meeting called by the DEP General Counsel, staff members were told to avoid the terms, "even in the department offices," Byrd said.

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