Climate Change Activity Ban Draws Criticism As ‘Censorchip’

More than 100,000 petition signatures were delivered to Gov. Scott Walker’s office Wednesday protesting a ban on climate change activities by certain state employees as part of their work.

The policy was handed down earlier this month by the panel in charge of the state agency that controls timber harvesting on public land.

Protesters concerned about climate change were at the state Capitol to hand deliver the petitions, which call on the governor to condemn the new ban.

Vera Pfeiffer, a graduate student in environmental studies at University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the petitions were signed by those in Wisconsin and other states.

“Measures on climate censorship have been popping up across the country which has been starting to build this nationwide response. People don’t want this type of censorship in American political dialogue,” said Pfeiffer.

The Board of Commissioners of Public land, which came up with the ban, includes the state’s attorney general and state treasurer, both Republican Walker appointees. Appearing on WPR earlier this week, Treasurer Matt Adamczyk defended his vote to ban the Board’s agency staffers from climate change activities during work time.

“It’s not a ban on every word. It has to do more with—in this case our executive director—to fly out to Washington D.C. like she did in 2009 and testify before Congress about global warming,” said Adamczyk.

That testimony occurred under a previous, democratic governor –a year before Walker was elected. Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said in a statement that Board commissioners can take on climate change if they want but the agency’s nine employees should not do so during work hours.