Donald Trump's government told not to use the term 'climate change'

Staff in the US government have been told to avoid saying ‘climate change‘ and instead use the term ‘weather extremes’, as part of Donald Trump‘s continuing war on science.

According to leaked documents, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been given a list of banned and preferred terminology, with phrases such ‘climate change adaption’ banned in favour of ‘resilience to weather extremes’.

According to the emails, the term ‘reduce greenhouse gases’ is banned in favour of ‘build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency’, while ‘build soil organic matter’ is preferred to ‘sequester carbon’.

An email from Bianca Moebius-Clune, director of soil health, revealed that ‘climate change’ is in the ‘avoid’ category, the Guardian reports.

Trump has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax” on Twitter, infamously suggesting it was created by the Chinese to ‘destroy’ US competitiveness.

Last week, Trump’s administration officially told the United Nations that the US intends to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

When the president first announced the decision, he infamously said that he ‘was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris’.

‘These records reveal Trump’s active censorship of science in the name of his political agenda,’ said Meg Townsend, open government attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

‘To think that federal agency staff who report about the air, water and soil that sustains the health of our nation must conform their reporting with the Trump administration’s anti-science rhetoric is appalling and dangerous for America and the greater global community.’

Mentions of the effects of climate change have been removed from the websites of the White House and the Department of the Interior, according to the Guardian.

Earlier in the year, it was reported scientists were backing up reports on climate change to ensure they were not lost, should Trump order them to be deleted.

Trump’s nomination to be the USDA’s chief scientist is Sam Clovis, who is not a scientist and is climate-change denier.

This week, Trump once again lashed out at ‘fake news’ claiming that his support base ‘is getting stronger’, despite his approval ratings continuing at a historic low.

His approval ratings fell to 37 per cent, according to an aggregate of polls, while his disapproval rating is at 57.2 per cent.

It has been a disastrous few weeks for the president. Last week, he fired his communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, after only a week in the job, which was most notable for his expletive-ridden tirade at a New Yorker reporter.

Trump, whose links to Vladimir Putin continue to be probed after his son, Donald Trump, Jr admitted meeting a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin, began the week with a widely criticised, highly political speech at the Boy Scouts of America Jamboree.

Trump then sacked his top aide, Reince Priebus, installing a retired Marine general, John F Kelly, in attempt to steady the ship, as he once again saw his efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, fail.