News website Politico appeared to be the first news outlet to review the email that was sent to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
"Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid – and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be maligned with the Administration's perspectives and priorities," a staffer wrote in an email.
Other banned words on the list are “decarbonization,” “emissions,” “energy transition,” “Carbon Footprint,” “dirty energy,” and “clean energy.”
A spokesman for the Department of Energy later told Politico the DOE has not prohibited the use of those words and said the department will examine the “validity of the email” and take steps to correct any misunderstanding.
The topic of climate change, already a thorny issue in science and in politics, is complicated by apocalyptic-like warnings from environmentalists that carbon dioxide emissions, known as CO2, are warming the planet and threatening mankind’s existence.
Even though secular scientists say the Earth has warmed and cooled over 2 billion years in a natural cycle, creating five major ice ages, a core tenet of climate change ideology is that mankind is unnaturally altering the Earth’s natural state with carbon pollutions.
Last week, when he spoke at the United Nations, President Donald Trump ridiculed world leaders for embracing climate change as fact.
"It used to be called global cooling, then they said global warming, so now they just call it climate change," said Trump. "It's the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world. All of these predictions made by the UN, and many others, were wrong."
Reacting to the DOE policy, Marc Morano, a skeptic of human-caused climate change, appreciates the stance.
"This is all just common-sense stuff," Morano tells AFN. "The Trump administration understands the power of language and they're just getting rid of all of the renewable/climate agenda vocabulary stuff."
