Climate censorship gains steam in red states
The red states are where stupid is a virtue.
While plenty of people found humor in the recent news that officials in Florida and Wisconsin are censoring state workers' ability to talk about, much less work on, climate change, other states are not necessarily laughing. In fact, several political and environmental experts told InsideClimate News they could use it as a model to imitate.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott became the leader of this potential trend last month when news emerged that he had ordered environmental staffers not to use the terms "climate change" or "global warming" in communications or reports. Wisconsin established a similar policy this month, voting to ban staffers who manage thousands of acres of forests from working on or talking about global warming.
Experts now say that conservative lawmakers and public officials were far from embarrassed by the censorship revelations; they were emboldened by them. It could lead to a bevy of Republican lawmakers enacting similar policies in other states.
"It seems like they are dusting off a playbook from the Bush administration years," a period when federal officials removed or downplayed climate change research from government reports, said RL Miller, founder of Climate Hawks Vote, a super PAC that works to elect climate-conscious candidates. "I wouldn't be surprised if other deep red states follow suit."
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/climate-censorship-gains-steam-in-red-states/ar-AAb5zow
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