Pathological exaggerators caught on “death threats”: How 11 rude emails became a media blitz
UPDATE2: 5/3/12 Simon Turnill reports that there’s a new story in the Australian saying that the police were never contacted, indicating that the ANU didn’t even take the non-existent “death threats” seriously enough to even report it! David Appell looks even dumber now.
WUWT readers may recall the uproar in the alarmosphere and media over this…well, just like Peter Gleick and Fakegate, this was another “manufactured” claim against skeptics with not a single document to back it up then. An adjudicate looking at the actual documents, has ruled they “do not contain threats to kill”.
In Australia the ABC reported the “scare” this way in June 2011:
Death threats sent to top climate scientists
Several of Australia’s top climate change scientists at the Australian National University have been subjected to a campaign of death threats, forcing the university to tighten security.
Several of the scientists in Canberra have been moved to a more secure location after receiving the threats over their research.
Vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young says the scientists have received large numbers of emails, including death threats and abusive phone calls, threatening to attack the academics in the street if they continue their research.
He says it has been happening for the past six months and the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks. (source)
As did Nature, and The Guardian in full alarm mode bloviation.
I get word from Simon at Australian Climate Madness of this breaking development. It seems the “death threats” against climate scientists are nothing but hot air, and alarmist David Appell is now a confirmed idiot for taking me to task (and citing my deceased mother in his argument) over my not getting too excited about the whole trumped up story.
Watts Still Denying the Death Threats – Quark Soup by David Appell
This claim stunk from the beginning for lack of credible evidence, as I pointed out then when I told Appell to take his concerns elsewhere* and tossed his sorry butt off WUWT for good.
Appell has this on his website:
Rule #1: You can never ask too many questions.
But apparently Appell didn’t follow his own advice in this incident and go to the length of FOIA questions that Simon did. Give Simon a round of applause and Appell some well deserved raspberries. – Anthony
============================================================
Simon writes:
Christian Kerr at The Australian reports on my ongoing efforts to obtain, from the Australian National University, copies of emails to climate scientists containing death threats, and a recent Privacy Commissioner ruling that shows that none of the documents produced contain such threats:
Climate scientists’ claims of email death threats go up in smoke
CLAIMS that some of Australia’s leading climate change scientists were subjected to death threats as part of a vicious and unrelenting email campaign have been debunked by the Privacy Commissioner.
Timothy Pilgrim was called in to adjudicate on a Freedom of Information application in relation to Fairfax and ABC reports last June alleging that Australian National University climate change researchers were facing the ongoing campaign and had been moved to “more secure buildings” following explicit threats.
In a six-page ruling made last week, Mr Pilgrim found that 10 of 11 documents, all emails, “do not contain threats to kill” and the other “could be regarded as intimidating and at its highest perhaps alluding to a threat”.
Chief Scientist Ian Chubb, who was the ANU’s vice-chancellor at the time, last night admitted he did not have any recollection of reading the emails before relocating the university’s researchers. “I don’t believe I did,” Professor Chubb told The Australian.
Instead, he said he had responded “as a responsible employer”.
“I had a bunch of concerned staff and they thought they should be moved to a more secure place so I moved them,” he said.
“With hindsight, we can say nobody chased them down. What do you do?”
The FOI application was lodged by Sydney climate blogger Simon Turnill. It requested the release of “emails, transcript of telephone calls or messages that contained abuse, threats to kill and/or threats of harm to the recipient” sent to six staff members of the ANU’s Climate Change Institute. His request resulted in the discovery of the 11 documents.
The university refused to release the documents, citing a clause in the Freedom of Information Act that exempts documents that “would, or could reasonably be expected to … endanger the life or physical safety of any person” from disclosure.
Mr Turnill appealed against the decision.
In response to the appeal, Mr Pilgrim found 10 documents did not contain threats to kill or threats of harm.
Mr Pilgrim said of the 11th, a further email offering an account of an exchange that occurred at an off-campus event sponsored by members of the Climate Change Institute and other bodies: “I consider the danger to life or physical safety in this case to be only a possibility, not a real chance.”
…
Finally, after a long wait, on 26 April 2012, the Privacy Commissioner ruled in my favour. The decision is available here. In respect of danger to life, the Commissioner wrote:
15. The question is how release of the documents could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any person. In other words, the question is whether release of the documents could be expected to create the risk, not whether the documents reflect an existing credible threat. Even if the threats were highly credible, the question would be how release of the documents would add to the expected threat.
16. In my view, there is a risk that release of the documents could lead to further insulting or offensive communication being directed at ANU personnel or expressed through social media. However, there is no evidence to suggest disclosure would, or could reasonably be expected to, endanger the life or physical safety of any person.
17. Therefore I consider that the 11 documents are not exempt under s 37(1)(c).
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Full story here: http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/05/anu-death-threat-claims-debunked-the-australian/
ADDED – Here’s Appell, calling us all demented because we aren’t alarmed:
And this comment on WUWT:
David Appell
david.appell@xxxx
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.
And here, he uses an ugly caricature of me to make his point:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/07/looks-like-watts-is-having-second.html
He writes:
Denying these threats as Watts and his minions (microWatts?) do is despicable, and it is dangerous. They have taken this discussion into a very dangerous place, and innocent people are being targeted simply because they are doing their jobs as best they can and have come to a scientific conclusion with implications that some people do not like. It’s craven, truly craven.
* I can’t publish what I really want to say about David Appell, lest I violate my own blog policy.
Given that the garbage “science” performed by pro-CAGW “scientists” has resulted in laws and regulations that have done immeasurable damage to the economies of Australia, Great Britain, the U. S. and all the other industrialized countries of the world, and caused human suffering almost everywhere, I find it miraculous there weren’t real death threats against these fraudsters.
Jay Davis
BOOOOO!
HISSSSS!!
I just wanted to frighten any climate scientists reading this blog.
No death threat intended. No climatologists were harmed in this production. Any resemblance to living feardicats or lilylivered academics is entirely coincidental. Latimer Associates is an ethical and responsible employer.
The Bullshit Button
A businessman has an Easy Button they’d like to press, especially in these hard times. A climate scam artists seems to have some kind of Bullshit Button. I call them bs artists, Mumbo Jumbo Specialists, prophets of doom… When ever the Chicken Littles say or write anything it seems they’ve pressed the bs button beforehand, sending glaringly obvious bullshit into the stratosphere, overdrive. Of note: ALL their models have failed, and ALL their predictions of doom have flopped, no exceptions! Tell them to stop constantly regurgitating the same old baloney. End the never ending laughable predictions of disaster. It seems that these miserable liars are just trying to make all our lives miserable with baseless worry. Insane. Criminal, if you ask me.
Their clearly debunked theory would have fallen by now if it weren’t for the liberal media sustaining it. The LSM continually takes the Chicken Littles’ press releases verbatim without question, and in so many insidious ways works in (false!) references to “climate change” in stories about other things. I implore the media to try to be critical when it’s called for, to strive to be impartial on this issue.
My late father always spoke very highly of the Australian soldiers he had served alongside in WW2. He especially admired their courage, their good humour, their resourcefulness and their fortitude in adversity. They were ‘bloody good blokes’.
It seems that those qualities are neither admired nor expected in Australian science today. It is difficult to be persuaded that this change of attitude is an improvement.
The emails have not been released, that leaves me free to speculate. Let’s assume that the “off-campus event” resulted in a bar brawl, and one slighted party sent an email describing in some detail what (s)he would do to the behind(s) of one or more climate scientists. Naturally, they wanted to be “moved to safer locations”.
The simplest explanation is usually true.
Latimer,
Don’t let a few poor examples taint your view. In the whole, those scientists pushing CAGW or making statements to support policy decisions may not even be a majority among scientists doing climate related work, let alone all scientists in Australia.
Re: Latimer Alder says:
May 3, 2012 at 12:17 pm
BOOOOO!
HISSSSS!!
Well I’m afraid you’ve made a huge tactical error. Having posted the words IN BOLD, you’ve clearly and unrepentantly run afoul of the “How to talk to a climate scientist” guidelines posted on on the UEA website. At this moment the same crack squad of police that raided the nefarious tallbloke’s lair and confiscated his Cray supercomputer are doubtless on their way to your place with a restraining order.
Peter Miller says:
May 3, 2012 at 12:11 am
… So grant addiction means routinely fixing…
Worth an article here, if anyone feels like writing it. Plus something on the Twelve-steps modified for Climate Science:
1.
Climate scepticsWe admit we are well-funded.2. We came to believe that Climate sceptics
serve the interests of,andare paid by,Big Oil could help us.3. We made a decision to turn our beliefs over to Climate sceptics who do
don’tunderstand science.4.
Climate scepticsWe made a searching inventory of our ignoranceare ignorantof the facts and the fact that we are not worth debating.5. We admitted… the nature of our wrongs, like our shrill and economically damaging lies that Climate sceptics are death threat issuing nutters (they’re not); 6. The polar bears are dying out.(they’re not); 7. The ice caps are disappearing.(they’re not); 8. Carbon dioxide is an evil gas which will kill hundreds of millions of people.(it’s not); 9. Sea levels are rising at a catastrophic rate.(it’s not); 10. Extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and tornadoes are becoming increasingly common.(they’re not)
11. We resolved to make amends to true climate scientists we had hurt wherever possible
12. We resolved to carry the message out to other grant addicts.
Rich says:
I like “microWatts” though. I might get a T-shirt.
I think I would go for a T-shirt with a picture of Anthony and “1 mega Watt!”
Of course, Petawatt is much larger but I like the sound of megaWatt better.
Simon Turnill reports that there’s a new story in the Australian saying that the police were never contacted, indicating that the ANU didn’t even take the non-existent “death threats” seriously enough to even report it! David Appell looks even dumber now, as does Nick Stokes.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/police-not-told-of-threats-to-anu-climate-scientists/story-e6frg6nf-1226346268884
Time to fess up, you got punked.
Anthony,
That’s not news – it’s exactly what was said before, in the very first reports. ANU did not itself contact the police, but someone told AFP about it. ANU may well have been aware that it had been reported.
Some years ago I worked as a solicitor in a major university and had to advise on a problem where a student made seemingly serious death threats to a senior academic. We took precautions, but the strong police advice was that death threats are made frequently to people and 99.9% of the time amount to nothing. Apparently the critical thing is not the threat but if the person making the threat takes any actual action to implement the threat. He did take some action but it was more of a defamatory gesture than anything to become alarmed about. We kept it all secret to try to contain it.
As a lawyer on a pro bono matter I was once threatened by a successful businessman I had never met or heard of that I would never get another job again if I did not withdraw from providing free legal services to my client. For many in the legal profession threats like this are something of a “right of passage”. It comes with the territory and yes, his threat was ignored, so I passed that test of my professionalism. I gave a few minutes thought about what I could do, decided I could not even prove it had been made, moved on and told very few people about it.
Many years later I met a relation of an author of one of the books pointing out the fakery of the warmist religion and was able to reassure that relation that they should not worry and why and what to look out for. The interesting contrast was that their reaction was to avoid trouble by not making a big public deal of it.
Consequently I have, for a long time now, suspected that these academics might be “crying wolf” for the cause.
Dave N says: May 3, 2012 at 9:14 pm
I’m wondering which part of:
“The Australian Federal Police division responsible for law enforcement in Canberra, ACT Policing, said it was not contacted by the university over the matter. “As no complaint has been received, no investigation has taken place,” a spokesman said.”
Nick doesn’t understand.
Which part of “The Australian Federal Police says…it is aware that threats have been made” do you not understand. The fact is that there is one section of the AFP, ACT Policing, responsible for law enforcement in the ACT community, and another responsible for Federal Government security. The newspapers last year contacted the right section; they had been notified.
REPLY: And again, your opinion makes no difference, there’s still no death threats, no sworn complaint, and no investigation. It’s all vapor claims. But don’t let that stop you defending this smear, we are enjoying watching you make a fool of yourself – Anthony
Nick Stokes: if I said to you “I know where you live” in a thick Irish accent, would you move house?
No. So shut up and stop being a ninnie.
@Nick stokes
Clutching at straws, mon brave, just clutching at straws.
Your story is as dead as the Monty Python’s Norwegian Blue nailed to its perch. It has expired. It is no more. It has gone to Meet its Maker. It has joined the Choir Invisible. It had no substance. It was vapourware and it has vapourised.
And your suicidal defence of the undefendable has done your credibility no good at all.
Chubb responded “as a responsible employer”.
Who’s he kidding? His behavoir was about as irresponsible as it could be. In a situation as serious as this, the first thing you do is ask for the emails and review them. Whether you do or not has nothing to do with trust, or lack thereof — it’s obvious “responsible” protocol.
We still have a major uphill battle to turn the world to the truth.
I think you guys are being slightly unfair to Nick. There was indeed one email that appeared somewhat threatening. Of course, I suspect it was sent by Gleick…but that’s beside the point.
Professor Chubb’s children told him in 2011 they were facing a hostile campaign at the playground and had to be moved to a “more secure country”.
Professor Chubb admitted last night he did not have any recollection of trying to find out what actually happened at the playground in 2011 before relocating his family to a safer place in Transylvania. “I don’t believe I did,” he said.
Instead, he said he had responded “as a responsible parent”.
“I had a bunch of concerned children and they thought they should be moved to a more secure place so I moved them,” he said.
I really appreciate this post Anthony.
All this time I thought the CAGW team was driven by some wierd neo-spiritual devotion to the cause. But now I realize I was wrong. I think there is some merit to the grant/funding theory driving some alarmists that I agree should be pursued.
However, after reading both Nick, David and a few others continued silly defense of the proven innacurate claim of supposedly ‘life-threatentening’ emails, I have reached a new conclusion. It isn’t blind devotion that drives them. CAGW team members are INCAPABLE of admitting they were/are wrong (at least not without a caveat – see Gleick). No doubt some interpret this trait as necessary to qualify one as an expert but should never be perceived as a desirable trait of a scientist. Of course, the team would never admit they were/are wrong about this simple fact either….not without a caveat.
In hindsight, I reckon this revelation doesn’t really matter. It is no easier to have a rational scientific discussion with someone who is incapable of admitting they were wrong than with a neo-spiritual zealot. Or maybe you can’t be one without the other? Regardless of motivation – trick the numbers, hide the method, tamper with historical data or play the victim card, the greatest scientific fraud in history stumbles on monotonously championed by the Nicks and Davids of the world.
An email purporting to invite a climate scientist over for a beer to discuss the climate was found to be a reliable proxy for death threats. The threat signal was isolated by our super-secret, undocumented and untested statistical AlGorithm.
Got sucked in? More like “gleefully embraced and parrotted”, doncha think?
Most universities have their own police force. Folks are often instructed to contact them first and they (a judgment call) decide whether to involve other police forces. In the case of ANU their policy is that for theft call the police and ANU Security but for Emails:
=================
Someone has sent me an offensive email?
Do not delete the email or send it on to anyone; contact your local IT support officer, DOI (x59666) help desk and notify your supervisor.
==================
There is a separate IT security office. In this case notifying the supervisor who would work with IT security is the proper procedure
Note this is current policy, Eli has no idea what the policy was a year ago. Also, at national or state universities, security tends to be an armed sworn force with powers of arrest and investigation (see UCDavis pepper spray for example).
Finally, Nick is a good guy, takes a lot to rile him. Eli suspects he knows some of those who were threatened and had heard about it from them. Australia is a small place peoplewise
REPLY: Reporting annoying emails to IT/university police is one thing, making a national/international media blitz over non-existent death threats is something else entirely. You and Nick seem to want to believe inflated facts not in evidence, which are now dis-proven. This suggests you aren’t very good scientists, but rather, slaves to emotional issues. – Anthony
Perhaps the gruniard would like to prove that it had seen the death threats or were they simply lying for effect?
Makes you wonder why these scientists throught their lives were under threat or was there some other agenda.
Eli suspects he knows some of those who were threatened and had heard about it from them.
rofl
Nick Stokes makes up fantasy scenarios which are contrary to all evidence to try to prop up the debunked “death threats” nonsense, and now Eli Rabett rolls onto the scene spinning fantasy scenarios which are contrary to all evidence to try to prop up the debunked Nick Stokes’s nonsense.
Looks like it’s
turtlesliars all the way down.But wait, there’s more.
WTFV