Daryl Hannah, scientist arrested at W.Va. mine protest
SUNDIAL, W.Va. (AP) — More than two dozen people — including actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climate scientist James Hansen — were arrested Tuesday in the latest protest in a growing civil disobedience campaign against mountaintop removal in Southern West Virginia.
…
State Police said about 30 people were charged Tuesday afternoon after they blocked State Route 3 near a Massey Energy subsidiary’s coal processing plant in Raleigh County.
Full AP story here
In a statement distributed by the Rainforest Action Network, whose executive director was also arrested, Dr. Hansen said:
I am not a politician; I am a scientist and a citizen. Politicians may have to advocate for halfway measures if they choose. But it is our responsibility to make sure our representatives feel the full force of citizens who speak for what is right, not what is politically expedient. Mountaintop removal, providing only a small fraction of our energy, should be abolished.
No Jimbo, you are an activist and advocate for a cause.
Note to NASA: Now can you fire this guy?
Meanwhile, back at the RealClimate ranch today, the sound of crickets…
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people who ask to fire people for no other reason than that those people are having an opinion are a threat to democracy
i’m surprised with which easy mr. Watts is using those words.
Should i start making a list of people i don’t like and call their employers to sack them ?
REPLY: Oh it’s far more complex and long running than that, but you just grab the first opinion in front of you, so I won’t bother to explain. Feel free to read up on Dr. Hansen’s travails. – Anthony
I think he’s a true American. He’s standing up for and defending what he believes, despite the fact that many of us find his viewpoint to be incorrect. I have to respect that, even though I personally disagree with the man.
It’s a shame that more people haven’t had the courage to stand up across the country and protest against AGW legislation, TARP, increasing government control and spending, tax increases, etc. The USA needs a powerful and widespread show of our opinions, and the only way the government might listen is if 10 million people decide to show up in Washington and clog the streets, sleep on the Mall, and recite the Constitutional principles on which this country was founded so many years ago. Blogs, editorials, studies, reports, petitions–these are not the means by which we Americans can ever hope to regain our former freedoms. They should serve merely as a rally point for those who have the desire to save America from the few who seek to shackle us.
Darryl Hanna protest pics.
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/archive/x1517851841/g2762588689149aee0f996c3020587c23d5241bdc80628f.jpg
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/archive/x1517851849/g276258360c8cbb811edb65ded131a2fb8a8648d7ec2ed2.jpg
Pro-coal-mining counter-protest at the site.
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/archive/x1517851843/g27625801a262601fcdda958c5599e9d2529a0ab544e2f0.jpg
I think these are AP photos
Sigh. We live in a society where we mail in protests now. A Filibuster in the senate used to require an iron bladder. Now they mail it in. The original point of civil disobedience was to get arrested AND DO THE TIME to make your point. Everyone wants to be a martyr, no one wants to sacrifice.
Just because Hansen is against “mountaintop removal” does not mean you have to be for it. Think!
Search the web – this sort of mining is destoying your environment.
http://ilovemountains.org/images/FAQimages/Map_Permits.jpg
Once it is gone you’ll never recover what you have lost
Hansen is achieving exactly what he wants, media attention. I guess the debate is off.
O course Hansen was on a mountaintop in West Virginia – it’s a lot cooler there than in Houston during the Summer! Love the line about Hannah letting herself go! :>)
And I thought it was about CO2, now they’re complaining about Moutain Top Removal … What was the problem again?
MikeEE
If China won’t let them in, perhaps they can try protesting the environmental degradation occurring at some Saudi Arabian oil fields. Oh, wait… they might get shot for trying that! Never mind! 😉
Fire. Them. All.
I’m sorry to say that but WUWT’s website is sliding to the same path Mr Hansen has chosen – it’s going to be overly politicized soon too, by simply keeping the pace with Mr Hansen’s latest deeds, or reporting what he did or not.
It is the same trick the leftists/US liberals/Reds plays on conservative/rightists. The first are on the ofensive, the second on the defensive. That’s why the first ones are so tough nuts to crack.
If skeptics/WUWT go the road of Mr Hansen they will step in the same furrows of bad politics. Tertium non datur.
Best regards
REPLY: I get this same lame complaint any time I post something where science has been politicized. I’m not the one politicizing science, Jim Hansen is, Gore is, Waxman is, and a bunch of other people. If you don’t want science politicized, complain to them. Meanwhile I will continue to report on major events such as this, because…drum roll please, my masthead says so.
“Commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change, technology, and recent news by Anthony Watts”
There ya go, “recent news” and “puzzling” fits this story, as in why would major scientist degrade himself this way? Don’t want to read about it here? Go someplace else then. I cannot please everyone, nor will I try. This blog is about what I find “interesting, puzzling, and current.”
– Anthony
I have not read the charges but they probably were charged with a misdemeanor and were let go for a latter hearing. Generally you are not fired for misdemeanor offenses unless the jail term runs you out of vacation time. I do not think very many protestors, that do not commit acts of violence, ever go to jail. also given Hansen’s political cover with the new administration being for his views, no chance he is getting fired or being forced to retire.
If you visit the British site, http://www.climateresistance.com , you will find a site that discusses how the global warming and ecological movement are the creatures of the elite, and, even, in Britain, it is members of the government that are calling for mass movement demosntrations.
It is true in the US too; Hansen is no JimBob, nor is Hannah. Both elitists; they probably expect they can get away with it.
They fly in from elsewhere and deign to tell the folks in West Virginia how to live. Then fly back eating caviar.
Przemysław Pawełczyk @15:46:55
Problem is, the science has been politicized by the AGWers. Just as Lysenko politicized biology in the USSR. Hansen is the USA’s Lysenko. Jim Lysenko Hansen.
Aubs-It’s called the Hatch Act:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatch_Act_of_1939
As a NASA employee, by acting as an advocate, he is in violation of it. He has been in violation of it at least since he campaigned for John Kerry. Rules are rules, the law is the law and it applies to everyone (in this case civil servants) and the law says he should be out of a job.
The Bush administration didn’t dare touch him given all the “Censorship” whining from other perfectly legal oversight of him. So now who expects the new administration to do so? One would certainly hope that enforcement of the law by the executive would be beyond politics, but this isn’t the case, at least since Jackson expelled the Cherokee.
“Judge Marshall has made his decision-now let him enforce it.”
Aubs,
Hundreds of thousdands of average Americans did protest on “Tea Party” day about large government, over spending, bail outs, and taxes. They were largely ignored by the MSM and even derided as everything from racist to rednecks. What was the response of the current administration, (crickets).
It’s simple. Hansen is a government-employed scientist. What he was doing today was making a political protest. If he wants to continue to protest, he has that unalienable right, but he should first resign his Nasa post. The two positions are mutually incompatible.
Incidentally, I’d be interested to know what Nasa pays him for. Is it for a 40-hour week in a lab, or is he given paid time off to protest?
There may be any number of good reasons why the project in question should/should not be shelved, but Hansen is clearly using his position at Nasa and defying the law to gain maximum publicity…possibly on taxpayers’ time.
It’s just not right.
TonyB @14:57:33
Hansen and the AGWers are, as someone else mentioned, arguing by proxy. By saying it’s bad to remove mountain tops (personally, I don’t see a problem) they will then infer that ALL coal production is bad, and from there, all ENERGY production is bad.
It must be rationed – except for themselves, of course.
bill (15:39:08) :
Just because Hansen is against “mountaintop removal” does not mean you have to be for it. Think!
Once it is gone you’ll never recover what you have lost
Sorry, but I have no emotional attachment to rocks.
And perhaps you’d like to consider how the irresponsible actions of people like James Hansen cause (or will cause) the price of energy to go up, and what that might do to those who can afford it least.
Once a human is gone, you’ll never recover what you have lost, either.
Humans or rocks? Didn’t require much thought on my part.
Anthony
REPLY: I get this same lame complaint any time I post something where science has been politicized. I’m not the one politicizing science, Jim Hansen is, Gore is, Waxman is, and a bunch of other people. If you don’t want science politicized, complain to them. Meanwhile I will continue to report on major events such as this, because…drum roll please, my masthead says so.
Perhaps I was too harsh in my opinion. I am fully aware where the politics entered the climate science. I’m blogging for several years up to now, on American politics as well.
Look at your full page as it spreads on your monitor’s screen today. There’s a lot of interesting information closely “related” with climate. That’s what makes blogging the very fun and informative. And far from boredom and monosubjective. But it is so easy to lost the grip of the main direction. This topic is captivating, that subject is interesting, and the politic issue on top as usual.
Yep, it’s up to you what we read. But reading on WUWT blog about Mr Hansen is not what I expect the most. He was Big, now he’s small. Let the scoop be of the same dimension as of the person he has become, doing what he do lately.
Regards
REPLY: Thanks for the clarification. – Anthony
I feel kinda sorry for the man. Thanks to the ‘muppet show’, I came to terms with my dyslexia. For a man that used to be in charge of ‘pulling the strings’ it’s a sad reversal of roles.
Sigh.
Leave the guy alone… he is the skeptic’s, real data’s best friend. No one will believe GISS temps how could they? the bias is potentially overwhelming LOL
for the person who asked “is protesting illegal?”
Hansen and his followers knew that protesting isn’t illegal, and therefore a simple protest wouldn’t generate the kind of news photos they wanted. They went way out of their way to guarantee they got arrested so they could have their “trophy photos”. That’s why they blocked the road. Block a road with a group of people anywhere and refuse to move, and you’ll get arrested.
This whole thing is a kind of sick kabuki theatre.
The Achilles heal of alarmists is that their emotion prevails over their logic. Their greatest mistake is In trying to recruit science to their cause, they can convince politicians, with similar proclivities, but not, at the end of the day, the cold light of reason.
I think this calls into question his integrity. If he is willing to break the law in order to publicize his environmental agenda do we really trust him to provide an accurate assessment of the temperature record?
Our government is run by criminals. Hansen should fit right in, although maybe he could add tax evasion to his resume to be more in line with Obama’s appointees.