Stifling Decent  by Roger King  

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Stifling Decent

3. Conclusion

Introduction

What are the odds that we’re baking the planet?   by DK Johnston   July 29, 2008  For some years now, governments, industry, and private citizens have been regularly chastised by environmental activists for not doing more to limit greenhouse gases, the presumed cause of global warming. But lately a far more serious charge has been made. In June, the oft-quoted NASA climate scientist James Hansen appeared before a United States congressional committee. He said that the directors of fossil-fuel companies ‘should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature’ (1).

It’s a common type of argument, familiar to anyone acquainted with totalitarian regimes: the nation (or revolution, race, class, etc) is in grave peril from (fill in the blank). But there are traitors among us who spread lies, seeking to weaken our resolve. They must be restrained (temporarily, of course) for the good of us all.

But there’s no reason this policy should only be applied to peddlers of coal and oil. Anyone who casts doubt on the reality of global warming would be equally guilty of imperilling the entire Earth. In the face of the imminent and overwhelming threat of catastrophic climate change, strict measures would (regrettably) have to be taken.    Link

U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer said it was “criminally irresponsible” to ignore the urgency of global warming. U.N. special climate envoy Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland on May 10, 2007 declared the climate debate “over” and added “it’s completely immoral, even, to question” the U.N.’s scientific “consensus.”   Link

Goldberg: Gore Uses 'Fascist' Tactics to Push Warming Agenda   by Jeff Poor   at BMI   January 16, 2008   According to Goldberg, the talking points Gore uses to promote the global warming issue as a “planetary emergency” go against the principles of democracy.

Stifling Decent

Yes, Virginia, A Climate Cover-Up at IBD Editorials 01/20/2011   Democrats in Virginia are trying to stop their attorney general from probing climate fraud carried out by university researchers at taxpayer expense. Are they afraid of finding the inconvenient truth?  ...

Cuccinelli is alleging a possible violation of a 2002 statute, the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. The AG has said that he wants the documents, including grant applications and e-mails exchanged between Mann and 39 other scientists and university staffers, to help determine whether Mann committed fraud by knowingly manipulating data as he sought the taxpayer-funded grants for his research.  ...

Attempting to block Cuccinelli and rising to Mann's defense are Virginia state senators Chap Petersen and Donald McEachin. They are backing legislation that would strip the attorney general's office of its power to issue "civil investigative demands," otherwise known as subpoenas, under the 2002 statute.

They claim they are defending academic freedom, but they are trying to hide what many consider academic fraud, work that found its way into the reports of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It led to Kyoto and Copenhagen, and formed the basis for the EPA's endangerment finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that needs to be regulated.

UCLA’s Scientist Purge By Rich Trzupek August 24, 2010   A recent column by Lois Henry ^[1], published at Bakersfield.com, describes the lynch mob mentality that drove the decision to sack Enstrom in disturbing detail. Among other things, Henry explains how Enstrom was “…dumped by a secret vote of the faculty in the Environmental Health Sciences Department. Their official reason for not reappointing him is ‘your research is not aligned with the academic mission of the Department,’ according to a July 29 letter sent to Enstrom notifying him that his appeal of an earlier dismissal letter had been denied and his last day would be Aug. 30.”

Enstrom’s purported sin was doing shoddy research, a claim that both he and many of his colleagues vigorously deny. The real reason appears to be that Enstrom’s work concluded that the risk to human health and the environment posed by “fine particulate” air pollution is much less than other researchers and – most nobably – the California Air Resources Board ^[2] (CARB) have decreed. CARB is in the process of crafting new rules to cut emissions of pollutants that contribute to fine particulate formation and thus, Enstrom’s work undercut the state’s initiative and was embarrassing to the university as well.

To hear the stories of scientific suppression of Global Warming skeptic research or outright threats read the follow web page Climate Skeptics Reveal ‘Horror Stories’ of Scientific Suppression

Three State Climatologist Threatened with Firings

1. Global Warming Views Drew Criticism by Jackie Spinner  September 29, 2007  The University of Virginia's climatology data center is seeking a lower profile after its former top official, the state climatologist, resigned this past summer amid questions over whether he should use the position to promote his doubts about theories on global warming. ...   "I resigned as Virginia state climatologist because I was told that I could not speak in public on my area of expertise, global warming, as state climatologist," Michaels said in a statement this week provided by the libertarian Cato Institute, where he has been a fellow since 1992. "It was impossible to maintain academic freedom with this speech restriction."  Link
2. Climate orthodoxy perpetrates a hoax  by Gordon J. Fulks, Ph.D  at CFP  February 25, 2008   Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s successful purge of George Taylor—Oregon’s former state climatologist and soon-to-be former director of the Oregon Climate Service at Oregon State University—has a clear message for scientists: agree with the governor or you too will disappear. Don’t hint that man-made global warming is the greatest scientific hoax of our time. It offends the governor   Link   Link 2
3. Global Warming Skepticism Bites Another State Climatologist  by Noel Sheppard February 23, 2007  Gov. Ruth Ann Minner has directed Delaware's state climatologist to stop using his title in public statements on climate change, citing a clash of views on global warming and confusion over the position's ties to the administration. Minner, who made the directive in a letter, described the move as a way to "clarify" the role of David R. Legates, a prominent skeptic of views that human activities are warming the planet and triggering climate shifts.   Link

Climategate; The Supporting Cast - Thought Police Anyone?  By Dr. Tim Ball  December 7, 2009  Wikipedia – A Falsified Resource For Students and Media

The most insidious activity included controlling climate information through Wikipedia. When I ask students how many use Wikipedia for their research all hands go up. I know most media rely on it. Most have no idea how the material is entered or edited.

William Connolley knew and exploited the opportunity. A participant in computer modeling he was as nasty as Mann and Schmidt. His activities are shocking. He established himself as an editor at Wikipedia and with a cadre (I use the term deliberately) of supporters he controlled all entries relating to climate, climate change and the people involved. This included putting up false material about skeptics. They constantly monitored the entries and if you tried to correct anything it was rapidly returned to the original false information. With so many people they could easily circumvent the limit on number of edits per person. Connolley as a designated editor had even more latitude. Here is just a brief example of his recent work.

ClimateGate Heats Up Global Warming Debate before Copenhagen at the Heritage Foundation   November 23rd, 2009  it was the Environmental Protection Agency’s suppression of three of its employees. First, the EPA suppressed an internal report from one of the agency’s own, 35-year analyst Alan Carlin - a scientist who specializes in climate change. His report warned that the science of climate change was dubious and that we shouldn’t pass laws that will raise energy prices, hurt American families and hobble the nation’s economy without a full understanding of climate change. Later, the EPA suppressed a video entitled, “The Huge Mistake” by Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel, two lawyers currently working at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – a video that says cap and trade will not work.

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist   at "Is It Getting Warmer"  June 23, 2008   James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming. ...   Link   Link 2

Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'  by Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph November 3, 2007  Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.

• Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.  "Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor. 
• Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.
• Dr Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. He said: "The Green movement has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."
• Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said: "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."

Newsweek: Global-Warming Skeptics Are Like Moon-Landing Deniers   by Jeff Poor of Business & Media Institute   10/3/2007   Sharon Begley, of Times Magazine, posted on the new The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media Web site.  Begley compared global-warming skepticism to moon-landing denial.  The August 13 report written by Begley described global-warming skepticism as a “well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry [that] has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change.”   Link

Weather Channel TV Host Goes 'Political' by Marc Morano  January 26, 2007   Heidi Cullen of The Weather Channel recently called for decertifying broadcast meteorologists who do not tow the line on global warming alarmism. Cullen is also the star of a new politically charged global warming documentary that, according to the film’s website, accuses the U.S. government of “criminal neglect” and blames “right-wing think tanks” for helping to “defeat climate-friendly legislation.”  

Nuremberg-Style Trials Proposed for Global Warming Skeptics  by Marc Morano   October 11, 2006   Malcolm Wicks, British Energy Minister, Demonizing climate skeptics as ‘Flat Earth Society’ Members and much worse.  After announcing to a gathering of environment ministers that "humankind is in a race for life against global warming," called doubters "the equivalent of the Flat Earth Society." 

Scientists threatened for 'climate denial'   by Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph   November 3,  2007    Scientists who questioned mankind's impact on climate change have received death threats and claim to have been shunned by the scientific community.  They say the debate on global warming has been "hijacked" by a powerful alliance of politicians, scientists and environmentalists who have stifled all questioning about the true environmental impact of carbon dioxide emissions.

Timothy Ball, a former climatology professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, has received five deaths threats by email since raising concerns about the degree to which man was affecting climate change.   One of the emails warned that, if he continued to speak out, he would not live to see further global warming.  "Western governments have pumped billions of dollars into careers and institutes and they feel threatened," said the professor.

"I can tolerate being called a sceptic because all scientists should be sceptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."

Richard Lindzen, the professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology - who also appeared on the documentary - recently claimed: "Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges.  "Consequently, lies about climate change gain credence even when they fly in the face of the science."

Dr Myles Allen, from Oxford University, agreed. He said: "The Green movement has hijacked the issue of climate change. It is ludicrous to suggest the only way to deal with the problem is to start micro managing everyone, which is what environmentalists seem to want to do."

Nigel Calder, a former editor of New Scientist, said: "Governments are trying to achieve unanimity by stifling any scientist who disagrees. Einstein could not have got funding under the present system."  

Scott Pelley And Catherine Herrick On Global Warming Coverage  by Brian Montopoli  March 23, 2006  Pelley's most recent report, like his first, did not pause to acknowledge global warming skeptics, instead treating the existence of global warming as an established fact. I again asked him why. "If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel," he asks, "am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?" He says his team tried hard to find a respected scientist who contradicted the prevailing opinion in the scientific community, but there was no one out there who fit that description. "This isn't about politics or pseudo-science or conspiracy theory blogs," he says. "This is about sound science."

No change in political climate by Ellen Goodman    February 9, 2007  By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get.  I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future. 

Exxon attacked by polar bears!   October 18, 2007  U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight Chairman Brad Miller (D-NC) has sent a letter (pdf) to the ExxonMobil Corporation requesting all records since 2002 related to their support for scientists working on polar bears and other Arctic animals.  

This request comes in the wake of an "opinion" piece appearing in the journal Ecological Complexity by seven scientists claiming that there is no evidence of decline in the polar bear population of West Hudson Bay as a result of global warming.

In an acknowledgement at the end of the article, one of the lead authors, Dr. Willie Soon, thanked ExxonMobil (along with the Charles G. Koch Foundation and the American Petroleum Institute) for their support of his work on polar bears.    Link and Link

Climate McCarthyism and Eco-Inquisitions  by Paul Driessen  December 10, 2006

1. Climate catastrophist Ross Gelbspan told a DC audience: “Not only do journalists not have a responsibility to report what skeptical scientists have to say about global warming. They have a responsibility NOT to report what those scientists say.”
2. During a congressional hearing, Senator Barbara Boxer treated physician-scientist-author Michael Crichton like a child molester, for suggesting that claims about climate chaos should be reviewed by double-blind studies and evidentiary standards akin to what FDA uses for new drugs.
3. On October 27, Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller issued what the Wall Street Journal aptly called a “gag order” against ExxonMobil. “Its message: Start toeing the Senators’ line on climate change, or else,” said the Journal.

On Comparing Global Warming Denial to Holocaust Denial  by Dennis Prager February 13, 2007
One of the largest campaigns of vilification of decent people in history — the global condemnation of

1. Anyone who questions global warming.
2. Anyone who agrees that there is global warming but who argues that human behavior is not its primary cause.
3. Anyone who agrees that there is global warming, and even agrees that human behavior is its primary cause, but does not believe that the consequences will be nearly as catastrophic as Al Gore does.

U.N.: Ignoring global warming is "criminally irresponsible" by By Arthur Max, Associated Press Writer of USA Today VALENCIA, Spain - The U.N.'s top climate official warned policymakers and scientists trying to hammer out a landmark report on climate change that ignoring the urgency of global warming would be "criminally irresponsible."   Yvo de Boer's comments came at the opening of a week-long conference that will complete a concise guide on the state of global warming and what can be done to stop the Earth from overheating.   

Jail politicians who ignore climate science: by Craig Offman, National Post  February 07, 2008  David Suzuki has called for political leaders to be thrown in jail for ignoring the science behind climate change.  ...   Toward the end of his speech, Dr. Suzuki said that "we can no longer tolerate what's going on in Ottawa and Edmonton" and then encouraged attendees to hold politicians to a greater green standard.  "What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.   "It's an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years."  

Environmentalist Threatens Global Warming Skeptic  by Michael T. Eckhart:  Friday, July 27, 2007  Michael T. Eckhart is president of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE). As such, he ought to be a fairly responsible person. When when faced with a highly reputable scientist who disagreed with him about “global warming,” he turned into a thug.  He sent a threatening e-mail to Marlo Lewis.  ...    “Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.”   Link  Link

Is the Global Warming Alarm Founded on Fact?  by Richard S. Lindzen    

Global Warming Skeptics Shunned by Fred Lucas CNSNews.com Staff Writer  February 08, 2007 

1. The political climate isn't good for scientists with dissenting views on global warming, leaving some researchers to fear that honest research could be blackballed in favor of promoting a "consensus" view.   A dispute erupted this week in Oregon, where Gov. Ted Kulongoski is considering firing the state's climatologist George Taylor, who has said human activity isn't the chief cause of global climate change.
2. In Virginia, Gov. Tim Kaine has sought to distance himself from state climatologist and global warming skeptic Patrick Michaels by noting that he is not a gubernatorial appointee.

Hurricane forecaster's dispute with school focuses on global warming debate  by Eric Berger   April 28, 2008   Dr. William Gray, a top hurricane researcher  By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting and teaching 70 graduate students who now populate the National Hurricane Center and other research outposts, William Gray turned a city far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca. But now the institution in Fort Collins, Colo., where he has worked for nearly half a century, has told Gray it may end its support of his seasonal forecasting.    ...
"Bill Gray has come under a lot of fire for his views," said Channel 11 meteorologist Neil Frank, a former director of the National Hurricane Center and a friend of Gray's. "If, indeed, this is happening, it would be really sad that Colorado State is trying to rein in Bill Gray."   ...

A professor of public relations at Boston University, Donald Wright, questioned why the university would want to pull back its support for Gray now, after he has published his forecasts for a quarter-century.

"It's seems peculiar that this is happening now," Wright said. "Given the national reputation that these reports have, you would think the university would want to continue to promote these forecasts."  

Climate Change – Natural or Man-Made?  by Malcolm Heymer    Ferenc Miskolczi, a Hungarian atmospheric physicist and a former researcher with NASA (the National Aeronautical and Space Administration). Miskolczi discovered an error in the derivation of equations used to support the concept of runaway greenhouse warming6. When the error was corrected, the equations showed instead that greenhouse warming is self-limiting. NASA refused to publish the results so Miskolczi resigned, eventually getting his research published in a Hungarian journal.

Bishop Compares Global Warming Deniers with Child Molester   by Rick Moran   June 5, 2008   In all too common fashion for Global Warming alarmists, the Anglican bishop recently employed a pastoral letter to liken dissenters on Global Warming to Josef Fritzl, who fathered seven children by his daughter, who was locked up in the basement across two decades.

The rise and rise of Climate Blasphemy   by Brendan O’Neill   July 21, 2008   Today, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) has published a lengthy document censuring Channel 4 for showing Durkin’s film on 8 March 2007. Yet what is striking about Ofcom’s ruling is that it slaps Channel 4’s wrists, not for any inaccuracies in Durkin’s film (of which, it is claimed, there are many), but for its ‘unfair treatment’ of climate change experts.  

Ofcom rejected complaints that Durkin’s film was factually inaccurate on the basis that it did not ‘materially mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence’ (1). Yet it upheld or partly upheld complaints by Sir David King (Britain’s former chief scientific adviser), Professor Carl Wunsch (of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, all of whom say they were treated unfairly by the film.   ...   The Ofcom report sends a clear message: climate experts are off limits. You can get your facts wrong; you can even use questionable graphs – but you must not be ‘unfair’ to The Experts   Link

In Science, Ignorance is not Bliss  by Walter Cunningham     When former NASA mathematician Ferenc Miskolczi pointed out that “greenhouse warming” may be mathematically impossible, NASA would not allow him to publish his work. Miskolczi dared to question the simplifying assumption in the warming model that the atmosphere is infinitely thick. He pointed out that when you use the correct thickness—about 65 miles—the greenhouse effect disappears! Ergo: no AGW. Miskolczi resigned in disgust and published his proof in the peerreviewed Hungarian journal Weather.

When the Warmest in History Isn't  by Debra Saunders   David Bellamy -- an Australian botanist who was involved in some 400 TV productions, only to see his TV career go south after he questioned global warming orthodoxy -- wrote in The Australian last week, "It's not even science anymore; it's anti-science."

Conclusion