The ANU “Climate scientists get death threats” story fabrication continues to unravel. Again, paging David Appell and Nick Stokes, your second helping of crow pie is served. And Mr. Appell, while you are eating that pie, maybe you’ll find the personal integrity to apologize for bringing my mother into your fantasy inflamed beyond all reason. (Update: apparently not) I’ll remind you of this writing on your blog:
Yes, except Mr. Appell’s viewpoint is the absurdity here, now even more so today.
The Telegraph’s Tim Blair reports that after a ruling last week that 10 of the 11 emails contained no death threats at all, and the 11 was a secondhand account of a dinner conversation on Kangaroo culling, verified as “not a death threat” by the person in the conversation, the story looks even sillier than before:
Retired Canberra public servant John Coochey attended a dinner two years ago at the Australian National University during a “deliberative democracy” project on climate change.
At the dinner, Coochey – a global warming sceptic – enjoyed a friendly discussion with fellow attendees, one of whom was aware that Coochey is involved in the ACT’s annual kangaroo cull. Asked how he’d fared in a recent culling licence test, Coochey proudly presented his licence as evidence that he had passed.
Conversation then moved on to how much better kangaroo might have been compared to the ANU’s food. All very unremarkable, as was the climate change project. Coochey didn’t bother attending subsequent days.
So Coochey was more than a little surprised to discover last week that he is now accused of issuing a terrifying death threat to climate scientists.
But the line that deserves the QOTW award is this:
As a bemused Coochey points out, if these people can’t get a simple conversation right, why should we trust them on complicated matters like global warming?
On a related note, Simon at Australian Climate Madness reports that another eyewitness has come forward and describes why Coochey didn’t bother to attend any more of the conference:
I was the other sceptic who left on the first day – the “stressed” one. You might have seen my comments at Catallaxy, Bishop Hill and Andrew Bolt on this. In case you haven’t this is what I said:
“I was the first sceptic referred to in the updates – the one that was “stressed”. That is a correct description. What I was stressed about was the incredibly manipulative way in which the so-called “forum” was conducted.
For example, Messrs Steffen and his team delivered presentations on various aspects of climate change. We were not allowed to ask questions, or to challenge the multifarious false statements made. Instead, we broke out into groups, with the idea that a group could ask a question. Of course, each group was dominated by “warmists”, and the lone sceptic in each group was a) abused, b) derided, c) not listened to.
The result was that Steffen and co were presented with soft questions that were based largely on ill-informed views, convenient to the organisers.
It is true that I was feeling stressed. But the reason was because while this was billed as an open-ranging discussion, in fact it was a tightly choreographed, manipulative discussion designed to capture an outcome favourable to the warmists. In no way was it a fair discussion.
All this soon became clear to me, and it was evident to me that it was fruitless and pointless to stay. I explained my issue to the organiser, and then left.
I met John Coochey at the forum. He is a knowledgeable and capable person, and I trust his account of the events relating to his gun license.
In fact, one of the aspects that I was annoyed about was that the forum had been billed as a “Citizen’s Jury” which implied that there would be opportunity for the “jury” to hear both sides, to cross-examine witnesses etc. Instead it was a tightly choreographed, controlled presentation of weak arguments from one side, with no opportunity (effectively) to ask questions.
Simon has much more here
Andrew Bolt weighs in:
Column – The terrible ‘death threats” that weren’t
Andrew Bolt May 14 2012 (9:03am)
IT was just too convenient, which is why some of us smelled a rat the day the story broke. It was June last year, and here’s the start of a Canberra Times story that went around the world.
“Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats.
“The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings following explicit threats to their personal safety.”
We were told terrified ANU scientists had to strip their names from their office doors, turn down meetings unless accompanied and beef up their home security.
But it was weird. None of these “death threats” were detailed, yet Labor politicians, Greens, activist scientists and their media sympathisers flew instantly into synchronised hysteria.
(Register free to read full story.)
UPDATE: Some readers asked about wanting to see the emails, and they are excerpted and discussed along with links here and you can get the documents here
UPDATE2: David Appell responds (it was those mean bullies that won’t listen to me!). Laughable, especially since he can’t bring himself to link to the latest revelations which proves his reasoning faulty. Instead, he again posts up the now discredited 11th email as if it were proof and an unrelated publicity stunt video by a Lyndon Larouche supporter who recorded a propaganda piece just a couple of hours after being rightly tossed out on his ear. Appell is unable to assimilate this new information on “Roogate” now making its way around the press of Australia. And this guy writes for science magazines?
Maybe I’ll have to have that crow pie delivered. Would that be considered a death threat?
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Here are a few death wishes passed by the owner of this blog:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/catlin-crew-out-of-time/#comment-123269
Chemist says:
April 28, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’ll be the one to say it: I hope they die so that their deaths will draw attention to the truth of this issue. If they succeed, then it will be just another propaganda
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/question-for-catlin-arctic-survey-what-happens-to-the-fuel-drums/#comment-126853
Daniel L. Taylor says: May 5, 2009 at 6:51 am
…Maybe I’m just a cold hearted SoB, but in my opinion they need to freeze to death on that ice. The world needs to see the headline “Global Warming scientists …
I’m sorry, but if the deaths of everyone on that ice survey team helps raise awareness of and opposition to the global warming political train wreck then so be it. It needs to happen.
[Reply: Those are not death threats. ~dbs, mod.]
“Just don’t get us angry. They wouldn’t like us when we’re angry.”
“That’s my secret. I’m always angry.”
(if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll understand perfectly. If you haven’t – see it!)
jjthoms says:
May 14, 2012 at 4:51 am
That sir, is the comment of a complete jerk!
jjthoms says:
May 14, 2012 at 4:51 am
Here are a few death wishes passed by the owner of this blog:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/28/catlin-crew-out-of-time/#comment-123269
Chemist says:
April 28, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’ll be the one to say it: I hope they die so that their deaths will draw attention to the truth of this issue. If they succeed, then it will be just another propaganda
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/04/question-for-catlin-arctic-survey-what-happens-to-the-fuel-drums/#comment-126853
Daniel L. Taylor says: May 5, 2009 at 6:51 am
…Maybe I’m just a cold hearted SoB, but in my opinion they need to freeze to death on that ice. The world needs to see the headline “Global Warming scientists …
I’m sorry, but if the deaths of everyone on that ice survey team helps raise awareness of and opposition to the global warming political train wreck then so be it. It needs to happen.
[Reply: Those are not death threats. ~dbs, mod.]
=========================================================================
Yep, not death threats, just people looking at some darwin award nominees.
@ntesdorf says: May 14, 2012 at 1:12 am
A new species! A BronxAussie! I have only heard “youse” from the Bronckians, and everyone knows about Roos (but who says it since they only live down under). I doubt there is a double jointed contortunist alive today that can make the moves necessary to construe the second hand email as a death threat!
What I find interesting is that Appell used my request for evidence as an example of how skeptics are beyond reason. If he had any evidence, he could have shown it. Instead history shows my question was correct and that AGW promotions- whether about disappearing ice in 2012, glaciers in 2035, document requests from HI, hiding declines, selection of trees in obscure places, or death threats- are in fact liars.
Listening to the ABC the other day there was a news item that these emails associated with death threats had been released. No mention that the emails did not contain death threats – just that they had been released as though this was an outstanding demonstration of openness.
Warmists’ magnification of the inconsequential leads them to inventing problems where there are none – they’re thermo-condriacs.
Threatgate
The new anthem of the alarmists:
“Lie me kangaroo down sport”
All together now:
Lie me kangaroo down sport,
Lie me kangaroo down.
Lie me kangaroo down sport,
Lie me kangaroo down.
Apologies to Rolf Harris
The ANU staff and the scientists (who claimed they received death threats) stood by and watched their fabricated stories go ballistic as the MSM campaign against skeptics.
The involved scientists all lied and the ANU supported their lying.
I condem the lack of integrity of the media companies that supported the anti-skeptic campaign . . . this a sad day for freedom in science.
John
“First they ignore us, then they laugh at us, then they fight us, then we win.” ..Mohandas Gandhi
Bruce of Newcastle says (May 14, 2012 at 2:38 am)
… I personally find kangaroo somewhat metallic …
Bruce, it sounds like they’re serving you the springs! 🙂
Let me get this straight. The same mindset that thinks humans are the problem and need to be minimized, see death threats where they don’t exist…Oh wait that is the same mindset that sees GHGs as a death threat…
Wow Cryosphere today now 10 days behind, they really like holding up the graphs when it goes against them like ice is now NORMAL in the NH and above anomaly in the SH.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
What are they waiting for LOL
Thomas Aquinas said it centuries ago in De Ente et Essentia: “A small error at the outset can lead to great errors in the final conclusions”. If I may tailor that for the present circumstance: “a lie at the outset leads to mass delusions”.
Does shootin marmutts between the eyes count towards an Aussie license? They are much smaller and I can take both eyes out through a knot hole with my scoped .22 Marlin. Those dam@ur momisugly#$ critters can chew the life out of a barn.
Now, just in case someone here thinks I have made a death threat, you have my permission to tell said marmutts I certainly have. As for warmists I would prefer they continue claiming, quite lively in fact, that the sky is falling.
re the manipulative groups, this has been occurring on the local level where I live (in Virginia) for years. A local or regional nonprofit affiliated with the Sierra Club or other heavy hitter will gin up public worry over a road connection, a commercial development project, new water regulations, whatever. Form letters to be “personalized” (i.e. change “decision maker” in the email to the name of your representative before hitting “send”) are posted on websites advertised on flyers, and “hundreds” of people thus demand action from reps, who will often then agree to a “community meeting” to discuss the “crisis”. Even if they don’t agree, the community meeting will be held, with facilitation from these groups who are obviously altruistic and aboveboard because they are nonprofit (profit is evil) and have “environment” in their name somewhere. Citizens are divided into groups headed by the Sierra Club or umbrella astroturf group facilitator, and then you play the sticky dot game: All questions or concerns are written on the dry-erase board in each little breakout group, and then the group prioritizes the entries by placing stickers next to each one. The ones with the most stickers are obviously the greatest community concern, right? And everyone got to participate and have input because your (stupid rewritten and combined) statements are right there on the board, just like everyone else’s (expanded ones), right? And everyone voted with their stickers (including the employees and facilitators) so it was completely democratic, right? And then an official position paper is issued under the aegis of the head nonprofit in partnership with the local astroturf (as a coalition of concerned citizen groups), detailing the comprehensive nature of the process, and the overwhelming citizen support for the concerns presented. We’ve been playing in this Kabuki for years.
Prima facie evidence of totalitarian coercion by political correctness.
Where can I read all the supposed threatening emails? Does anybody have a link?
If you’re licensed for huntin’ down ‘roos
Beware the bold benders of truths
They’ll say you’re a sniper
And then get all ‘hyper’
To make sure they’re heard on the news
These folks live and die on their professional work.
It was just too bad that the police didn’t understand that the only threats were to these scientists’ livelihoods, not their physical lives.
– We have a new game IPCC Whispers : You whisper a prediction into the ear of the person of your LEFT, who then repeats the whisper into the ear of the next person of your LEFT & so on until the last person whispers it into the ear of the enviro section churnalist of ABC or BBC … The a year later someone gets to come back on the media and say “that’s not what we said at all”
Here’s a link to a pdf describing the delliberative democracy project.
Here are some quotes from it:
the forum involved a group of 35 randomlyselected citizens who had already examined potential climate change scenarios during the interview phase of the project.
So there was an interview phase of the project, yet the 35 people were “randomly” selected. I read someone discussing this on another site (I wish I remembered where) and they said that the selection was far from random and that part of the goal of the project was to assess the effectiveness of changing the minds of skeptics on the issue and the various skeptics included had been classified as to the “deepness” of their skepticism. From what the participants who left early have said, it certainly looks like the sub-groups were not formed randomly, but rather the skeptics were seeded in minority numbers among already-convinced warmists. This quote from the report is appropriate:
Data collated by the research team indicates that the forum had a substantive impact on
the way many of the participants perceive the issue of climate change…There was also a clear
trend towards wanting specific and urgent action on climate change mitigation and
adaptation.
Here’s something the citizens decided after “deliberating”:
There was a strong sense that government needed to take firm leadership role in
relation to climate change, not just through policies, but through clear communication
and symbolic action.
There’s also this:
Participants felt that more emphasis should be put on long-term risk management in
relation to climate change, rather than the short-term “political” decisions that often get
made. The threat presented by climate change is so large that politics-as-usual cannot
be allowed to persist.
Notice the first sentence describes what the participants “felt”. Where did the second sentence come from? It’s not clear if it was from the participants or if it’s the writer of the report helpfully summing things up. And notice the phrasing, “cannot be allowed to persist”. It sounds rather authoritarian and not exactly an example of deliberative “democracy”. And isn’t it interesting that every decision the forum makes seems to be the same – let’s turn over all our freedoms to the government and give them the power to do whatever they want. Quelle surprise!
And here’s why those who left felt they weren’t being listened to:
The Climate Change and the Public Sphere Project (CCPS) project is premised on the
adage that while greenhouse gas emission reduction is a necessarily global effort,
climate change adaptation is local.
The conference starts with the premise of accepting the IPCC scaremongering at face value. Why would someone who isn’t convinced the IPCC is correct want to spend three days coming up with detailed “solutions” to a problem they’re not sure is even real?
Tom, the emails are here:
http://www.wakeup2thelies.com/2012/05/10/read-the-so-called-anu-death-threat-emails-in-full-here/