This week, three outlets – The Guardian, NPR, and Politico – ran near-identical stories on what they claim is a Trump administration “crackdown” on climate language inside the U.S. Department of Energy. At issue: an internal email to staff at the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the branch that doles out billions in taxpayer subsidies for wind, solar, and other “green” projects.
The supposed controversy? Staff were told to avoid buzzwords like “climate change,” “green,” “sustainable,” “emissions,” “decarbonization,” “clean energy,” and “energy transition” in official documents.
Cue the outrage machine.
- The Guardian framed it as part of a “post-truth” assault on the “climate crisis,” quoting anonymous staffers warning that the DOE is “silencing science”.
- NPR emphasized that the language ban extends to funding requests and websites, calling it an effort to “restrict access to information”.
- Politico called it the latest attempt to “downplay the realities of climate change”.
Of course, DOE press secretary Ben Dietderich flatly denied there’s any directive against using those words, stating:
“There is no directive at the Energy Department instructing employees to avoid using phrases such as ‘climate change’ or ‘emissions.’ President Trump and Secretary Wright remain committed to transparency and fostering an open, honest dialogue about climate science”.
So which is it?
On one hand, bureaucrats say they got an email telling them to trim their vocabulary. On the other, DOE leadership denies it’s policy. In reality, this looks less like censorship and more like political reframing: Washington word-policing to avoid loaded terminology that’s become shorthand for policy activism rather than objective science.
Consider: “climate change” today is less a scientific descriptor than a rallying cry. Likewise, “decarbonization” and “energy transition” are not neutral words – they’re policy prescriptions dressed up as inevitabilities. DOE officials may be saying, “Let’s focus on the engineering and economics, not the slogans.”
And it’s not like past administrations didn’t play the same semantic game. Under Obama and Biden, “global warming” was phased out in favor of “climate change,” then “climate crisis,” then “climate emergency.” Words are weapons in policy battles. What’s new is simply who’s choosing which ones to avoid.
Meanwhile, the media is treating this as if banning a few buzzwords will stop hurricanes, wildfires, or sea level rise. It won’t. But it might stop government reports from reading like Greenpeace press releases – and that’s probably the point.
The DOE’s role should be clear: fund energy R&D that works, not promote loaded climate narratives. If that means a little less “decarbonization” rhetoric and a little more technical focus, maybe that’s a feature, not a bug.
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Using the other sides buzzwords unironically is usually a bad idea. “Renewable energy” is an unsupported claim, not a description. Calling that area wind and solar would be more neutral.
False labelling for weather dependent generators (WDGs) but it is now accepted, meaningless words.
I have a few “renewables” but I just see therm aging. There is no sign of them renewing. In fact, the “renewables” on the roof are not even capable of removing the lichen that grows on them. If they were not cleaned every year or so by me, they would be covered in lichen and would not generate electricity.
No sign of the batteries renewing yet either. They appear be losing a little of their storage capacity as each year rolls by rather then renewing.
Electro chemical cells have a well-earned reputation for degrading storage capacity over time.
I agree.
I have been calling on everyone to stop using the Climate Crisis vocabulary and revert back to the science and engineering definitions.
Example: Heat cannot be “trapped.”
Heat is the flow of thermal energy. If it is trapped, it is not flowing. If it is not flowing, it is not heat.
The list is long.
Anthony, I also wrote a piece about the recent kerfuffle about “avoid” and “ban.” Censorship and its accusations thereof. I will be publishing it tomorrow.
Your remarkable energy sanity efforts are an inspiration.
“What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.”
“What goes around comes around.”
Both apply to this discussion.
One obvious example of the misuse of language terminology, is the term ‘Climate Change Denier’.
A precise definition of this term would be: “A person who denies that climate changes.”
In other words, ‘A person who knows absolutely nothing about climate’. The evidence is undeniable and obvious that climate is always changing.
Of course, within the context of ‘climate alarmism’, one could argue that ‘Climate Change Denier’ is just an abbreviation for: “Denier that the current change in climate is mainly due the burning of fossil fuels, and that such changes are very bad for life in general.”
However, the use of this abbreviation, ‘Climate Change Denier’, will tend to confuse those who know little about science and past climate changes, and lead them to believe that the climate was stable and benign until mankind began using fossil fuels.
No, it’s much worse than that. “Climate change denier” is a deliberate attempt to link opposition to climate change narratives to “Holocaust Denier”. The most prominent of the latter were the despicable Ernst Zundel or David Irving. Worse, there were a large number of SS apologists who emerged in West Germany after WW2 seeking to purge the historical record of the enormous crimes of the German Wehrmacht or conceal or excuse the vile behaviour of the SS murder squads in Russia, 1941-45.
“Denier” has a very specific connotation. Anyone using it in an AGW context immediately reveals themselves as someone with whom rational discussion is NOT possible
I definitely deny that climate change can be stopped by humans.
People running around waving “Stop climate change” placards are ignorant and gullible – if not totally deranged.
I deny there is a climate crisis.
Take the word skeptic.
It means to ask questions and not accept on appeal to authority.
In social context, it means doubter, with is akin to those asking for proof.
Doubter morphed into denier.
For the record, my wife’s parents were Ukrainian survivors of the Holodomor (which often is denied) and the death was about 9 million, not the 5 million in the books now (we had to make sure Hitler was worse than Stalin). In addition, They had friends and neighbors disappear into those death camps. So I tend to be a bit sensitive when I am called a denier.
To the flame warriors, no, I am not seeking victimhood.
The one I like is “Climate Denier”.
“On one hand, bureaucrats say they got an email telling them to trim their vocabulary. On the other, DOE leadership denies it’s policy. In reality, this looks less like censorship and more like political reframing: Washington word-policing to avoid loaded terminology that’s become shorthand for policy activism rather than objective science.”
______________________
Why does Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four come to mind here (once again) ….
https://www.orwell.org/dictionary/
(Satire?)
“Welcome to the 10th edition of the Newspeak dictionary. This grand work of unparalleled genius was exquisitely crafted by Big Brother and his loyal minions. Its aim is to sharply reduce your vocabulary so that your frail mind does not incur on crimethink.
Soon we’ll be launching the 11th edition, which will be much shorter. According to one of our foremost lexicographers, Syme [SYME IS NOW AN UNPERSON] Boris: “The Eleventh Edition is the definitive edition… We’re destroying words — scores of them, hundreds of them, every day. We’re cutting the language down to the bone.”
ROFLMAO.
But then, they reportedly did not get “an email telling them to trim their vocabulary.” They got an email telling them to avoid use of Humpty Dumpty words which mean exactly what Humpty Dumpty wants them to mean when he uses them.
The department of energy’s business is energy. They should only foster projects that work, projects that can sustain the grid, projects that can sustain our modern society. Wind, solar and storage can do none of those things. Fossil fuel and nuclear can easily do those things. Build what works don’t build what doesn’t it isn’t any more complicated than that. All grant making money and projects need a serious make over, at this point in time the majority of reports are worse than a waste of time and money.
I just read that the Trump administration has cancelled $8 billion in “green” DoE funding to various states’ net-zero agendas. I can hear the squeals at the empty troughs from here!
We need to stop using fossil fuels, a term first put into play by Rockefeller to inflate oil prices.
Coal and hydrocarbons and not fossils.
I disagree. The DOE should also foster research into possible energy technologies that show promise of working.
Isn’t that exactly what they are doing with wind and solar? How’s that working out?
I’ve never seen the promise.
The phrase “climate change” conveniently means nothing at all. That’s why Michael Mann’s warriors chose it; so any global, local or bottom-of-the hill change can be blamed on carbon dioxide. And the same goes for “renewables” which are by no means renewable and claiming that “renewables” are cheap without accounting for the very high cost of the ancillary systems and machines essential to make them work at all. And then there are those that insist on counting plug in hybrids and sometimes just plain hybrids as EVs to make the numbers look better when they are clearly not EVs. Good grief! Can we at least use meaningful words so we can understand each other or at least
The chose climate change because “runaway greenhouse effect” had proven false and they needed a change to keep the public scared.
We climate realists have made a major blunder by letting the religious zealots of Climastrology frame the narrative and redefine words to suit the pursuit of their Utopia; a planet “cleansed” of feral, free range humans, with only a few of the ministerial class and their servants remaining!
Climastrology is merely one of the latest in a long line of doomsday death cults; starting with Marxism, and moving through history to Nazism, Maoism and the latest fad; transgenderism. In order to accept the precepts of these cults one must be ignorant (of history, science, and human nature;) an idiot (thus the push for midwits and nitwits to attend college,) or insane! Modern indoctrination methods appear to be creating psychoses and neuroses in record numbers; and, sadly, we can only deprogram the sufferers one at a time!
“The supposed controversy? Staff were told to avoid buzzwords like “climate change,” “green,” “sustainable,” “emissions,” “decarbonization,” “clean energy,” and “energy transition” in official documents.”
No doubt in previous administrations- staff were told to use those terms!
“Under Obama and Biden, “global warming” was phased out in favor of “climate change,””
Didn’t that start under Bush? Wasn’t there a memo saying that they should avoid saying “global warming” sounded too frighting, and that “climate change” was softer?
Here’s a letter from 2001 which uses climate change half a dozen times, and never uses the word “warming”.
https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2001/03/20010314.html
Regardless, it’s about time the IPCC changed it’s name to the IPGW.
Perhaps post a sign on the door: CLOSED … Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
Unless Politico, The Guardian and NPR can produce the actual document directing DoE employees to not use specific words they are lying, yet again.
But “scientists say…”
Or in this case, an “anonymous staffer”…
Funny how they were unable to produce a copy of said email. It’s not like those are difficult to print or post on a web-page.