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.
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g2-e1dac56eda01bae75bf1f4ea5d7fa0d6 says: …
Dude, you should plug your handle into the FOA encrypted file, I think you’ve got the password there…
Left wing, “progressive” NGOs probably. I find her articles in the BBC going all the way back to 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081882.stm
She was featured in adbusters, the people who brought you the Occupy movement
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/80/planetary_endgame.html
She’s a communist it would appear. Her game seems to be a mission to “gaslight” the public. Gaslighting is a process where you are made to doubt your own sanity. Her thrust is to get across the notion that if you don’t agree with them, that it is YOU who are in denial. That YOU have some psychological abnormality.
Everything about the methods these people use speaks to abuse. They use the same methods that an abuser uses on their victims. First is devaluation: “I am an important person (and you aren’t) and I am busy with important things (of which talking to you is not one)” or “I have a PhD, do you?” or “Have you produced a peer reviewed paper?”. If that doesn’t make you go away, they try insults. When that fails, they might attempt direct sabotage of your reputation or career. And then finally, when all else fails, you are crazy.
Try this search. It spans several years.
For most of her career she has been preaching to the choir trying to keep them in the fold by telling them that anyone who doesn’t believe them is crazy. It is much like a cult. Apparently they are getting desperate and now they are going right out there to the general public telling them they are crazy but I am not sure of the context in which this information came to light. She might have still been in the process of indoctrinating their cult members that anyone who doesn’t share their world view is crazy. This gives validation to the “believers” and acts as a barrier to their changing their minds.
Unfortunately rubbish like this is not new:
‘a conference of “eco-psychologists”, led by a professor, are solemnly exploring the notion that “climate change denial” should be classified as a form of “mental disorder”‘ – from UK, 2009.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/4953981/Climate-denial-is-know-a-mental-disorder.html
Ummm….”eco-psychologists”?? Physicians, heal thyselves!
When I started university in the 1960’s social sciences were mostly a joke already. Anyone could pass these courses, and sometimes they would acknowledge the logic of a counter argument. That seemed fair to me at the time. By the late 70s and 80s, no more acknowledgment of anything good about opposing opinion. Now they want to ‘treat’ anyone who dares disagree with their radical leftist propaganda.
I could even live with that if I could laugh it off as loony leftists in the psueudo-science (social) of socalism/communism.
But as we heard in the 50s and 60s, the Red Menace grows like a cancer. It was true then and it is true now. We lost the social sciences, then some of the softer sciences such as environmental science, and now it is space science (NASA), climate science, earth sciences (AGU), meteorology (AMS) and even physics (APS) and the Royal Society. I hope mathematics and engineering are still real, but I do worry.
“Mike Bromley the Canucklehead says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:34 pm
Can someone please define “environmental sociology” for me? Gender and environment? RACE??? ”
Look of “critical race theory” along with “critical (insert BS theory) and thats what it is.
To make it simple shes a racist who indoctrinates that racism into an “environmental studies” format and how the “evil deniers” are racist against (insert BS) by “denying” and they “deny” because they are racist.
Norgaard, Kari Marie, Cognitive and Behavioral Challenges in Responding to Climate Change (May 1, 2009). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series,
I am unsurprised. We don’t need to stand on the shoulders of giants to see further in this domain full of intellectual pygmies and Zurichal gnomes.
Treading on their toes is so much more satisfying anyway.
Ah, on that Wired piece:
“Kari Norgaard: On the one hand, there have been extremely well-organized, well-funded climate-skeptic campaigns. Those are backed by Exxon Mobil in particular, and the same PR firms who helped the tobacco industry (.pdf) deny the link between cancer and smoking are involved with magnifying doubt around climate change.”
She’s another Gleick, inventing smears.
Thanks Skiphil for this link: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/ . Very revealing. She thinks Tuvalu is sinking and that flooding in Bangladesh is due to climate change. I guess she spent a little too much time in environmental justice class and not enough in physical geography. Certainly not much time looking at the sea level charts.
If the basic facts are wrong, I’m pretty tough to convince on the feel good fluffyisms.
U of O are not the Mighty Ducks, just the Ducks. The Mighty Ducks are the former name for a Hockey team in Anaheim.
REPLY: Ah, so it is. But up here in Norcal I’ve heard them called “The Mighty Ducks” so that’s where my reference originated. – Anthony
Have you tried seraching for “Kari Trtsky” on the university’s web site? 😉
Will Nitschke says:
April 2, 2012 at 10:39 pm
Would be interesting to do a psychological study on secularists who have rejected conventional religious doctrine……………
————————————————–
It would be both interesting and frightening , I generally refer to them as neo-puritans because the behaviour is entirely consistent with the “everything is sinful” early extremist puritans who`s self-loathing was only exceeded by their loathing of others . The similarities were striking enough that , several years ago , before I was aware of sites like WUWT and Jo Nova etc. I put ” Global warming religion ” into a search engine and found this by Prof. John Brignell
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/religion.htm
I know it`s not exactly the study You were looking for but it is a superbly worded essay that hits on all the points of comparision .
They’ve kept the word “resistance” though.
Vive la resistance!
It is basically “fundamentalism” which can manifest in anything; religion, politics, engineering, science. Basically it is enforced groupthink and if you express a different opinion, you are first chastised, and then ostracized, and then, sometimes if you are a big enough threat to their doctrine, they attempt to destroy you.
But in this case the idea is twofold: 1: Convince “believers” that the non-believers are crazy and 2: Possibly get the non-believers to question their own sanity if there are enough in the #1 category around them. Because you are “crazy” if you don’t believe, it them becomes quite acceptable for others to dismiss what you have to say. It is the ultimate devaluation of anything you might want to discuss. It isn’t to be given any weight because you are “crazy” and need “treatment”.
They must be getting to a desperate phase if this is gaining wider notice. They must really be afraid that they are losing their following and have to resort to measures such as this. The message here being “don’t listen to those crazy people and don’t turn into one of them”.
Imagine some left wing academic “believer” who reads her drivel. Now imagine being a student of that academic and questioning CAGW. This pretty much explains it:
http://www.nas.org/images/documents/A_Crisis_of_Competence.pdf
Are there studies showing that Climate Change Deniers are mainly white men who believe in the US Constitution? They could kill Two birds with one stone.
The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim will be distressed to learn that they are suddenly “former”. Did this happen yesterday? My high-flying Canucks are due to play them this week!!
While I entirely disagree with the medicalisation of climate sin (obviously, read CS Lewis “That Hideous Strength”), I also feel that hiding her webpage may not be a conspiracy.
There are a lot of wierdos out there on both sides and neither.
It makes sense to take her out of the public eye for reasons that we all would agree with. To keep her safe. A comment on the web to explain the reason would be polite but that’s a mere faux pas, not a devious media manipulation.
There may well be a conspiracy but a muck up is far more likely.
Well, us nasty “deniers” apparently need our mental health examining.
As for the Thermageddonists and useful idiots like this “professor”, I wouldn’t bother too much about their mental health. But it would be more interesting altogether to examine their financial ‘health’.
Follow the money.
Oops! My age is showing. Seems they are no longer “Mighty” for the last 5 yrs or so. And this year last in the Pacific Division, no hope of a playoff berth.
Shouldn’t a messed with the name, I guess …
I had a look at the “Psychology of Climate Change Denial”
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/12/climate-psychology/
This is the bit that caught my attention:
“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, when the report was released. “This is the defining moment.”
*
2012. Wow! Game’s over, folks. Can we go home now? 🙂
She studies the social organization of sceptics? She gets paid to read WUWT? Let me get this author posts are expected to be for free at WUWT, but if you want to read it you can get paid? This truly is a game changing blog!
“I’m not saying the warming doesn’t cause problems, obviously it does. Obviously we should be trying to understand it. I’m saying that the problems are being grossly exaggerated. They take away money and attention from other problems that are much more urgent and important. Poverty, infectious diseases, public education and public health. Not to mention the preservation of living creatures on land and in the oceans.”
“[m]y objections to the global warming propaganda are not so much over the technical facts, about which I do not know much, but it’s rather against the way those people behave and the kind of intolerance to criticism that a lot of them have.”
Freeman Dyson
Talking about Rewriting history
Freeman Dyson on Living Through Four Revolutions
http://youtu.be/zq4p2qbE684
Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
OK, where is Whoopi Goldberg when we need her?
This is incompetent. Do they not know how much fame and publicity professor Ward Churchill brought to CU Boulder?
This should be the theme music for the “disappeared” nutty professor
Ahh, Sociology, a degree even Peace Corp doesn’t want…