UPDATE: University of Oregon responds, see Update #3 below.
I’ve been purposely ignoring this ugly pronouncement related to “Planet Under Pressure“, because well, it was just so beyond ugly and it brought up visions of the Soviet politburo defining political opposition as a mental illness. As Andrew Bolt put it, Something is sick, and it’s not the sceptics.
But now there’s been a cover up, and I have the goods.
Apparently, the maelstrom of embarrassment and public ridicule created by Kari Marie Norgaard, professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon was too much for the University to bear. So, in the best Soviet style, they rewrote history, as if nobody would notice, without so much as an apology or update. I find it amazing in this day an age that University types still don’t understand the Internet and that disappearing things like this only makes it worse for you.
Now you see it:
Source: Google Cache which says: This is Google’s cache of http://uonews.uoregon.edu/archive/news-release/2012/3/simultaneous-action-needed-break-cultural-inertia-climate-change-respons. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on Mar 29, 2012 21:42:11 GMT. The current page could have changed in the meantime
Now you don’t:
The words “and treated” have now been sanitized from the University’s press statement, which is located here:
I hope that the University of Oregon Alumni are made aware of this.
h/t to Christopher Monckton
==============================================================
UPDATE: It seems Norgaard herself has been “disappeared” from the University of Oregon web server. In the ORIGINAL press statement that I got from Google Cache, there’s a link to Norgaard’s faculty page, a portion of which I used in my third paragraph above.
Here’s the screencap, I put yellow highlight either side of the link to her page:
That link goes to: http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/norgaard.php but that gives a 500 Internal Server error now:
Although she still appears of the sociology faculty page listing at:
http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/index.php
…that link is dead as well, but other faculty members on the same page have working links.
And, further, the link from the original press release has also been removed in the revised one, note the missing link underline between the yellow highlights on Norgaard’s name:
Curiouser and curiouser.
Again, Google Cache is your friend:
What a bunch of rank amateurs. Maybe they’ll soon go from being called The Mighty Ducks to “The Mighty Schmucks”.
===============================================================
UPDATE#2 – It gets worse. As pointed out in comments, apparently her official uoregon.edu email address has been replaced on the Sociology Faculty page. On the Google Cache for that page, as it appeared on Mar 28, 2012 19:55:22 GMT, the “send email” link for Norgaard goes to a uoregon.edu email address. On the current page, it goes to a yahoo.com email address. If they were trying to shield her from hateful email, why shift it to a private email account?
Something is going on behind the scenes that we aren’t privy to yet.
UPDATE#3 4/3/12 2PM PST
UO responds:
I asked Jim Barlow, director of science and research communications, University of Oregon when and why the sentence was changed. Here’s his response:
“I intended the original first sentence of the news release to function as a play-on-words on our researcher’s message about recognizing and addressing cultural inertia. Unfortunately, the word “treated” became the focus of the story, leading to inaccurate portrayals. In an effort to shift the focus back to the actual topic of the conference presentation, I chose at midday Monday to remove the word from the version of the news release that appears on our website.”
Source:
http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/call-climate-skeptics-be-treated-removed-universitys-press-statement (h/t David L. Hagen)
No mention of why her faculty page disappeared.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Research interests, race and environment? Forgive me but just WTF has race got to do environment? And tribal environmental health? I really think the last thing our civilisation needs right now is a rerun of Germany circa 1930s pseudo science research into racial differences. Of all the problems the planet faces do we really need some deranged Lysenkoist whipping up racial tensions? What we need is real scientists, what we seem to be getting is fake scientists fabricating a cover of made up pseudo science in order to make their sick political cult more acceptable.
wfrumkin –
By all means, send your offspring to Hillsdale College. They will learn to think independently, to rationally construct and defend a logical argument, and they will be able to inform anyone on the founding principles of America and the many manifestations of American exceptionalism.
This poor Norgaard creature is sad, pathetic, and not a scholar of anything worth transmitting to another generation. No falsifiable hypothesis, just Victim-ology 101
Perhaps unlike in 1984, this could be revisionism for the better. This lady rightfully could become an “unperson.” Right now, there seems to be a purge at the U of O. Maybe. Maybe not.
1984, Part 1, Chapter 4. http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/3.html
The reporting of Big Brother’s Order for the Day in The Times of December 3rd 1983 is extremely unsatisfactory and makes references to non-existent persons. Rewrite it in full and submit your draft to higher authority before filing.
Winston read through the offending article. Big Brother’s Order for the Day, it seemed, had been chiefly devoted to praising the work of an organization known as FFCC … A certain Comrade Withers, a prominent member of the Inner Party, had been singled out for special mention and awarded a decoration, the Order of Conspicuous Merit, Second Class.
Three months later FFCC had suddenly been dissolved with no reasons given. One could assume that Withers and his associates were now in disgrace, but there had been no report of the matter in the Press or on the telescreen. That was to be expected, since it was unusual for political offenders to be put on trial or even publicly denounced. The great purges involving thousands of people, with public trials of traitors and thought-criminals who made abject confession of their crimes and were afterwards executed. ☺ ☺
The department head is Jocelyn Hollander, jocelynh@uoregon.edu.
I sent along the following email:
She most likely was threatened by the extreem, radical right wing guard of the skeptic deniers. The University removed her for her own safety.
REPLY: Quite a speculation, got anything to back it up other than bloviation? – Anthony
According to my Firefox history, I visited that page three days ago. I recall going there from the press release.
It may be the more inflammatory claim from The Register about treatment ignited a round of hate mail to the U of OR and they may be responding by hiding in the ditches. See my http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/30/open-thread-weekend-9/#comment-940590 . While I didn’t quote a part of the press release about treatment, I suggested they may have changed the press release since then. It appears it’s also been changed since I saw it.
We’ll have to keep an eye on things there – I wonder if she’s gone for good. Can someone check out her Univ. office and report back if it’s been hastily emptied?
The Register’s article has this quote from the press release they saw:
I think the “treated” part may have been gone before I saw the press release as I was considering writing the PR office and asking what sort of treatment they had in mind. I didn’t see a statement that was worth copying, so either I missed it or it had been revised.
The only review of her book on Amazon is interesting (and not flattering).
It appears that her work is some how associated with the world bank.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1407958##
Larry
The root of the problem is revealed by the “Focus Areas” on the U 0f O – Sociology faculty list at http://sociology.uoregon.edu/faculty/index.php:
– power structure research; economic and political elites; right-wing movements; politics of the middle classes; social networks;
– corporate political action and US trade policy; nonviolence and social movements; network analysis of collective action
– social inequality; urban & community change; economic sociology.
– gender; violence against women; the social construction of race, class, gender, and sexuality; language and discourse
– gender; intersections of gender, race, class, and sexuality; poverty and welfare reform; feminist organizations and social movements; qualitative methods
– tribal environmental health, race and environment, gender and environment,climate change denial, emotions and social movements
That last one is Kari Norgaard’s “focus.” In her radical liberal environment, the notion that skeptics of CAGW need to be “treated” seems perfectly reasonable.
When the verb “treated” was deleted, the word “Simultaneous” should also have been deleted. Otherwise there is no second action to the verb “recognized” that can be carried on simultaneously.
“She most likely was threatened by the extreem, radical right wing guard of the skeptic deniers. The University removed her for her own safety.”
REPLY: Quite a speculation, got anything to back it up other than bloviation? – Anthony
Sorry.That was a poor attempt to be humorous.
REPLY: Always apply the /sarc tag. One man’s humor is another’s insult unless that caveat is made clear – Anthony
If you click on the email links to the faculty on the faculty page they all have an @uoregon.edu email address except Ms. Norgaard’s, which gives you a yahoo email address. Hmmmm.
Also, the faculty directory page used to have a uoregon.edu Email address for her (visible above), but now it’s some yahoo.com address. There’s no phone # listed in old or new directory page, I vaguely remember noting there wasn’t a phone listed when I saw it three days ago.
I’d say that at this point there isn’t much reason to contact anyone there except maybe for the Media Relations people, and it sounds like they changed their Email address too.
Interview with her here (poor us, it’s all our sick psychology and we just can’t face up to climate change because we are weak “deniers”):
The Psychology of Climate Change Denial
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/
Wait until you see her CV. The usual source has been scrubbed (this one): http://www.whitman.edu/content/sociology/faculty/norgaard/cv
But they forgot to call the sociology dept: http://sociology.uoregon.edu/cv/norgaard.pdf If they scrub that one too, I’ll post a copy (for the sake of history – a sociologist might find a treasure trove of material in here some day).
Interesting words abound!
Norgaard, Kari Marie “Climate Denial and the Construction of Innocence:
Reproducing Transnational Privilege in the Face of Climate Change” Race,
Gender & Class forthcoming Spring 2012
Alkon, Alison and Kari Marie Norgaard 2009. “Breaking the Food Chains: An
Investigation of Food Justice Activism” Sociological Inquiry 79(3): 289-305.
Hormel, Leontina and Kari Marie Norgaard 2009 “Bringing the Salmon Home! Karuk
Challenges to Capitalist Incorporation” Critical Sociology 35(3): 343-366.
Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2007 “The Politics of Invasive Weed Management: Gender Race
and Risk Perception in Rural California.” Rural Sociology 72(3): 450-477.
Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2006. “People Want To Protect Themselves A Little Bit” Emotions,
Denial and Social Movement Non-Participation The Case of Global Climate
Change.” Sociological Inquiry 76(3): 372-396.
Norgaard, Kari Marie. 2006. ‘We Don’t Really Want to Know’ The Social Experience of
Global Warming: Dimensions of Denial and Environmental Justice” Organization
and Environment 19(3): 347-470.
If you enjoy this sort of whacked out Alinsky language, I found a cool app for android that generates even more interesting phrases like:
“dynamically expedite backward-compatible supply chains”, and
“globally actualize bricks and clicks methods of 24×7 empowerment”
It’s called the Bull$hit generator (pretty close)
I could see a neat little product extension for this app with all of the socialist manifesto, world environmental justice and climate buzzwords rolled into one. It makes me wonder if such an app is already responsible for Dr Norgaard’s brilliant success.
“dramatically conceptualize global climate equity convergence within environmental social justice best practices”.
Nope, I just can’t compete…
Do not be alarmed. Mental health and information authorities have been dispatched.
*stares at a TV showing an empty desk while speakers being to play relaxing elevator music*
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes – ah
When she walks, she’s like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gently
That when she passes, each one she passes goes – aah
Ooh But he watches so sadly, How can he tell her he loves her,
Yes he would give his heart gladly,
but instead when she walks to the sea,
she looks straight ahead not at him,
Tall, and tan, and young, and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, he smiles – but she doesn’t see
*men in white coats arrive on screen, along with a janitorial crew to make sure no evidence remains. I return to eating my macaroni and cheese and think nothing more of it.*
Michael D Smith says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:29 pm
[…]
It’s worse than we thought. And I’m not kidding this time.
Can someone please define “environmental sociology” for me? Gender and environment? RACE??? This is beyond so many things that the list would take pages of space. Science is at the top of that list. She calls this kind of thing “areas of scholarship”. Gawd, the Venn Diagrams one could create out of these ‘areas’. What totally empty, vacuous tripe. No wonder they disappeared her. Oh, because it’s “Beyond embarrassing”, I’m guessing. Her autobiographical blurb is quite shabbily egomaniacal…rather Gleickoid in tone. Hmm.
Who the heck is she impressing?????
*stares at a TV showing an empty desk and some upended items. Music begins to play*
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, each one she passes goes – ah
When she walks, she’s like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gently
That when she passes, each one she passes goes – aah
Ooh But he watches so sadly, How can he tell her he loves her,
Yes he would give his heart gladly,
but instead when she walks to the sea,
she looks straight ahead not at him,
Tall, and tan, and young, and lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes, he smiles – but she doesn’t see
(saxaphone solo)
Men in white coats appear on screen, followed by janitorial crews to mop up any evidence.
*Returns to eating my macaroni and cheese and think nothing more of it*
Oops, that last one about Ipanema was me, George Turner. Gravitar complexity.
Having grown up in Eugene, this is unsurprising. Thankfully I went to Oregon State.
This really is getting past a joke now, it’s far worse than the totalitarianism described in 1984. who paid for this World Under Pressure gathering?
Would be interesting to do a psychological study on secularists who have rejected conventional religious doctrine, to replace it with flavours of environmental belief. One might draw parallels with Christian and Jewish apocalyptics, puritanism and world views focused on redemption through abstinence. Contrast and compare with the romanticist movement of the 19th century that rejected rational thought in preference to a “return to nature”. A research emphasis should be placed on academics supportive of this type of world view and how they rationalise their belief systems via appeals to bogus authorities.
Michael D Smith says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:29 pm
One link there goes to Mr Revkin’s blog at http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/on-birth-certificates-climate-risk-and-an-inconvenient-mind/ which says in part:
And so on for many more paragraphs.
“The Politics of Invasive Weed Management: Gender Race and Risk Perception in Rural California.”
Does the lady get a 10-second head start in that gender race?
RE
Andrejs Vanags says:
April 2, 2012 at 9:41 pm
Ha,ha,ha… its a sickness. Wow, psychology and sociology major careers could be made just on the topic of mass mania, the transmission of memes, and the inherent weakness of the human spirit when faced with peer pressure. If I was one of those majors I would laying out my research papers for the next decade..
—————————————–
If I was one of those majors I would be asking for a refund and taking my student debt to another university. Gotta hit ’em where it hurts: show the Univ of Oregan the what free market capitalism can do for them…