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…
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I fail to see how exercising a First Amendment right to express his opinion is a “partisan act.”
And on that subject, the law itself seems rather ridiculous. Aren’t Congresspersons and the President himself federal employees? Do they not engage in partisan activities all the time? I don’t want to argue this for the next however long. I think it’s ridiculous, and that’s that. My piece is said. Agree or disagree. Whatever. Dr. Hansen certainly has my support.
By that definition, nothing is a partisan act.
Right of expression does not = right of employment.
If I work for a factory that makes M&Ms, I can be fired for campaigning against he bad effects of M&Ms (even if I cam correct). I can’t be arrested for expressing those thoughts.
Good for Dr. Hansen.
Peter Jones (03:02:29) : You don’t become the head of NASA without being smart. Getting himself arrested was the perfect way to avoid the debate.
Or, you don’t become the head of NASA Goddard without having exactly the qualities your real uber-bosses want in their front runners? What exactly is NASA really aimed at? I have heard that someone said, “the lie [in NASA] is different at each level”.
Perhaps it was a neat move. Inspire the aging Hansen to move from the AGW agenda whose cover is close to being blown anyway, into another activist arena that has a lot of real concern, a lot of ignorance and a lot of quick and sometimes onesided opinions here. Maybe it was an attempt to divide-and-rule those who generally support WUWT with solidarity. Or – let everyone forget AGW before IPCC/etc can get impeached – but meanwhile, Gore’s money has been made, etc etc. And if Hansen now becomes a martyr, well, a nice way to disguise the end of official AGW so nobody else in AGW loses face or gets noticed.
/cynic off
Travis King, 14:02:57 in case you haven’t noticed, bureaucracies are given enormous amounts of power to execute policy and programs under our republican form of government. They are given this power with the understanding that they are even-handed in their judgements and do not make decisions based on political biases or allegiances to one party or the other. Civil service means you serve ALL the people and not your party or particular partisan cause. If you allow career federal employees to slowly eat away at that wall between bureacracy and party politics, you could easily end up with a one-party state, and perhaps one that grows increasingly totalitarian over time.
As Lenny Bruce once said about the Soviet Union: “Think of what it would be like if the phone company ran everything.”
One of the more common tactics of the alarmist argument is to attack and dismiss any scientist who doesn’t support global warming as being in the employ of Big Oil or Big Tobacco or Big Business. But if a scientist is in the employ of Big Government and uses his position to further strengthen and enrich Big Government, it’s okey-dokey. Nah, there’s no conflict of interest, it’s just free speech. I am appalled by the hypocrisy of the warming crowd.
dear mr. bill p.
i’m not against coal mining, but i don`t agree with mountain top removal. period
there are others methods to do it.
and i think that mr hansen is very, very desillusioned with your new president
and mr hansen knows perfectly well that caps and trade is a charade. and he is very angry about it. he thinks that he was “used”.
Pamela Gray and Evan Jones ,
You can vote against them . Once , if that’s all you can handle . Even if they still win , hopefully the opposing vote will them scare them . Check out the new post on the EPA – that should scare any voter .
Yeah, so Jim Hansen got arrested an thrown in jail. Any idiot can do that.
I will bet he wasn’t strip-searched (which would be as ugly as Mr. Hansen’s so-called science). I will bet he didn’t have to spend the evening in a holding cell with drunks and rapists. I will even bet that he didn’t have to make a single phone call before a big gas-guzzling limo with a high-price attorney zoomed in to rescue ol’ Jim-bob from reality.
I will bet that Hansen’s flirtation with the wrong side of the law made Paris Hilton’s experience look like hard-time in San Quentin.
I can also bet another thing: if any of us who work in the private sector got thrown into the pokey for any reason and didn’t show up for work, we would have been fired.
Must be nice to be a government employee.
Quoting Mike Kelter:
“I will bet he wasn’t strip-searched”
Commenting:
I was hoping that he got the jailer from “A Clockwork Orange” who told Little Alex “BEND OVER AND TOUCH YOUR TOES!”, whilst donning a rubber glove.
You can vote against them .
I have felt obliged to for some time.
Smokey (19:15:50) :
Right, RoyFOMR, Joel is a welcome true believer here. He hasn’t convinced anyone of his [repeatedly falsified] CO2=AGW hypothesis, but I’ll bet Joel would make an excellent next door neighbor. We could lean on the fence, and discuss the weather.
Sorry Smokey and Joel,
but I just can’t resist this.
If you and Joel became neighbours for 30 years, would you get around to discussing climate!
Sorry and ouch!
RoyFOMR,
I would love to have Joel as a neighbor. It would give me the opportunity to show him the error of his ways. Might have to get him drunk first, though. You’re invited, too.
i’m not against coal mining, but i don`t agree with mountain top removal. period
Nature seems to enjoy the odd volcano or two?
Fairly messy about it too.
Do you want to bet that the photo from the ISS contains a hundred times more pollution than the entire West Virginia coal industry has produced since it started?
As much as I severely dislike Hansen, the mountaintop removal thing–he has a point.
Mountaintop removal…there is something very dirty, very immoral about it.
That being said…too bad Hansen has already forever sullied his reputation by aligning himself with Gore.
The BIGGER issue here is a gov’t employee funded by the taxpayer…is out participating and inducing civil disobedience.
HE NEEDS TO BE FIRED.
There are plenty other bright scientific minds out there that can replace him.
Get him off the dole. That way he can politicize all he wants….but on his OWN money and time, not ours.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Anthony wrote: “I really don’t know who the other woman is.”
In case no one has offered it, I believe she is the woman at the D.C. protest last February. As I recall, she was featured as a local vocal West Virginia protester and James Hansen promised to join her in the planned protest. I don’t have the Youtube video link anymore, but look around the James Hansen appearance. As I recall, she was featured ahead of Hansen, just after the dreadlock percussion group.
I live in the west, Washington State to be exact. I survived Mount Saint Helens. That was a doozy of mountain top removal. I also remember the long court battles between environmentalists who didn’t want the river clogging timber to be harvested and the logging interests. The trees were dead, they were clogging the rivers. Sadly, the environmentalists won the long way. They tied up the case with appeals until the timber rotted.
He may deserve a lifetime achievement Rubber Duckie!
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/tags/Rubber+Duck+Award/default.aspx
Smokey (18:44:53) :
RoyFOMR,
I would love to have Joel as a neighbor. It would give me the opportunity to show him the error of his ways. Might have to get him drunk first, though. You’re invited, too.
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. You and Joel had better club together to upgrade your barbecues though. You’d better get in plenty of toner for your printers too. That guest-list will be as big as- as big as- a W-M congressional Bill!!
When Miami goes underwater, if the internet is operating, there will be people posting that AGW had nothing to do with it.
REPLY: and if the growing season shortens due to cold, rendering some agricultural zones obsolete, there will be people writing that AGW is the cause.
While Hansen is at it, he should picket Mother Nature, the ultimate destroyer of mountain tops and their glaciers.
[snip – no valid email]
I was just outside in my front yard, and man wearing the same outfit (hat, shirt, pants) as Hansen in this picture walked by my house. I actually started laughing out loud when I thought maybe he had to walk home from jail.