There is no proof of human-caused climate change, and therefore, you are banned from using that phrase in any communication.

That's the edict delivered to Florida officials over the past few years, according to several former Department of Environmental Protection employees. A recent investigation by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting found that DEP employees in any state reports, emails or official communication.

"We were told that we were not allowed to discuss anything that was not a true fact," said Kristina Trotta, who told FCIR that a former DEP supervisor told her during a 2014 staff meeting that she wasn't allowed to use the words "climate change" for any reason.

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The report comes at a time when there has never been more of a scientific consensus that climate change is occurring due to human interaction with the planet. A NASA report cites that.

The former officials who spoke in the report alleged that the unspoken rule went into effect after Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011. Florida's governor has repeatedly said that he does not believe climate change is human-caused, and declined to comment in the report.

However, press secretaries for Scott and the DEP both told CNN that . Still, former DEP attorney Christopher Byrd insisted such a policy was in place to keep these words from making their way into official discourse.

"That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counsel," Byrd said in the FCIR report. , according to the Tampa Bay Times.

In total, four former DEP employees told FCIR that there was a clear policy in place banning those words. The DEP's website , and a report is linked on the website.

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The Aprapaho Glacier in Colorado in 1898. (NASA)