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
ACK!!! First link should be http://php.scripts.psu.edu/dept/rockethics/bios/brown_d.shtml
FOX news just had a short piece on Durban and the leaked emails. That’s the first I’ve seen it on MSM.
Perhaps we need to bring THIS research to bear… http://www.livescience.com/17209-creative-thinkers-cheaters.html. If true, especially the way they incentivized them to cheat (through money), then that explains a lot about the Climategate scandal. Obviously we need to reduce the $$ in academia…
Donald A. Brown is a hoot. He has a blog, and it seems that he’ll unquestioningly believe any alarmist claim about the climate no matter how incredible it may be..
Joe Bastardi says:
November 29, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Bravo, Joe!
The elephant in the room is really a pedophile.
Dickens Goes Metro says: November 29, 2011 at 2:58 pm…………… Thanks for the heads up!
As an fyi the ethical campaign is laid out here- http://climateethicscampaign.org/storage/CEC%20Handbook%20final%2011-9.pdf
“Campaigning for a Moral and Ethical Response to Climate Change- An Introductory Handbook for Community and Organization Activists”
“Table of Contents
Why Start a Climate Ethics Campaign?…………………………………………………………….. 1
The Ethical & Moral Implications of Climate Change…………………………………………… 2
How Human Activities Affect the Climate ………………………………………………………….. 5
The Consequences of Climate Change…………………………………………………………….. 6
Connecting Climate Change to Issues in Your Community or Organization …………… 7
A ‘10 Step’ Process for Launching a Climate Ethics Campaign ……………………………. 9
Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 14
Selected Resources……………………………………………………………………………………… 15
” The debate about climate change has produced deep divisions in America that prevent
many people from grasping the reality and urgency of the issue. This is because, at the
most fundamental level, climate change is not a scientific, political, or even an energy
problem. It is a moral and ethical crisis.”
“Ethical and cultural divides like this cannot be overcome with more scientific facts or
technical arguments. From women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, history has
shown that harmful beliefs, practices, and policies can only be overcome when they are
declared to be morally wrong and decidedly unjust. Only then are people motivated to right
that wrong by working for a higher moral purpose.”
Well, I suspect the est-steamed professor Donald A. Brown,
is absolutely correct:
1) how many million kids, women, etc have died in third world countries due to the criminal policies of 1st world countries to withhold food and convert it into fuel for their splendiferous automobiles?
2) how much public monies have various universities, bureaucrats, public officials, special focus corporations received as a result of “less than honorable” actions targeted at continuing the flow of public monies at the expense of education for kids and robust public infrastructure?
3) How many kids in 1st world countries are denied adequate education to proceed in the world by the action of a cadre to withhold monies for their special purposes?
4) Which evangelical folk have preached a “belief” and indoctrinated kids into the “correct thinking” and also insured that they, and only they, retain ever more enriching jobs in schools?
5) How many people will die as energy supply becomes less robust and more expensive due to the policies forced by beneficiaries of public monies?
So the Prof. does indeed have a point… and likely a concern for himself and his job .
but then, now that N. Korea and Iran know that you *must* have nukes given what happened to Gaddafi (and likely in Syra), there will be “fish to fry” before the end of the decade (just like predicted in “Fourth Turning”). As Tom Lehr say: “…we’ll split a candy bar and watch WW III…”.
LOL in Oregon
All I can say is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M2XWimDl9A&feature=related
Fred Allen says:
November 29, 2011 at 2:53 pm
In light of the recent excapades at Penn State, it is refreshing to see some people making an attempt to occupy the ethics high ground. Mr Brown is the first to take on Mt Mariana Trench.
No fair, you didn’t put the /coffeespew tag on that!
You’re right, they’re dealing with negative topography enhanced by subduction. Once Brown attains it, he’ll be digested. Not pretty.
29 Nov: Commentary Mag: Alana Goodman: NYT’s Revkin Denies Bias in ClimateGate Coverage
Unsurprisingly, Revkin disagrees, and he asked for a chance to respond. Here’s my email exchange with him (my questions and comments to him are highlighted in bold):..
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/11/29/climategate-revkin-email-bias/
Will climate science ever change course and said “oops, we made a few physics mistakes and there will be little global warming after all”.
No, they cannot make this admission because the consequences for them personally would be very severe.
Only sceptics or new people in the field can fix this science.
take this, Zwick:
(2 pages) 29 Nov: Forbes: Larry Bell: Climategate II: More Smoking Guns From The Global Warming Establishment
As if the first round of e-mails purloined from the U.K.’s East Anglia University Climate Research Unit (CRU) network weren’t damning enough, the new batch of about 5,000 more obtained through an anonymous source identified as “FOIA” are truly stunning. Many clearly confirm that top IPCC scientists consciously misrepresented and actively withheld important information…then attempted to prevent discovery…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2011/11/29/climategate-ii-more-smoking-guns-from-the-global-warming-establishment/
Essex (pronounced ‘ethics’) is a county in the east of England. There are a lot of jokes on the internet about Essex and none of them are very polite. I live in Essex and I would prefer any joke, however rude, about my home county over that of this extraordinary lecture being delivered in Durban.
One, an ethical analysis of the climate change disinformation campaign. We will examine whether this is a new kind of crime against humanity?
===
This is the ugly face of ecofascism…
“ps. Shouldn’t it read “practical” not “piratical”?”
Argh matey, Pirates practice piratically after grog.
These people have a god given right to be wrong, to say that wrongness and to hold any seminars they choose. We must remember and so should they that science and ethics are separated by a philosophical and logical gulf. See my philosophy of science blog for numerous essays on this topic. That gulf is not bridgeable, in that, what flows from one discipline is not directly applicable to the other. The gulf can be transcended but the bridge is logic. Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.
Science can inform, that is provide information, that is the limit of what science can do. Notice, should or aught are not part of this. Science through its attendant philosophy and logic (deductive) is only capable of addressing priori questions. It is not capable of addressing a priori questions or using inductive logic as ethical philosophy or the pseudosciences do.
Therefore the question here must be: is disinformation or misinformation or incorrect information, unethical behavior, untruthfulness, conclusive or practitioners of the “end justifying the means”, unethical and if so under what conditions. To dispute someone’s interpretation of empirical data and information is call disagreement. To call out another on some point of law, logic, fact or what ever has no ethical implications except and unless it can be demonstrated that the failure to do so will result in harm to others. Unreliable numeric models are hardly demonstration of anything. Let the facts fall where they may.
This is simply some kind of publicity stunt and we should not spend any more time on it.
BTW in Canada, the Environmental Law Center of University of British Columbia funded by Tides is not far from this kind of crazyness with their Global Warming Solutions Act from January 30, 2007.
CORRECTION: it’s Environmental Law Center of University of Victoria… NOT UBC
pat says:
November 29, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Thank you for the links! 🙂
Bill Illis says:
November 29, 2011 at 4:09 pm
Bingo! Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!
I’m wondering who’s going to attend?
Certainly no one at PS believes they might have some sort of ethics problem so they must think they need to teach the “d”‘s the ethics of climate science. Huh?
PS must have missed climategate part II email release.
From 2563 Barrie Pittock of CSIRO
“To my mind that is not as good as getting the offending editors removed and
proper processes in place. Pressure or ultimatums to the publishers might
work, or concerted lobbying by other co-editors or leading authors.”
Nice people at the CSIRO
Prof. Brown is going around the country with this show. He was recently at the University of Kansas speaking on the same topic. Unfortunately I could not attend. But maybe I really did not want to, either. Wonder where else the show is going?
“One, an ethical analysis of the climate change disinformation campaign. We will examine whether this is a new kind of crime against humanity?”
Yeah, like a ban on DDT or starving people by selling corn for fuel.
Then we’ll examine young boys in the shower, as an ethical issue of when to report your seniors to the proper authority and how to avoid FOIA requests.