Note: There’s a response and analysis to this post here.
NOTE: Predictably, Joe Romm has turned this post into a personal bashing of me over at his Climate Progress blog. For some eye opening viewpoints from his side of the argument, have a look at the 495 comments on his parent blog “Think Progress” here. UPDATE: many of those ugly and violent comments at TP have been “sanitized” since I drew embarrassing attention to them. The word “filthy” in my post below, is pointing to the multiple use of the word to describe humans in the manifesto of the gunman, also published below. I realize that may upset some people, and for that I apologize. However, it is instructive to read the manifesto to see how global warming hype drove this man to do what he did. From this MSNBC story:
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”
UPDATE: It’s over, from MSNBC:
Police shot a gunman who held three hostages for several hours Wednesday at the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Md., authorities said. They said the hostages were safe and the gunman was in custody. Police said the gunman’s condition was unknown. At least one explosive device went off when he was shot, and other explosive devices could still be in the building in Montgomery County in suburban Washington, D.C., they said.
UPDATE2: MSNBC is now reporting the gunman has been killed.
=======================================
Well, you filthy readers, see what happens when we don’t acquiesce? In case you haven’t heard by now, a gunman named James Lee, an Asian man with a years-long vendetta against the Discovery Channel cable network has entered the building and got an armed hostage taking situation going on right now.
Some news coverage here:
Armed Man Believed to Be Environmental Protester Takes Hostages in Discovery Channel Building

Among his demands from the manifesto on his website:
Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
MSNBC reports:
Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”
Perhaps inspired by Gore, and Dr. James Hansen’s recent call for civil disobedience, we have today’s environmental public relations train wreck turned armed hostage situation.
THE MANIFESTO OF JAMES LEE:
(downloaded before traffic took it down):PDF here at TMZ
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY:
1. The Discovery Channel and it’s affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn’s “My Ishmael” pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other’s inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs’ places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
4. Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! This is your obligation. If you think it isn’t, then get hell off the planet! Breathe Oil! It is the moral obligation of everyone living otherwise what good are they??
5. Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH! (The first world is feeding the population growth of the Third World and those human families are going to where the food is! They must stop procreating new humans looking for nonexistant jobs!)
6. Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy. Find ways so that people don’t build more housing pollution which destroys the environment to make way for more human filth! Find solutions so that people stop breeding as well as stopping using Oil in order to REVERSE Global warming and the destruction of the planet!
7. Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!
8. Saving the Planet means saving what’s left of the non-human Wildlife by decreasing the Human population. That means stopping the human race from breeding any more disgusting human babies! You’re the media, you can reach enough people. It’s your resposibility because you reach so many minds!!!
9. Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy. Find solutions for their disasterous Ponzi-Casino economy before they take the world to another nuclear war.
10. Stop all shows glorifying human birthing on all your channels and on TLC. Stop Future Weapons shows or replace the dialogue condemning the people behind these developments so that the shows become exposes rather than advertisements of Arms sales and development!
11. You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing. All these unemployed people makes me think the US is headed toward more war.
Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture.
For every human born, ACRES of wildlife forests must be turned into farmland in order to feed that new addition over the course of 60 to 100 YEARS of that new human’s lifespan! THIS IS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE FOREST CREATURES!!!! All human procreation and farming must cease!
It is the responsiblity of everyone to preserve the planet they live on by not breeding any more children who will continue their filthy practices. Children represent FUTURE catastrophic pollution whereas their parents are current pollution. NO MORE BABIES! Population growth is a real crisis. Even one child born in the US will use 30 to a thousand times more resources than a Third World child. It’s like a couple are having 30 babies even though it’s just one! If the US goes in this direction maybe other countries will too!
Also, war must be halted. Not because it’s morally wrong, but because of the catastrophic environmental damage modern weapons cause to other creatures. FIND SOLUTIONS JUST LIKE THE BOOK SAYS! Humans are supposed to be inventive. INVENT, DAMN YOU!!
The world needs TV shows that DEVELOP solutions to the problems that humans are causing, not stupify the people into destroying the world. Not encouraging them to breed more environmentally harmful humans.
Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.
The humans? The planet does not need humans.
You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!
I want Discovery Communications to broadcast on their channels to the world their new program lineup and I want proof they are doing so. I want the new shows started by asking the public for inventive solution ideas to save the planet and the remaining wildlife on it.
These are the demands and sayings of Lee.
==============================
h/t to the Seattle Weekly blogs and WUWT DocattheAutopsy
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Graeme says:
Unfortunately for every one that picks up guns and explosives and acts, there are another 100 who believe the same and just don’t have the will to act.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
What?
Gail Combs – I was appalled at the comments , but it seems that is the collective thinking of the far left .
Gnomish says:
September 1, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Tipping point!
I was expecting it to be joe romm, but obviously joe’s not as devout as this guy.
I suspect that “Smoking Joe” enjoys the benefits of his carbon footprint to much to make the sacrifice.
This is a very sad situation. The hostage taker is dead, as is the case in 9 out of 10 such cases. No-one else was hurt, for which everyone should give thanks.
The man was mentally deranged; no credence should be paid to anything he is purported to have said or written.
The dead man’s motivation for his actions cannot be ascribed to anything to do with reality. He was mentally unbalanced and could have chosen any topic to be the focus of his deluded anger.
Just be happy that no-one else got hurt.
Wasn’t it expected?
When fear is sowed, agression comes as/at harvest.
KlausB
Jimbo says:
September 1, 2010 at 2:21 pm
—-
You know there will be many environmentalists cheering him on until someone gets hurt. I hope we don’t get to that stage though.
Unfortunately there will be those who will keep cheering and will valorise this guy as some sort of hero.
From the ranting list of Lee, I suspect he didn’t really need a reason to go off, and probably would have found one eventually.
People get into this hysterical-gotta do something to right the world-mode and the 1st thing that comes along they act.
And others simply carry around a vendetta blaming the world for thier problems, and they set out to get even.
Let’s play Name That James!
Pick which James goes with this quote.
“We’ve got to get these climate deniers out of the way.”
a. Lee
b. Cameron
c. Hansen
I simply cannot believe this has just happened.
Just what kind of a chilling effect is this likely to have?
The waste of a human life is dreadful, especially when it so obviously is due to a mental illness or defect. I feel for his family; they will question whether they did enough for him for the rest of their lives.
This episode has nothing to do with environmentalism, alarmism or any other externalisms. It was an internal schism that destroyed this man. The external hook he hung it on is irrelevant.
INGSOC says:
September 1, 2010 at 3:22 pm
What surprises me most, is that so far this is the only freak deranged enough to go postal. I have seen first hand just how enraged the eco-deists are becoming due to not having their way……
__________________________________________________________
The terrorism from the PETA and the Animal Liberation Front shows just how far “activist” can go in “fighting” for what they consider right.
“…In the past, PETA has handled the press for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a violent, underground group of fanatics who plant firebombs in restaurants, destroy butcher shops, and torch research labs. The FBI considers ALF among America’s most active and prolific terrorist groups, but PETA compares it to the Underground Railroad and the French Resistance. More than 20 years after its inception, PETA continues to hire convicted ALF militants and funds their legal defense. In at least one case, court records show that Ingrid Newkirk herself was involved in an ALF arson.
PETA has even begun to adopt the tactics of an ALF offshoot known as SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty). This group is notorious for taking protests outside the boardroom and into the living room, attacking their targets at their homes….” http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/21-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals
Unfortunately there is a good deal of overlap between PETA, AFL and those who believe in CAGW. Do not forget this is not the first episode of violence. “A woman in the US has been injured when a bomb disguised to look like a box of chocolates exploded in her face… reports have suggested the woman may have been targeted because she is married to an oil executive.” http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=7928778
I hope this is the last violence we see over this issue.
——————-
eric anderson ,
Mr. Lee appeared to be, unfortunately, a mentally unbalanced person.
You ask what philosophy would contain the kind of things he wrote/said and account for his actions?
Google the philosophy of nihilism. It seems a good candidate.
Does nihilism describe some very idealogical environmentalist positions toward mankind?
John
Lee’s manifesto is old stuff. The first one was published by the Club of Rome back in the 60s. Later it became the Earth Day in 1969, the U.N. Earth Charter and Agenda 21 in te 70s, and Katzinsky in the 80s went into hard action as the Unabomber.
Crazy people believe that the only way to make people change their minds on how to live is by means of a pistol pressed into our skulls. Or with taxes, a somewhat less bloody way to reach the same end.
sandy jardine says:
September 1, 2010 at 3:53 pm
“Classy stuff Watts. Now why would a sane skeptic want to be seen anywhere near you?”
I was also amazed that, so far, there were no idiot trolls looking to really make an ass of himself. I should have known better.
Tell me “Sardine”, how long have you had these feelings of inferiority?
More Name That James.
“I want to call those deniers out into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads.”
Which James?
a. Lee
b. Cameron
c. Hansen
Just woken up and read about all this. Very scary. Especially given that they “…know where we live…”
Frederick Davies says:
September 1, 2010 at 3:43 pm
“…filthy human children…parasitic human infants…”
Does anyone have any doubts anymore? Environmentalism is the evil of this century, the same way as Socialism was of the last.
Environmentalism? Socialism? – apart from the labels I didn’t know that there was a difference.
i am sure the first study linking this ‘climate rage’ to global warming is in the works.
Canuck?
Check.
Of Asian origin?
Check
Environmentalist?
Check.
Off his rocker?
Check.
…David Suzuki…???
I’m sorry, unless evidence turns up that this guy had been certified in the past, I’m not buying the idea that he was insane.
This is a guy who has nutured an extreme human hating ideology for years, this final act of violence, and it’s outcome were natural outcomes of that ideology.
An otherwise sane man with very destructive ideas, living in a very dark and bleak place that ultimately produced the outcome it did.
Just be wary of labelling something as insane, it allows us to avoid digging deeper to understand the underlying problem, and we will never get to a solution unless we understand the problem.
It’s very good to hear that no one else has been hurt.
Name That James.
“The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death.”
Which James?
a. Lee
b. Cameron
c. Hansen
oakgeo says:
September 1, 2010 at 4:15 pm
“This episode has nothing to do with environmentalism, alarmism or any other externalisms. It was an internal schism that destroyed this man. The external hook he hung it on is irrelevant.”
Forgive me, and with all due respect, but this is as clear a case of the dangers of the kind of hysteria sent up by the big green movement as any I have seen. Passing this event off as “just another poor deranged soul” is tantamount to hiding your head in the sand. Labeling these sorts of terrorists as insane is dangerous, as it minimizes the real causality in favour of a soothing and more easily understood stereotype. This happens all the time in media, when the aim is to gloss things over and move on without addressing the factors leading to an horrific crime. The seeds have been planted by reckless individuals seeking power by any means. I fear this is a taste of what will be a common occurrence for some time.
What a sad state of affairs.
Politics, lack of communication, propaganda, environmentalism run amok, greed, fear, lack of reasonable alternatives, implied time constraints, media sensationalism, instant gratification, spending beyond means; to name a few.
IMO, the worst one, is instant gratification.
So, I quote:
“Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Work, continuous work and hard work, is the only way to accomplish results that last.”
I know this to be true.
I hope his tortured soul is at peace.
Name That James.
“Find solutions for Global Warming, Automotive pollution, International Trade, factory pollution, and the whole blasted human economy.”
Which James?
a. Lee
b. Cameron
c. Hansen