Climate Change (Photo : Reuters)
Florida Governor Rick Scott and officials have repeatedly denied allegations of existing policies of prohibiting the use of "global warming" and "climate change." However, the reprimand of another DEP employee who have used "climate change" in an official meeting suggests otherwise.
The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility chapter in Florida, a non-profit, national alliance of federal, state, and local scientists, land managers, law enforcement officers, and other professionals, filed a complaint with the DEP's Inspector General in the previous week. The complaint demanded that the Inspector General should investigate their reprimand of Barton Bibler, DEP's State Lands plan coordinator.
Bibler attended the forum on Florida Coastal Managers Teleconference where participants discussed Keystone L Pipeline, sea-level rise, and climate change. Right after the said forum, Bibler wrote a summary of the meeting. In his notes were references to discussions of sea-level rise and climate change. He, upon the request of his supervisor, revised the summary to include the attachment of a symbol of an anti-Keystone Pipeline.
A higher ranking supervisor, once again, directed Bibler to make another revision. "He was told to remove any hot button issues, especially explicit references to climate change and then was given a letter of reprimand for supposedly misrepresenting that the official meeting agenda included climate change," PEER reported.
Meanwhile, the Department of Environmental Protection in Florida has offered students an educational program entitled "A Lesson on Climate Change." It's designed to awaken critical thinking skills in students and make them understand the vitality of being a responsible citizen with regards to changing the path of climate change's threats.
With the many courses on DEP's website that use "global warming" and "climate change" terms, Governor Rick Scott has continually showed skepticism on the matter, the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting wrote.
