I got this late, but this must be the most clueless thing I’ve ever seen, especially coming on the heels of the biggest ethics scandal ever in the history of Penn State. Maybe clueless doesn’t even describe it. I’m at a loss for representative adjectives.
An Ethical Critique of the Climate Science Disinformation Campaign
Dear Attendees of COP-17:
On Tuesday, November 29th, in a seminar organized by Penn State University and the University of Washington on the ethical dimensions of climate change join us to look at two issues.
One, an ethical analysis of the climate change disinformation campaign. We will examine whether this is a new kind of crime against humanity?
Second, we will look at the piratical significance for negotiations in Durban if climate change is understood to create human rights violations.
Tuesday, November 29th, 1PM – 5PM,The University of Kwazulu-Natal,Howard College Campus Howard College Lecture Theater
Donald A. Brown
Associate Professor Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law,
Director,Collaborative Program on Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change, Rock Ethics Institute,
Penn State University
126 Willard,
University Park, Pa, 16802
717-802-xxxx (cell); 814-865-xxxx (office)
dab57@psu.xxxx
=======================================================
Reader may recall Brown is pretty much the whole department of the Penn State Rock Ethics Institute that previously tried to ethically link tornadoes to climate change.
FAIL
somewhat off-topic but has anybody here extracted all of the attachments in the emails?
I hope someone attends with copies of emails containing unethical behavior. They will make great hand-outs and lead to interesting questions… I’m sure. GK
What a bunch of lunatics. The world has lost any semblance of reality.
Penn State Answer Service
Hello this is Pennsylvania State University. Please listen carefully because our menu has changed.
If you would like to press charges against someone in the athletic department, press “one”.
If you would like to serve a subpoena to someone in the climate office, press “two”.
If the environmental ethics committee has agreed to speak in your elementary or secondary school, press “three”.
If you are somewhat ethically challenged yourself, and have signed up for our ethical team-building seminar series, press “four”.
For prospective students worth a cool 50 k / year, please stay on the line, and a real person will take your call.
“we will look at the piratical significance for negotiations in Durban” Is that a verbatim quote? Piratical? If so, it’s one of the funnier typos I’ve seen lately.
This has got to be a spoof.
Climate ethics by these guys? This is like having the host of the current Durban jamboree, South Africa’s President Zuma, lecture on the wisdom of monogamy.
I can save you the time, here is what they will conclude: Its the same powers that tried to say that smoking was safe it’s nothing new. And all deniers are paid by big oil.
This event illustrates the totalitarian impulse of the political left: dissent is criminalized. There is growing evidence of the wish-fantasy of dictatorship on the part of some leftists — e.g., the frequent laments that “our system no longer works.” Some people may joke about it, but it’s very dangerous, IMO.
Joe
Do you think they will have a whip-round to pay the money back , ethics aside ?
Rock Ethics – is that the ethics of a typical rock band? Or, the ethics of a hunk of quartz? In both cases it seems to pretty well mirror climate science.
Brown is not interested in science or data. Every time I’ve written a post providing data that countered his claims he censored it. You can tell from his title ‘Associate Professor Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law, Director,Collaborative Program on Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change, Rock Ethics Institute’ the guy MUST be compensating for some shortcoming. 🙂
The inmates have taken over the asylum. I’m getting outta here!
My God, these people truly have no shame. Is this behavior some sort of cognitive dissonance or disconnect from reality? Didn’t anyone at Penn State think it might be a good idea to cancel this particular lecture. Brown? Simply amazing.
And this is how this must be taken up. The alumni of the schools must let these institutions know that they are tarnishing the image and reducing the stature of the institution. They are also doing a great disservice to science in general, not just climate “science” (of which I am not certain there really is such a thing).
Scientists in many fields are apparently reluctant to speak their mind in a public fashion (and understandably so after seeing the behind the scenes intrigues going on) for fear of losing their jobs.
I’ll take one small stand and say that until these people clean up their acts, I’m not going to recommend hiring anyone coming from UEA, PSU, CMU, Columbia, or Stanford as those schools have demonstrated that they can not be trusted. Until they begin to approach things with an open mind rather than from an approach of validating their belief, their work is useless.
121200992
rom: Phil Jones
To: Tom Wigley , Steven Sherwood
Subject: Re: David Douglass
Date: Wed May 28 17:25:27 2008
Cc: REDACTED, “Thorne, Peter” , Leopold Haimberger , Karl Taylor , Tom Wigley , John Lanzante , REDACTED, Melissa Free , peter gleckler , Thomas R Karl , Steve Klein , carl mears , Doug Nychka , Gavin Schmidt , Frank Wentz
Ben et al,
Definitely the right response – so agree with Tom.
I have been known to disagree with him, and he’s not
always right.
Submit asap !!
Cheers
Phil
At 23:48 27/05/2008, Tom Wigley wrote:
Steve et al.,
Sorry, but I agree with quick submission, but not with giving
anything to Douglass until the paper appears in print.
I guess the reason John likes 1.2 is because it agrees best
with UAH MSU — which, as we all know, has been inspired by
and blessed by God, and so MUST be right.
Tom.
……..in fact, before a final editorial decision on the paper has
been reached. Dr. Douglass has written to me and to Peter, requesting a copy of our IJoC
paper. In his letter to Peter, Dr. Douglass has claimed that failure to provide him
(Douglass) with a copy of our IJoC paper would contravene the ethics policies of the
journal “Nature”.
As you can see from my reply to Dr. Douglass, I feel strongly that we should not give
him an advance copy of our paper.
In case anyone thinks I made this up or that “piratical” was something I intentionally misspelled for some sort of humor, let me say that this was an email on the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) Listserv.
http://uncsd.iisd.org/about-the-uncsd-l-mailing-list/
RE: “It is a bit like getting Al Capone to lecture on, ‘Business Ethics”, isn’t it?”
Al Capone was a proponent of ethical standards. He enforced them vigorously – sometimes with a baseball bat. (Why do “Chicago” and “ethics” seem so odd together in the same sentence. Like “Obama has brought the high ethical standards of Chicago to the Federal government.” Just asking.)
Capone once referred to a Chicago judge. He said “He’s an honest judge. Once he’s bought he stays bought.”
Penn State…ethics?
Is “hubris” the word you were looking for, Anthony?
Unless this is a 3-day event of self-flagellation followed by banishment from civilization it must be a joke.
More proof these people see themselves as Saints in a religious movement.
When you have built your “castle in the air” on lies, the only way to keep it in the air is to keep lying.
We can only hope that the “circle of wagons” of the academic/media mafias breaks, or at least can’t keep the volume of lies high enough.
It is pretty clear by now that these folk are, by and large, willing to go their entire careers and retire maintaining lies *that they know are lies*.
Arrrr mateys. Mann o’erboard.
Was the seminar web cast and/or is the presentation material available for review?
You can’t mean Mr Pennsylvania EPA Brown?
Donald A. Brown http://ecologyintegrityconference.dal.ca/Participants/Brown,%20Donald.pdf
Nothing ironic or paradoxical at all. PSU exemplifies the ethics of climatology, just as Goldman Sachs exemplifies the ethics of bankers. If you want to know how to follow the ethical standards of climatologists, Penn State is the best adviser in the world.