The sanctioned punishment of climate skeptics becomes more than just a few aberrant ideas, and is following some historical parallels
First, I loathe having to write essays like this, but I think it is necessary given the hostile social climate now seen to be emerging.
Yesterday, WUWT highlighted the NYT cartoon depicting killing “deniers” for having a different opinion, today I want to highlight Naomi Orekses and Suzanne Goldenberg, who seem seem to like the idea of having climate “deniers” arrested under RICO act for thought collusion, all under the approving eye of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard.
Watch the video: The RICO quote is about 1:12:30 in the video. Note that none of the panelists blinks an eye at the suggestion. They are all smiling after Oreskes finishes.
From the description of the video:
The science is clear: drastic global climate change due to human activities threatens our planet. Yet, a well-funded international campaign continues to deny the scientific consensus, foment public doubt and oppose action. The media—especially social media—have helped fuel false controversy and climate skepticism. How can climate change communication be improved?
Panel discussion with:
Suzanne Goldberg, U.S. Environment Correspondent, The Guardian
Dr. Naomi Oreskes, Professor of the History of Science, Harvard University
Dr. Peter Frumhoff, Director of Science & Policy, Union of Concerned Scientists
Moderated by:
Cristine Russell, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs’ Environment and Natural Resources Program
Introduction by:
Henry Lee, Director, Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program
February 13, 2014
Of course, no prominent climate skeptics were invited to give a counterpoint, though WUWT does make an appearance.
An actual quote from Goldenberg in the video at 2:50
“I don’t know what CAGW was”
This makes me wonder just how competent she is to write about the topic. The irony is completed full circle though. At 2:20 she claims WUWT “actually isn’t about science” while our “best science blog” banners are projected near her head and while highlighting Justin Gillis, tell us again about “the Bigger Picture” (an opinion piece) and A relationship between Sea Ice Anomalies, SSTs, and the ENSO? (a science piece).
At least we know they are reading WUWT.
Goldenberg won’t cover the topics we cover, simply because she isn’t capable and is in the employ of a newspaper (the Guardian) with a clear goal to push only one viewpoint about climate. And, her objectivity, now that she runs in this circle of friends, is blown out of the water.
Oreskes, who authored the book Merchants of Doubt, seems to think that climate skeptics are little more than paid shills, deserving of criminal status, while Goldenberg works tirelessly to create strawmen houses out of the thinnest of research, which she publishes in the Guardian. She also follows the Oreskes mindset in thinking that we all must be on somebody’s payroll and that we are all part of a “secret network” of well funded climate resistance.
Lately, this sort of hateful and distorted thinking is getting a bit worrisome as statistician William Briggs observes:
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RICO-style prosecution. For what tangible crime? Well, heresy.
(Has to be heresy. The amount of money I have extorted from my skepticism hovers between nada and nil.)
This put me in mind of a passage from from Dawn to Decadence by the indispensable Jacques Barzun (pp 271-272):
The smallest divergence from the absolute is grave error and wickedness. From there it is a short step to declaring war on the misbelievers. When faith is both intellectual and visceral, the overwhelming justification is that heresy imperils other souls. If the erring sheep will not recant, he or she becomes a source of error in others….[P]ersecution is a health measure that stops the spread of an infectious disease—all the more necessary that souls matter more than bodies.
Even though not all admit this, their actions prove that souls are more important than bodies. Thought crimes are in many senses worse than physical crimes; they excite more comment and are more difficult to be forgiven for. Perhaps the worst crime is to be accused of racism (the charges needn’t be, and frequently are not, true; the accusation makes the charge true enough). It is now a thought crime to speak out against sodomy (and to say you personally are a participant is a matter of media celebration).
Barzun said that sins against political correctness “so far” have only been punished by “opprobrium, loss of employment, and virtual exclusion from the profession.” (I can confirm these.) Barzun said, “any form of persecution implies an amazing belief in the power of ideas, indeed of mere words casually spoken.”
The Enlightened, who simper when calling each other “free thinkers”, in one of their favorite myths tell us how they left the crime of heresy behind. The word has been forgotten, maybe, but not the idea.
Stalin sent his victims to the firing squad for the crime of “counter-revolution”, not heresy. Being repulsed by sodomy is not heresy, it is “homophobic”. Believing in God and practicing that belief is not heresy, but “fundamentalism.” Cautioning that affirmative action may cause the pains the program is meant to alleviate isn’t heresy, but “racism.” Saying that unskillful Climate models which routinely bust their predictions should not be trusted is not heresy, but is “anti-science.”
Boy, has Science come up in the world to be a personage one can sin against.
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And AlexJC notes in Der Ewige “Denier” on the NYT cartoon depicting killing “deniers” that a pattern is emerging.
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Some commentators on WUWT have likened this little scene to Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda in the 1930s, and I’m inclined to agree. There’s a pertinent article, called “Defining the Enemy” on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
One crucial factor in creating a cohesive group is to define who is excluded from membership. Nazi propagandists contributed to the regime’s policies by publicly identifying groups for exclusion, inciting hatred or cultivating indifference, and justifying their pariah status to the populace.
There’s a picture you can find online of the “stereotypical Jew”, which was drawn by Nazi cartoonist Philipp “Fips” Rupprecht and published in the newspaper Der Stürmer sometime before the end of World War II. Although different in some respects to the “stereotypical Denier” in the NYT, there are a number of similarities. Both subjects are male, well-dressed, rather plump and well-fed and standing with their chests slightly thrust out. Both have distinctive noses – the Jew has a large hooked nose and the Denier has one that is more reminiscent of a pig’s snout. Both are smoking a cigar, which is clearly the mark of an evil plutocrat anywhere, Jewish or otherwise. The similarities are quite unsettling.
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Indeed, they are, and worse yet, few if any, in the general science community seem to have the courage to stand up and say anything about these people and the actions they do and/or suggest as being inappropriate or antithetical to science.
Roy Spencer is the exception for scientists who have decided to speak out against this hate and smear, and has decided to fight back by labeling anyone who calls him a “climate denier” as a “climate Nazi”. I’m not sure how effective or useful that will be, but clearly he’s reached a tipping point. He adds:
A couple people in comments have questioned my use of “Nazi”, which might be considered over the top. Considering the fact that these people are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did — all in the name of what they consider to be a righteous cause — I think it is very appropriate. Again, I didn’t start the name-calling.
The parallels with what occurred in pre-WWII Germany seem to be emerging with the constant smearing of climate skeptics for the purpose of social isolation, and now Oreskes is calling for members of this group to be charged with crimes under RICO. This isn’t new, we’ve heard these calls for climate skeptics to be arrested before, such as Grist’s David Roberts who proposed Nuremberg style trials for climate skeptics, but lately it seems to be picking up speed.
We even have people in the same climate clique playing virtual dress up as Nazis, such as we’ve learned recently from the “Skeptical Science” forum showing proprietor John Cook in full Nazi uniform in the image seen at right. There were several Nazi images depicting SkS.
And, there’s the call for removing dissenting opinion from the press, such as from “Forecast the Facts” (a funded NGO that attacks media)
“Brad Johnson (@ClimateBrad), the editor of HillHeat.com and a former Think Progress staffer, boasted on Twitter that 110,000 people had urged the newspaper “to stop publishing climate lies” like the Krauthammer piece.”
We’ve already seen one prominent newspaper refuse to publish letters from climate skeptics with others following suit.
What is most troubling to me is that Oreskes and Goldenberg appear to be of Jewish descent (as does Dr. Michael Mann) and yet they all seem blind to the pattern of behavior they are engaging in and advocating; the social isolation and prosecution of climate skeptics which seems so reminiscent of the ugliness in times past. I honestly don’t understand how they can’t see what they are doing to silence climate skeptics is so very wrong.
It does seem true, that those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
From my viewpoint, the only way to combat this ugliness is with taking a stand. These tactics must be called out when they are used. I urge readers to write thoughtful and factual letters, guest commentary where accepted, and blog posts, countering such smear whenever appropriate.
MODERATION NOTE: Comments will be heavily scrutinized, keep it civil.
Looking at the jet-setting doomsayers of the WEF and UN climate change charlatans, we have:
http://figueres-unfccc.net/2014/01/21/climate-change-issues-key-at-annual-world-economic-forum-wef-in-davos/
“Climate change is taking centrer stage in Davos in 2014. A record 23 sessions, indeed fully one third of this year’s WEF are being devoted to how the world can transition to a low carbon economy and keep a global temperature rise within safety zones for billions of people.”
….
One of the comments made about as much sense as Figueres’s nattering, to wit:
Harrison says: (January 28, 2014 at 6:14 pm )
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the cage to play and be with the family. Find
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…
(Harrison hears a who….)
…..
In the spirit of “follow the money”, digging deeper on this website and the WEF website (www.weforum.org) is a real eye-opener (actually, sickening…)…
… from her Bio:
“Ms. Figueres holds a Masters Degree in Anthropology from the London School of Economics and a certificate in Organizational Development from Georgetown University. She was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1956 and has two daughters.”
perhaps Ms.Figueres should spend more time digging for facts (and science) and less time digging in other people’s wallets….what unmitigated Hubris – what is she going to do, stare at the (invisible) CO2 and shout “Peace, be still” ???
Then again, Soros fancies himself as the creator…
The thing I have never understood about any of this: If I have a theory that is going to revolutionize science, I will be proud enough of it to put it forward to withstand all scrutiny. If it survives the ravages, poking, and prodding of the skeptical people whose previous theory I supplant then then I go down in history as another Newton or Einstein. If it doesn’t, I should be the one to publicize the failing and show where it fell down. Ethics requires it; the advancement of science demands it! In the end we are all just contributors to the human understanding of the universe, and we make each others ideas stronger.
I’ve never understood the attitude of those involved in climate science. Of course I want your data to find something wrong with it. Of course I want your methodology so I can find something wrong with it. Of course I will test your ideas as I would expect you to test mine. That is how science advances.
This is happening in every area of society not just climate. Everyone who works for a large company for example knows that expressing any opinion once regarded as self evident and common sense can get you fired. Someone once asked a pertinent question for times such as these. “How do you talk to a generation that listens with its eyes and thinks with its feelings?”
Good question.
Anthony,
I am 100% agreement with this essay. It seemed like quite a venting and a long needed one I suspect.
There is no hyperbole here and your references to the socialist tyrants, Stalin, and the German National Socialists is exactly on mark. It is happening now, and here in the USA of all places. The knives are being sharpened.
You are correct with the fundamental thread, that free speech is under attack and the people perpetrating the attack are those who have the most to lose should free speech be obsoleted.
I hope I have the courage of Bonhoffer and Von Hildebrand who were hunted by the German National Socialists.
Hooray Anthony…. HIP HIP Hooray!
Naomi Oreskes looks as attractive as a rabid feminist flying off on a broom. John kerry? John Holdren? The Obama administration exales the sulfurous fumes of a rackteer influenced corrupt organization.
I fear this will continue to get worse, and at some point, someone will act on all this. I fear even more that it will not be condemned when it happens.
Merchants of smear? More like merchants of hate.
Just finished “Fallen Angels”. Seems almost prescient…
FerdinandAkin says:
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
– Mahatma Gandhi
It looks like we are fully into the fighting stage at this point.
Problem is, Gandhi was relying on the civilized world to condemn ‘them’. That’s how you won.
Here is David’s problem, and why some many thing the science is settled.
I don’t, I suspect most here don’t claim it’s not a greenhouse gas.
What I do claim is:
1)That there’s no evidence in surface station records that the increase in Co2 changed how quickly the planet cools. Ergo, whatever caused the surface temps to go up wasn’t due to Co2.
2)That models based on Co2 being the main control knob are wrong.
3)That CAGW is heavily supported by various Green groups, that it was the “Killer App” they were looking for to finaly get a cause that had some teeth to it.
One of these days warmists will actually get this, and figure out they’ve been played as fools.
Oh, and if someone wants to pay me to do what I’ve spent years working on for free, please email me.
richard wrote, “It’s incredible, Roy Spencer comes out and calls them Nazis, I think this is wrong of him but…”
KirkH agrees, writing, “I, as a German, would strongly recommend that Roy Spencer not use the ‘climate nazi’ term.”
But, actually, Roy Spencer did not call them “Nazis.” He called them “Climate Nazis,” which is a very different thing. It’s a literary reference to the famous Seinfeld “Soup Nazi,” as explained at Language Log.
The misunderstanding is understandable for DirkH, since he’s probably never seen Seinfeld. But, richard, I think you’re an American, right? As an American, you’re expected to have a passing familiarity with Seinfeld. So No soup for you!!!
Should read
Just like Travesty Trenberth, Oreskes is seeing her entire career so far being exposed as a pile of shit. Typical pissant human response – screw the rest of the world.
Welcome to the internet age you Trofim Lysenko wannabes.
(Your Josef Stalin equivalent is John Kerry, hee hee hee)
Richard Courtney, in a previous thread you said,
”
“The ultra-right governments of H1tler and Mussolini killed millions.
And please don’t start the nonsense of black is white and right is left.”
How can you be so smart and dumb and naive at the same time. I’ll say no more. Your hopeless. Or may your definition of socialism is unique.
I merely use the normally accepted understandings of political left and right whereas you pretend that is “dumb” by using neo-fasc1st misrepresentations.
I used to have a modicum of respect for you. You label my comment daft and suggests I represent neofasc1ism. I am a libertarian in the vane that Hayek was. So cut your highfalutin, socialist, elite snobbery. Schmuck.
highflight56433:
re your daft post at February 24, 2014 at 1:41 pm.
You have yet again posted your inflammatory lies and this time on an additional thread.
It is NOT a “personal attack” to demand that a liar retracts his lies and apologises.
Retract and apologise.
Richard
stewgreen says –
“.. Fridays broadcast of the ABC Australia of the Naked Scientists Q&A at the AAAS (Science Conference)
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/nakedscientists/ …
26min 30s There is this question from “Science Journalist” Joel Werner”
first, i can’t find a podcast on the ABC Naked Scientists’ website, or anywhere else on ABC for this program. maybe it was there at some point, but not now? i heard the program on ABC, but didn’t take in the name of the person asking the question.
therefore, thanx for posting the name Joel Werner, which i’ve now confirmed by listening to the 26mins30secs section of the program from the link below. I’ve been posting excerpts from a transcript i found on Cambridge University/BBC Naked Scientists website, which identifies the person asking the “climate deniers” (whatever that is) question as a Joel Veness (btw there is a Joel Veness, formerly UNSW, now Uni of Alberta, a Google scholar studying Reinforcement Learning, but i don’t know how this name ended up in the transcript, which is only available on the Cambridge website, or even if it was referring to this particular guy). THAT IT WAS ABC/BBC’s JOEL WERNER – THAT MAKES SENSE.
14 Feb: Cambridge Uni/Naked Scientists: Naked at the AAAS
Joel – Joel Veness, science journalist. Like most good ideas at this conference, this question came from some spirited drinks we had after the session yesterday. Climate deniers often use the tools of propaganda to further their campaign. Should science be embracing these similar tools?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/naked-scientists/show/20140214-1/nocache/1/?cHash=7cc4c94970a73724aa3bd0a2037b8257&tx_nakscishow_pi1%5Btranscript%5D=1
the “stun gun” remarks by taxpayer-funded ABC’s Chris Smith & Robyn Williams is what shocked me most:
But I think what has been shown Naomi Oreskes who was at San Diego and is now at Harvard in her book “Merchants of Doubt”. As Marc said, what one side is using is rational argument and trying to get the information over and it’s complex. When there’s something that knocks their ideas, they write a 20-page article which is published in one of the journal which their mates read and on the other side, the people who are knocking climate science are using all the techniques of advertising, of propaganda and the sowing of doubt. Naomi Oreskes is sighting the tobacco companies who, for 40 years or more were trying to say that cigarettes may be okay. There is doubt about the science. So, it’s unequal and I think it’s time the scientists really got up, didn’t use propaganda, but use short, sharp sentences and fought equally.
***Chris Smith, ABC – And stun guns might help as well.
Robyn Williams, ABC – Yes…
Bob:
re your post at February 24, 2014 at 2:14 pm.
It may come as a surprise to you but I could not care less that I don’t have the respect of a neo-naz1. Actually, I would be concerned if I had it.
Demonising those who don’t share your unpleasant views is typical of Naz1s.
Richard
@dbstaley –
Extraordinarily well said, kudos and more kudos for your comments (and Anthony’s). We are indeed dealing with scared people who have no regard for the rights of others, especially those who disagree with their meme. I agree that these people are capable of violence, and that capability, in my opinion, extends all the way to the top of a government that refuses to back off from the AGW meme in the least and harbors an individual who shows clear signs of the sort of personality found in history’s great mega-mass murderers.
@DirkH –
As a sometime scholar of the American Revolution (Ph.D., American History, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1970), I undertook an extensive study of the thought processes of not only our own Founding Fathers, but also those of the leaders of other revolutions, including Nazi Germany’s. And I can assure you that Dr. Spencer is spot on in his characterization of AGW extremists as Nazis – their thought processes mirror those of the Nazi leaders with frightening precision. Even Obama’s demeanor and behavior starkly mimics Hitler’s – everything from the savage attacks on political opponents to the obsessive secrecy to the utter disregard of law and constitution, even to the “I don’t know about that” airhead persona.
@debstEaley –
My apologies for misspelling your name.
Mark:
A February 24, 2014 at 1:42 pm you lie
NO! I don’t!
Withdraw your offensive lie and apologise.
Richard
Anthony,
Occassionally the posts on this site are misses, but mostly they are hits. This one is an absolute bullseye.
The only correct response to “hate speach” is to use facts, logic and rational arguments. These tools have not been available to the alarmists since the beginning. They are now drawing deep into their own zealotry because they have nowhere else to go.
Anthony, the whole discourse appears to have left science behind and replaced it with the religion of Settled Science. Please don’t take the bait from the alarmists because then you are fighting on their non-science, rhetorical home turf.
I am waging the battle to defend the integrity of science which outside of climatology seems to be relatively unharmed and on solid ground. The alarmists don’t stand a chance there, and those scientists who side with the alarmists ought to examine their understanding of science. Those who apply a rudimentary understanding of the scientific method to the observed data and compare it to models should be able to see that there is a disconnect. And that rudimentary understanding of the scientific method should lead the dispassionate amateur to the conclusion that the models and by extension the CAGW hypothesis is WRONG.
No need for terms like ‘deniers’ and ‘Nazis’ when we are using the scientific method.
Friends:
Our host has provided an excellent article about pro-AGW zealots attempting to demonise those who refuse to accept their dogma.
Some members of the ultra-right are using it as excuse to demonise socialists.
Does anybody fail to see the irony of this?
As I said above
When any group is demonised the result is always horrific. Religious beliefs, political beliefs, racial characteristics, caste, social status, and ethnicity have all been used as excuse for such demonization. This thread is about such demonization of AGW-sceptics, and the ultra-right is using it to demonise “socialists”. I am trying to defend against horror.
Richard
Yo, Dickie, take your parody elsewhere.
Not only the RICO prosecutions, but the carbon tax – a killer, literally, for low-income people (33,000 dead from hypothermia, in the UK last year.
Well, I see that Mod kindly removed, an errant interloping question from the end of my post above.
Purely accidental, as I was talking on the phone to my tenant down by Fresno, as to what to do about the mangy coyote outside my gate, and I typed it by accident, rather than asking him the question. Good catch there mod.
But as to Suzanne Goldberg’s U-tube speech; I’m fully supportive of her right of free speech; at least we have that here in America.
But when you take up the mantle of advocacy, which is your right, you have to ditch the woollen fleece of impartial “journalism.”
You wail of the decline of “legacy media”, while embracing a non peer reviewed open alternative like U-tube to publicise your point.
As a historical note of note, it is just one week and 609 years, since the death of Tamerlane; that romantic hero of a bygone Camelot; of Marco Polo, and Tashkent, and Samarkand.
Actually a contortion of Timur the Lame, he really had a way with dissidents. Oddly, Timur was also the incognito Prince of Puccini’s Turandot; one of the real operas.
But it was the Princess Turandot, who was in the beheading business; not Timur. I guess she was a man hater too.
And not coincidently, the older of the two Boston marathon bombers, was named Tamerlane, by his mother; no doubt one who knew her history.
But not all the news is bad.
I didn’t stay till the end; about 67 laps to go, but I see Dale Earnhardt Junior did win the 6hrs rain delayed (climate change) Daytona 500 last night; so there !