Florida may be one of the US states most threatened by hurricanes and rising sea levels according to scientists, but employees at Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection have been ordered to refrain from using the terms “climate change” or “global warming” in any official communications, emails or reports.

That’s according to former DEP employees, consultants, and volunteers interviewed by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, as well as documents obtained by the organisation.

The FCIR, citing former DEP employees, said this unwritten policy – the existence of which has been denied by DEP officials – went into effect after Republican governor Rick Scott took office in 2011 and appointed Herschel Vinyard Jr. as the DEP’s director, who resigned late last year.

Scott, who won re-election last November, disputed that humans are behind climate change in his first gubernatorial campaign, but last year agreed to meet with climate scientists who warned him that the state was under threat from rising oceans.