CENSORSHIPIn Trump’s New Purge of Climate Language, Even “Resilience” Isn’t Safe
In his first hours back in the White House in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” Yet it was immediately clear he was in fact imposing his own strict rules on language usage.In one executive order, he redefined “energy” to exclude solar and wind power.The term “climate change” was removed from federal website in Trump’s first term, and now “sustainability” and “resilience” have also disappeared.
In his first hours back in the White House in January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” Yet it was immediately clear he was in fact imposing rules on language, ordering the government to recognize only two genders and shut down any diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In one executive order, he redefined “energy” to exclude solar and wind power.
Within days, not just “diversity” but also “clean energy” and “climate change” began vanishing from federal websites. Other institutions and organizations started scrubbing their websites. Scientists who receive federal funding were told to end any activities that contradicted Trump’s executive orders. Government employees — at least the ones who hadn’t been fired — began finding ways to take their climate work underground, worried that even acknowledging the existence of global warming could put their jobs at risk.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on words tied to progressive causes reflects the rise of what’s been called the “woke right,” a reactionary movement with its own language rules in opposition to “woke” terms that have become more prevalent in recent years. Since Trump took office, federal agencies have deleted climate change information from more than 200 government websites, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a network that tracks these changes. These shifts in language lay the groundwork for how people understand what’s real and true, widening the deepening divide between how Republicans and Democrats understand the world.
“I think that all powerful individuals and all powerful entities are in some sense trying to bend reality to favor them, to play for their own interests,” said Norma Mendoza-Denton, an anthropology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who coedited a book about Trump’s use of language. “So it’s not unique, but definitely the scope at which it’s happening, the way it’s happening, the speed of it right now is unprecedented.”
Gretchen Gehrke, who monitors federal websites for the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, says that government sites are one of the few sources the public trusts for authoritative, reliable information, which is why removing facts about climate change from them is such a problem.
