Scientists’ Group Raises Alarm Over Threats to Climate Researchers

The right-wing can’t take the truth, and their rhetoric encourages violence as a response to ideas they cannot understand and thus fear. Note the Supreme Court Justice in Wisconsin who apparently choked his colleague before ruling against public employee union rights recently. And the AG of Virginia harassing climate science. The next step will be someone bringing guns to campus to “discuss” their skeptical views of climate science, and then who will be called to account in a country where terrorists can’t be denied access to handguns?

Renelli, just a little background:   every
advance that can claim to have meaningfully improved the
human condition has come from science: crop technology that
produces high yield rice & wheat; recombinant DNA that allows us to protect ourselves against the
worst infectious agents; fiberoptics for modern
communication; semiconductors for computer microprocessors; nuclear energy… The list goes on and on and it includes
everything about modern life that allows you to sit happily
and healthily at a keyboard advertising your aggressive and paranoid ignorance to
the world. All of it starts with nerds wearing glasses and
labcoats and over-obsessing about potential outcomes.
Sometimes they get it wrong but they have been consistently
right in the biggest ways.  What they rarely do is “lie”, because the institution of sciences protects against that better probably than any other human institution.  Scientists who lie or fabricate are almost always revealed as frauds in a quick time frame.  Take the Korean stem cell scientist for a recent example, and compare that to say the catholic church pedophilia scandal, or wall street corruption and theft, or performance enhancers in athletics….

But you reserve the privilege to insinuate the worst kind academic dishonesty on the part of climate scietists? Fine, but be consistent and do
away with all of it as corrupted – don’t just pick and choose the sciences you so carelessly libel in a way that accommodates your personal biases.  Because the scientists studying climate change are using
the same approach to science that yielded all the other
stuff which you find so convenient and are using as a basis to justify ignorant suspicions.  But how about i suggest some alternatives:  you and your likeminded friends either get yourselves a
bowl of popcorn and watch respectfully from the sidelines as
the rest of us do the work, or just continue on your journey
back to the 13th century.

In response to renellin: “…checking facts and demonstrating reliability of methods” is something that is ongoing in science.  Do you think the Attorney General of Virginia is really interested and able to participate in that process?

I’m not hostile at all Renellin.  When you say, “There are so many reports about shenanigans and payoffs–and scientists
that only get work and/or grants if their findings support the political
will, wouldn’t it be necessarily scientific to inquire as to the basis
of whatever study is being cited?”, what you are doing is casting allegations of scientific misconduct and fraud.  To do so based on what I suspect is your very limited understanding of climate science is itself a lapse of academic integrity.  And I’m calling you on it, is all.  If you started your argument with, for example, “what is the evidence supporting the role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas” now that would be legitimate inquiry.  Instead, you are insinuating that climate scientists are tools or frauds, which is not the beginning of any kind of legitimate inquiry, rather it’s the beginning of a propaganda driven agenda.

But let’s move on.  For edification, let’s start with one of the loudest and most frequently cited voices in the denialist ranks: ‘Lord’ Christopher Monckton, who appeared before even our congress to give “expert” testimony (despite his total lack of science training) and who appears frequently, one might say incessantly, on the denialist circuit.  View this four part take down on youtube by investigative journalist Peter Hadfield (aka ‘potholer 54′).  Really, just the first part ought to be enough but, for someone as interested and concerned as you are Renellin, all four really are in order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbW-aHvjOgM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTY3FnsFZ7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpF48b6Lsbo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3giRaGNTMA&feature=related

Now, if you question the youtube medium as insufficiently scientific (despite Hadfield’s superb credentials over a long and distinguished career), you could always turn to commentary by scientists:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/05/moncktons-deliberate-manipulation/

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/monckton-makes-it-up/

Then let’s talk some more.