Lately Mr. Appell has been hitting WUWT comments with his favorite M.O., which is to write baiting missives and demand attention to his viewpoint, demand we agree with his viewpoint, and when we don’t, to keep pushing the same premise again and again, ignoring what anyone else says about it. Finally when he doesn’t get his way, he’ll run off to his blog and make a blog in the vein of faux outrage, telling the world how terrible we here at WUWT are. He’s done this about half a dozen times. I’m used to it. In fact, I even predicted it in comments. Like I said, normally I ignore him when he posts angry missives on QS, but I’ll make an exception, just this once.
What he did on Friday was a true thinking outside of the box demonstration that not only does he have no class, he has no scruples either; he brought my deceased mother into the debate.
Yep, he made up a headline claiming that I deny the existence of my own mother. How rude. You can read his desperate cry for attention, archived here.
Now I’ve had far worse things said about me (scroll down to corrections), so in this regard, Appell is pretty much an amateur. I’ve been insulted by professionals.
But from my viewpoint, this particular entry crossed a line, and Mr. Appell, who has almost 100 comments here at WUWT going back to 2008, is no longer welcome here. Feel free to disagree with me and this blog all you want, but when you start dragging my family into it, even in some sort of satirical jest, that isn’t something I’ll accept from someone who was a guest in my home on the Internet, nor do I have to. If you were in my physical home when you made that comment, I’d show you the door.
So what got Appell into this over the top frothing? He’s upset that I didn’t take the recent news of death threat claims against climate scientists seriously enough for his taste in his litany of comments on WUWT here.
My position was that I have yet to see any substantiated credible death threats to climate scientists. I’ve seen lots of taunts, I’ve seen some ugly, foul, and hateful language, and I’ve seen lots of news stories talking about these things. I don’t deny they have been covered by the press, but I haven’t seen anything rise to the level of significant concern. More on that in a bit.
* A caveat, I’m probably over-experienced when it comes to death threats. Having spent 25 years in newspaper, TV, and radio newsrooms, I’ve seen dozens. I’ve taken phone calls, I’ve read letters, I’ve seen death threat and hate email that follows when somebody or some organization has been reported on in the news in less than glowing terms. So, one could say that I’m far more experienced with the subject than Mr. Appell is, having direct hands-on experience with the issue.
The recent death threat row started in Canberra Australia in June 2011 over a story about “30 Australian climate scientists get death threats”. The Australian ABC reported on it here:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-06-04/death-threats-sent-to-top-climate-scientists/2745536
I read that story when it first came out, initially, I was concerned, but then I saw this ending sentence:
The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.
That was a cue for me, because in all the time I’ve been in the media and seen the threats we got, only once did we call the police to investigate. That was the one person dumb enough to sign his name to it. Later, he backed down saying it was a “joke”. We didn’t press charges, as he was just another ranter and TV stations and public figures must endure these things at a higher level of tolerance than the general public.
So when the Australian police didn’t even bother to start an investigation, I wasn’t concerned that there was anything credible there.
Despite that, the story went like wildfire, Googling phrases “climate scientist” and “death threats” yields about 35,000 results. Some of those results are related to previous episodes from Climategate in Dec 2009 where Ben Santer, Tom Wigley and others apparently got some nasty email. Problem is, they didn’t/couldn’t share it. In the ABC article on Wigley, they state,
He is unable to reveal the details of the threats, as they are now being investigated by the FBI and UK police.
Well that sounds credible, but like the Climategate investigation itself, we’ve heard nothing more about it. So it seems to have evaporated as an issue. There’s been no follow-on public announcements about investigations, no arrests from the FBI or other police units. I figure if the FBI took it seriously, we’d have heard more about it. If I’m in error, somebody please leave a note in comments.
So again, we have a lot of excitement and arm waving and angry blog missives about the issue, but no substance in the long term.
That result is pretty much my entire lifetime experience with death threats as a member of the media. Not one person I’ve worked with that has ever gotten a death threat or threat of any kind has had it acted upon, nor have we ever had a police investigation that brought anything to light that elevated these things from rant level to concern level where some action or arrest is required. People get mad, they blow off steam by writing stupid anonymous letters, and they send it, often later regretting it. We’ve come to expect this in the media. It comes with the territory.
I found it even more difficult to get worked up over these emails in Australia when I learned about some of them from Jo Nova, who pointed out that some of them had been released, but without anything beyond the body of text. Here’s part of her post:
=============================================================
To a climate scientist, *swearing* equals a Death Threat (no wonder these guys can’t predict the weather)
Wait for it, some death threat emails have been released. Number eight is positively sinister with intent (shield your children):
Now several of the abusive emails have been published on a blog by environmental writer Graham Readfearn, after the scientists agreed to release the poison pen letters.
Number Eight:
“If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you. We will not do so if you rightfully argue against our points from a science view. But we will if you choose to stray into attacks on us as people or as a movement. The institution and funders that support you will find the attention concerning.”
God forbid, imagine a member of the public imploring a scientist to argue with science instead of slurs. Well I’ll be!
How chilling does it get? These scientists must get hundreds of emails a week. Here are the worst two Sunanda Creagh could find:
…several correspondents had a more chilling message for the scientists.
“Just do your science or you will end up collateral damage in the war, GET IT,” reads one email.
“If we see you continue, we will get extremely organised and precise against you,” reads another.
Obviously we need to protect our scientists against this unreasonable intrusion on their right to issue baseless propaganda and unsubstantiated smears. Imagine the threat of members of the public getting “precise” in their arguments? How dare they?!
The rest of the emails released by Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a climate scientist at the University of Queensland, were unbecoming, rude, and full of four letter words. (I strongly advise skeptics not to swear in emails.)
===============================================================
When I read Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg was involved, then read the body of the emails he claims are “death threats”, I was doubly not worried. Generally, for something to qualify as an actual death threat, it must actually contain the word “death” or some variance such as “kill” or “murder”. Searching the email bodies posted doesn’t find those words.
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is well known for being overly excitable when it comes to climate debate, I had first hand experience with him in Brisbane where he interrupted our presentation, hogging the micropone and demanding to be heard over all others.
So, given the way he behaves, I didn’t see much credibility in his claims, especially when the “death threats” don’t actually contain the word.
And it gets worse. It turned out the June death threats in Australia were stale:
CLAIMS prominent climate change scientists had recently received death threats have been revealed as an opportunistic ploy, with the Australian National University admitting that they occurred up to five years ago.
Only two of ANU’s climate change scientists allegedly received death threats, the first in a letter posted in 2006-2007 and the other an offhand remark made in person 12 months ago…
The outdated threats raised question marks over the timing of their release to the public, with claims they were aired last week to draw sympathy to scientists and their climate change cause.
The university denied it was creating a ruse, maintaining the initial report, in the Fairfax-owned Canberra Times last week, failed to indicate when the threats were made.
Meanwhile, without checking into that, Appell is getting more upset that I’m not getting alarmed about his original comment which was:
“It is stunning to see essentially no condemnation of the death threats here, ……”
Many commenters pointed out that the article was about PNAS equating FOIA requests to death threats in an NYT interview, and had nothing to do with any actual death threats made. Undeterred by facts, Appell kept at it, becoming more and more “outraged”, which is his style, then he builds up enough responses to blog about it. Basically, he quote mines with language grenades.
I suggested in comments that he show some credible examples. Other commenters kept asking for the same. He kept ignoring that call, and his posts got snipped, with the message to look upstream in the thread, that some action was required on his part to show credible examples. I pointed out that we have not seen any actual emails like we have in Climategate where they could be verified. We have only second and third hand reports.
And predictably, he wrote an interim post, shown below, calling us all demented:
He finally posted a list of what he called evidence: a series of news articles.
| David Appell
david.appell@xxxx |
Submitted on 2011/07/13 at 9:34 pm
The death threats against climate scientists have been widely acknowledged by several of them and reported on by many journalists. The Guardian, in particular, has seen them. One scientist had a dead animal dumped on their doorstep, according to ABC News. Some of the threats have been reported to the FBI. It is pernicious, obnoxious, and dangerous for people here, especially Anthony Watts, to claim that these threats exist do not exist. It is of a kind, and only a step from being complicit. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/06/hacked-climate-science-emails-sceptics-abuse http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/climate-scientists-receive-death-threats-10729457 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/08/hacked-climate-emails-death-threats http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t694484/ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7017922.ece http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/05/hate-mail-climategate http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/oct/12/democrat-obama-climate-change-agenda |
Well, as any lawyer can tell you, news articles aren’t the same as physical evidence. I’d seen these before, and Appell is keen in his latest post to point out the top link from the recent Guardian story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/06/hacked-climate-science-emails-sceptics-abuse
If you scan that article, you’ll read a bunch of ugly juvenile rants that are something that looks like the same person authored a majority of them, but once again the key words “death, kill, murder, execute, etc” just aren’t there.
Note to David Appell: a death threat must actually contain the words. Otherwise it is just annoying capitalized hate mail rant with cuss words, like the kind I get here at WUWT every week and put in the bit bucket. It seems Appell’s entire outrage is predicated upon his conflation of rude emails to death threats. In his blog post here, he even goes so far as to contradict himself:
…he won’t even allow evidence of death threats against scientists to be posted in the comments of his blog,
I offered all these articles, especially this article from The Guardian which directly quotes from some of the threatening emails.
Point taken Mr. Appell. Rude threatening emails in this article you highlight are not death threats, especially when they don’t contain the key words. Your argument morphed from death threat, to threatening emails.
So Appell threw up a straw man argument in comments on a story about “FOIA being equated to death threats”, complains that I’m not upset enough, sends “evidence” that doesn’t contain any actual death threats, just foul language, and then claims I’m denying that the death threats exist and makes up a headline that I “deny the existence of my own mother”.
And this guy writes for major science magazines? Stay classy, David Appell, but do it somewhere else other than WUWT.
For the record, I deplore hate mail, death threats, and threats of violence, no matter who might be saying it, and always will. Nobody should have to put up with these to do their job and I wouldn’t wish them on anybody. I hope the day never comes when a credible death threat is delivered, much less acted upon. Any such credible threats should get the full measure of the law.
And as a final note, one issue that Appell got upset about (that he tried to post on WUWT) got snipped because it was from a LaRouche Youth Movement supporter who held up a rope noose saying “Welcome to Australia” during a speech by Hans Schellnhuber. It was ugly, tasteless, stupid, and full of bad imagery, but again missing the key words that define a death threat. Even so, some in the media (and many in the alarmosphere) are calling it a “death threat” and trying to paint it as being launched by skeptics. For the record, neither I nor anyone who publishes here associate themselves with the Larouche people, and I denounce their actions. I don’t think you’ll find a single mainstream climate skeptic who would say any different.
There are several key words and topics we don’t cover here, such as Chemtrails, HAARP, and yes Larouche rants among others. I don’t want to give these Larouche people any exposure more than I need to make this point. By policy, we don’t post such videos and I won’t even link this one here. That’s not denying the existence of it, as Appell claims, but only exercising responsible journalism by not spreading obviously staged publicity stunts by the Larouche people. If you really want to watch the video, Google “David Appell, Quark Soup, and Death threat video”, and you’ll find the Larouche video on his blog, along with a second video.
But, here’s the key point that Appell and a bunch of other people miss. By Appell’s posting of a second video by the Larouche people, he blows his own case, saying “Here the perpetrator actually brags about his threat:”
I go back to my original issue with why I didn’t get upset back in June:
The Australian Federal Police says it is aware of the issue, but there is no investigation underway.
Yet here on Appell’s blog, we have the very Larouche fellow who held up the noose, narrating a video he produced about the incident after the fact. Clearly, it was a publicity stunt, and if it was as actual death threat, actionable under Australian law, don’t you think the guy would be in the slammer rather than narrating propaganda videos afterwards?
If the police don’t consider it a credible death threat, making no arrests, the only explanation for the constant beating of the drum by Appell and others is that the issue has propaganda value to paint skeptics with a broad brush.
Jo Nova and Willis Eschenbach sum up that problem well in Throwing the Hate Crime Grenade
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“If you were in my physical home when you made that comment, I’d show you the door.”
If he said something of that sort in my physical home, he’d get a good deal more than ‘shown the door’, although I will admit you didn’t specify exactly HOW you would ‘show him the door’.
*OMG, there I’ve gone and done it, haven’t I?
It seems to me that many of the so-called “death threats” from anonymous sources may not in fact originate with sceptics at all. There is ample evidence for the use of what is termed “false flag” attacks, and it seems reasonable to me to ask whether these “death threats” might not be coming from enthusiastic advocates aligned with the cause of the CAGW alarmists.
That is, the alarmists contrive to make “death threats” against their own team in an effort to a) win sympathy to their cause, and b) slime/smear those of us who remain sceptical.
You have to hand it to the Warmists. They get their undies in a bunch over these threatening mails, but when it comes to comments in their own blogs, they’re quite happy to carry stuff like this:
“It probably comes as no surprise that Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is a climate change denier, and that he cites a Monckton speech as his source:
“Yes, Anders Behring Breivik is the first climate denier mass murderer.”
Those who follow AGW from an Australian perspective will probably know the blog to which I am referring.
I only frequent truthful, open, stimulating blog sites. I’ve never been to this David Appell’s blog and never intend to. I hadn’t even heard of him until now. Point, counterpoint, undoubtedly.
After you have cut more slack to the guy than a saint, you did the right thing by banning him, although I’m sure his posts made good fodder for the skeptics. Maybe Mr. Appell read Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules For Radicals.” In it Alinsky advocates lying and other nefarious activities to achieve one’s political goals. It is more than apparent that many liberals in the US and elsewhere have taken Saul’s socialist bible to heart. Maybe Appell is a liberal?
http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/12842_12841_xbox-live-ban.png
Anthony, I don’t care what temptations you put in front of me, I will not click over and read David Appell’s blog!
The person you are talking about (I haven’t wasted brain cells on remembering his name) was a nobody before you mentioned him and I predict he’ll remain a nobody for the rest of his life.
I have had a couple comments “deleted” by tony watts and friends. My comments were not threats or demeaning but more related to my warped sense of humor. I think this blog goes out of its way to have a fair commentary much more than any blogs representing the AGW side of the issue.
David Appell needs to watch the 10:10 video about No Pressure to learn what is acceptable about death threats. If the 10:10 video does not rise to the level, then how can any of his presented email evidence rise to the ‘death threat’ level.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/30/o-m-g-video-explodes-skeptical-kids-in-bloodbath/
I’ve never heard of Mr. Appell, and, based upon his juvenile behavior in this case, will avoid him in the future.
Regarding climate scientists and death threats, it is clear to me that no one should EVER engage in using threats of violence against your opponents in a debate – I wish no ill will for Al Gore or Jim Hansen, and hope they remain in good health throughout their lives. Likewise for others in the climate debate.
I believe, however, that some people are reacting in unfortunate ways because, as I’ve said in the past, climate has now become a POLITICAL debate. Certain people in the climate science community have decided to come out boldly into the public arena and make onerous demands on all of us for the sake of the climate. These demands can (and will) have serious repercussions on our economy and way if life. We in the sane world are pushing back against these climate elites, and are now demanding that they pay their own way for their “research” rather than sponging off the public dole as they have for so long. After all, Greenpeace and WWF both have deep pockets.
By the way – what about climate scientists harassing and threatening the careers of other climate scientists who don’t toe the ideological line? Should these threats be investigated?
…and that’s the glamor shot?
Good one!
Never heard of the guy before, but reading your “evidence” I see he has your number. So the article talks about you demanding evidence, then refusing to post it…. and has a headline saying you deny your mother’s existence.
This mild (compared to the stuff YOU say about scientists) drives you to ban that guy from ever commenting here again. How convenient. It’s not the evidence he keeps trying to post, it’s the insult! Yeah THAT’S why he’s banned.
Bahahaha! You are so transparent.
David Appell appears to be more famous here, than in his own circles. This is not the reason for which I think he sould not be banned from WUWT. Annoying, idiotic, or hilarious, we just need to keep these types around.
Too bad that in today’s world a good @ss-whooping is considered unacceptable violence. In my day, it was considered therapeutic. In my view, David Appell could use some therapy. *Sigh*
The ABC radio national, which I have to say is in the main rational and informative, has a news editorial department whose techniques ‘are as subtle as the blitz’.
The Death Threats story was launched quietly on a Saturday afternoon following a week of bad news for Climate Activists and the government organizations that shadow them. It was a little dirty bomb they let off when the sweep of the argument was turning against them.
The ABC radio relentlessy plugs the benefits of the low carbon economy, always boosting or spruiking as they say here the future jobs, or the grants farmers can get to grow trees.
Even in the face of The Big Chill… the coldest winter in many parts for fifty years with half the continent covered in lakes! they bang on about climate change, increasing drought…the old script.
Kevin Rudd legislated a financial boost of 270million Aus$ to the ‘free to air’ broadcasters about six months before he was deposed as PM and replaced by Gillard.
They’re obviously sticking to their side of the deal though. The Propaganda is staggeringly blatant and ubiquitous through their entire output.
I predict this insane pro carbon tax, pro green stance will be the destruction of the ABC SBS etc…their editorial position is absolutely clear cut, they’re up front about it…any Liberal government getting into power will/should/must simply cut their budget to the bone.
That’s taxpayer’s money they’re being paid – to propagandize…I don’t think that was ever the idea.
I wholeheartedly support Anthony’s actions here, and I think it’s important to review what the actual legal standard for a “Death Threat” is. (Something I often wish all of these outraged wannabe journo’s like Appell would do once in a while.)
A “Death Threat” Is NOT someone screaming because they’re angry, or staging a publicity stunt, like the larouchie with the noose. Why not? Because that does *Not* meet the standard of being a credible “threat”.
Most US States have similar laws, but here is the standard used by California, which is generally representative:
“Criminal threats are punishable by state action, and fall outside the protections of the 1st Amendment. California’s statute is a useful example:
• willful threat of a crime which would result in great bodily injury;
• specific intent that the statement be taken as a threat, whether or not the perpetrator intended to carry it out;
• the threat, under the circumstances, conveyed a “gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat”;
• the threat actually caused the person threatened to be in sustained fear; and
• the threatened person’s fear was reasonable under the circumstances.
(end quote)
“Specific Intent” is a term of legal art, and in this context it means that in order to consitute a Legal “Threat”, you must prove that the person making it was *not* intending the words or actions as simply an insult but instead intended the person to be in actual fear of their life. That is a very high bar to reach. (Imagine a robber sticking a gun in the face of a store clerk – now THAT is a credible threat.)
Also, “Immediate prospect of execution of the threat” is what rules out the noose as a “threat”, A gun, yes, that would be a credible threat, all one has to do is pull a trigger. But One man in the middle of a crowd of people who think he’s crazy, no, that is not believable that he could actually carry out his threat. A court would find that such a belief was unreasonable. Notice that it depends partly on circumstances – if a deputy sherrif and his pals waved a noose at a man they were taking into custody on a dark country road, then that certainly would constitute a True Threat, since such a man could reasonably believe that they intended to carry out the action shortly. The reasonable belief that the threat can be acted on immediately is crucial, and is what rules out most internet related language.
Absent an appropriate level of intent and ability to execute, harsh language is just that – uncivil, uncouth, and ill-mannered, but no more.
When it comes to threats I always favour that guy from GreenPeas! Now that is a threat.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/04/greenpeace-are-coming-we-know-where-you-live/
So the original response to Appell still stands and Appell simply chooses not to see reality.
David, What death threats? Show us credible death threats or frankly S-TF-U with your nonsense.
Oh wait, was my abbreviation of foul language right there considered a death threat against Appell?
Side note, god those angry letters are painful to read, can we send these angry people back to english comp. class?
As one of the people who apparently helped drive Appell crazy (maybe a very short drive?), I have to wonder why his powers of critical thinking are so poor.
One of the sub-themes in the AGW community is that skeptics are violent.
I have heard more than once how skeptics have threatened scientists. I have yet to see any proof of this.
All I asked Appell is for proof of these threats: e-mails from real people threatening violence.
His response of claiming that I am beyond the pale and not someone who can be dealt with in a civilized rational way is strange.
Appell could have provided public announcements from prosecutors or police investigators outlining the threat. Arrests. Indictments. You know, the things that involve real crimes and real evidence.
Instead it seems clear that the alleged death threats are at worst case anecdotal heresay, and are likely to be contrived falsehoods or deliberate distortions of reality.
Sort of like the calamities and crisis claims repeated by so many in the AGW community.
So I do wonder if Mr. Appell is showing us, in his non-rational take on the simple question of actually proving the existence of the death threats, a glimpse on why he and so many also believe in the idea the world is facing a climate crisis caused by CO2.
Someone once threatened that they ‘know where you live’ and threatened to blow me up with a big red button, but I would not go so far as to say they where death threats.
Funny thing I read a good article explaining people like Mr Appell and how they where never told at a young age the word ‘No’ so when they become adults they still act like children when the word ‘No’ is used. NO there where no death threats, scream, shout, cry, wail, tantrum, mummy says ‘YES’.
I wonder how DA feels about the “less than subtle” death threat video that 10:10 put out a while back with the exploding kids??
wermet says:
July 24, 2011 at 11:47 pm
I have a quick question about the Ben Santer dead animal story. Does he have a cat?
He did have until someone nailed it to his door.
Hello,
To those who view this as a “freedom of expression” issue:
(1) Moderated blogs are public only in the fact that they are open to all to read. There are standards of behavior that are required in order to respond. Anthony has laid out those standards on his About/Policy page. He is quite clear about not being “rude, loud, or insulting” and in using “civility and courtesy here.” Mr. Appell has clearly broken these rules and his right to respond in this forum has been removed.
(2) Mr. Appell has not been silenced. He has his own blog, websites and magazine article that he writes. He still has a (very) public platform from which to speak and be heard.
(3) If you really think that Mr. Appell has the right to say anything he wants to say in forums such as this, try the following: go to a privately owned “publicly accessible space” (i.e., a store, theater, etc.) and start loudly insulting people there. Unless the management is truly incompetent, you will be asked to stop and/or leave. Perhaps you may even have the police escorting you out.
(4) Even in forums of public speech and debate, not everyone gets to participate every time. Try going to your local city/town governmental meetings and insult people there. You will be asked to stop and if you continue you will be forcibly removed.
BTW Anthony, I love the site. I have learned as much (or more) from the comments as I have from the articles themselves. Please keep up the excellent work and don’t worry about having to expel the occasional extreme uncivil clods from what is a great, civil and tolerant conversation.
Bravo Zulu,
wermet
The last time I visited Appell’s blog I got the yawnies. Mentioning him again probably increased the readership of his blog by 15-20% (4-5 new hits).
I don’t think Appell is concerned so much about death threats, rather he is just trying to get more attention for his bland blog posts. Otherwise he would say something intelligent and more people would pay attention to him.
I think Appell would have more success as a climate scientist than a science blogger. The bar seems a lot lower.