Over the weekend Dr. Roger Pielke Junior let it be known on his Twitter feed that he’s had it up to his “keester” with certain climate activists, especially the ones that are harassing a former associate of his, simply because that person IS a former associate.
It’s pretty ugly and it underscores how climate zealotry has gotten out of control. I myself have been at the receiving end of some of this to the point where I have had to increase security at my home and at my business.
I’ve also had to increase my personal security due to the fact that on occasion, due to the fact that I’m a well known local person and recognizable due to my exposure on radio and television, I am occasionally accosted in public over my stance on climate. But my issues pale in comparison to what Dr. Pielke writes of.
http://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/483249583699787776
http://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/483249938235543553
And this is what I consider to be the quote of the week:
http://twitter.com/RogerPielkeJr/status/483252448480751617
When I think of “obsessed and malicious” in the context of “climate scientists”, this image immediately sprang to mind. This was from AGU 2013, where a session about “climate scientists under attack” was mainly just a big whiny gripe about FOIA requests.
The irony of this photo is that one of the people on that panel has been launching lawsuits against climate skeptics, yet I don’t know of a single climate skeptic that has launched a lawsuit against any climate scientist, other than a countersuit to force the issue into court, rather than let it be drug out for years as some sort of slow motion financial punishment.
The other irony was that sitting in the front row listening to how these folks tell their stories of how they have been so “horribly abused” by climate skeptics questioning their science, the “climate antichrist” (me) sat there quietly and listened, not disrupting, being careful not to appear threatening in any way. I asked no questions, and left the meeting quietly.
In addition to the regular attacks that we get daily of climate skeptics just being stupid, paid for shills, etc. we occasionally get wild claims that climate skeptics should be put on trial, imprisoned, or even killed. There is also an undercurrent of climate ugliness that pervades in social media. I’m not talking about the obvious rants such as climate skeptics are shills for “big oil”, I’m talking about when unscrupulous people bring your family into it.
There’s just no excuse for this sort of stuff:
I have blurred out the name which happens to be the name of “Goddard’s” son. I’m not going to add to the damage by allowing the name here.
Thankfully, upon being challenged on this ugliness, Mr. Venema apologized and retracted his Tweet; he says it was a re-tweet, but even if it was, re-tweeting something so obviously ugly and stupid puts his motivation into question.
The whole episode is odd, because on one hand Mr. Venema is preaching for tolerance and restraint, and more civil scientific discourse, and then we have an “off the rails” moment like this coming from him.
We all have our moments where our judgment lapses, but this suggests to me that the inner id of some climate activist folks is saying that they know better than we do how to live our lives and raise our children, which is often more the characteristics of a religion, than a science.
Maybe this inner conflict is why some climate activists play dress up Nazis, though, it isn’t always so ugly, sometimes they dress up as superheroes.
[Victor Venema] may have a psychological problem. Re-Tweeting someones venomous tweet without thinking might come from his normally repressed subconscious beliefs IMO that’s why some people get violent after consuming alcohol, whereas others get sleepy.
[there’s no need for name calling here, Anthony]
I’m currently reading Gary Taube’s book Good Calories, Bad Calories, and it’s amazing how closely the ‘low fat is a heart healthy diet’ scam parallels the climate change church. Not based on real science, no definitive studies that prove the connection, government funding for low fat preachers but not for anyone who have difference conclusions, etc.
I think the real answer is to get government out of science, and our food, altogether.
Steve Goddard posted the tweet unedited. Since Venema was the one having the conversation (tweet session) with Goddard, it does not look like a retweet.
And it serves to validate Pointman’s narrative of his abusiveness.
Jimmy Haigh says:
Fortunately, democracy allows us to get rid of bad government.
It may be worse than that. Bureaucracy has taken over government. We can’t vote them out. And their numbers are so large that they are a significant voting block, so they get pay packets out of all proportion to what they produce. Priorities have gotten so skewed that bureaucrats’ pay comes first, and the potholes are only filled, bridges repaired, and schools fixed when gov’t comes to the ‘rescue’ by raising taxes. The media doesn’t seem to report on any of that very much. That’s because most of the mainstream media is pretty far to the Left, and thus approves of Big Government:
It seems like every time we see evidence of the left’s hateful worldview, we learn it’s a hoax. Remember when KFC demanded a disfigured girl leave their restaurant because she scared the customers? That never happened either. How many times have we found “Faggot” and “Nigger” scrawled on a wall only to discover later it was done by the same non-hetero-normative person of color who claimed to be a victim? Is there anyone in the country who isn’t convinced every journalist outside of Fox is in the tank for Obama? [source]
How do you fix that problem? I see it only getting worse; because the sheep haven’t been sheared enough. There is more taxpayer loot to be had.
And Willis wonders why a lot of posters prefer to remain anonymous…….
It can’t be said that only one side has cornered the market on intolerance.
It will get worse as their cherished dreams of re-making the world dissolve as the late warming trend fades into the past. Skeptics will increasingly become targets of viciousness as the frustration of the alarmists turns to hatred.
[snip – off topic]
[snip – off topic]
“Never trust anyone who is trying to please their god or save the world, since their ends can justify any means” Anonymous
I think WUWT was surprised at the uprising to defend Goddardposition re USCHN data. He never really read what was REALLY going on.These are NOT nice people (re the debate), and probably cannot afford to be nice because a lot of their income and families depends on this scam continuing.USCHN will not concede EVER It will definitely die a slow death. We need tough people to deal with a tough situation. It does sort of remind me of Chamberlain (Anthony) and then Churchill (Goddard) dealing with Hitler (AGW) JUST JOKING!
ie we need more Churchills.
Venema’s comments are venemous comments
Anything is possible says:
June 30, 2014 at 9:33 am
Not true in the slightest. I have posted more than once that there are a number of very valid reasons why people might write anonymously, ranging from personal security to job and family concerns, holding of public office, etc.
My point has been that if you post anonymously, you perforce lose some things, like the ownership of your own words, or any claim to the value of your education or your work, or the ability to criticize the historical actions of others. If you are concealing your own life history, you have no right to attack the history of others.
You also lose any responsibility for what you say, “Anything”. For example, you can hurl vile imprecations at someone today, change your alias, and show up tomorrow as someone else. I can’t do that. As a result, I always, always heavily discount any non-scientific statements made by anonymous posters, like … well, like this post. Mr. Anything is free to make a false accusation against me with no quotes and no backup, because he can walk away from it tomorrow.
As a result, Mr. Anything’s opinion is weightless. If he doesn’t think enough of his words to sign them, if he has other considerations that are more important to him, that’s fine, he’s free to be anonymous … but in that case, why should we put much weight on his words?
Like I said, it’s fine to post anonymously, plenty of valid reasons. But you need to realize that when you post anonymously, you lose credibility because you are avoiding responsibility for what you say.
w.
I initially became skeptical of Global Warming (the name in vogue at the time) precisely due to the behavior of so many of the mainstream climate “scientists.” There are no, or precious few, other fields of science where this sort of behavior – neither the research nor the personal behavior – would be tolerated for even a moment.
Theories are called into doubt every day, but only in climate science do we see this sort of thing. The mainstream media is only too happy to repeat claims that even a trivial grant from an oil company completely destroys all credibility of anyone or any research that casts any doubt on CAGW, yet this isn’t even noticed or is completely ignored by the same people. Anyone who doesn’t believe there are vested interests of the highest order at stake on the other side should explain why we only see this behavior in climate “science.”
It boggles the mind how anyone could take seriously, let alone trust, the research of a “scientist” that behaves like this – particularly those same “scientists” that throw the scientific method out the window before, during, and after such behavior. If someone lowers themselves to this level in their personal behavior, why would anyone believe that they would hold their research to a higher level? It doesn’t follow.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 30, 2014 at 10:24 am
“you perforce lose some things, like the ownership of your own words, or any claim to the value of your education or your work, or the ability to criticize the historical actions of others.”
Translated:
You lose the ability to use some of the best logical fallacies we “scientists” have invented over the years to con stupid ppl into taking our position.
In a real science debate one loses nothing by remaining anonymous other then maybe having to fight with the huge section of corrupt “scientists” that will take credit for your work.
heh should read
“In a real science debate one loses [b]nothing[/b] by remaining anonymous other[..]
[Fixed, and I agree completely with the sentiment. In science, all that matters are the ideas. -w.]
This bullying behavior will never stop until someone stands up to the bullies themselves. How many times this year has someone been abused in such a manner that they had to take action to compensate for such?
These bullies have free reign until someone presses charges against them for the crimes they commit. Out their names and let the public see who they really are.
Start here>
http://www.stopbullying.gov/
“Thankfully, upon being challenged on this ugliness, Mr. Venema apologized and retracted his Tweet; he says it was a re-tweet, but even if it was, re-tweeting something so obviously ugly and stupid puts his motivation into question.”
This kind of comment is just another form “we know where you live” threatening behaviour. It’s an incitement to others to start burning crosses outside your door, “retracting” a tweet changes nothing.
Just one more reason why some people use pseudos on-line. Goddard probably wishes he’d remained Goddard.
Eric Worrall says: “If you truly believe that the future of humanity is in the balance, that if you fail the world may be destroyed, there is no crime which is beyond contemplation. Any act, no matter how heinous, pales into insignificance compared to the deaths of billions of people. A crisis is a moral slippery slope.”
Hitler did not think he was evil; he thought of himself as a great messiah whose destiny was to save Germany. He was NOT insane. When he wasn’t giving speeches, he could sound perfectly rational. The outcome was WWII, the Holocaust, and all the documented and undocumented evil perpetrated by his Nazi bureaucracy. A crisis is a slippery slope only if you believe the end justifies the means.
Eliza says:
We need tough people to deal with a tough situation. It does sort of remind me of Chamberlain (Anthony) and then Churchill (Goddard) dealing with Hitler (AGW) JUST JOKING!
=====
I think of Anthony more as John McCain or Lindsey Graham – conservative and strong when people are paying attention but liberal and compromising 80-90% of the time.
Willis: “As a result, Mr. Anything’s opinion is weightless. ”
All “opinions” in the blogosphere are worthless, fart’s in an exponentially expanding hurricane of hot air.
The value of a scientific idea, backed up by facts and data stands on it’s on merit.
I like your argument of self-regulation in the tropics by tropical storms not because it was presented the _real_ Willis Eschenbach who has “skin” in it, but because I think the facts back it up.
I like Tisdale’s pointing out that El Nino / La Nina is not a symmetrical oscillation and thus can be a _cause_ of inter-decadal variability, not because some untrained guy with rudimentary data processing capabilities suggested it using a “real” name, but because I think the argument has merit, _despite_ the author’s personal history.
I put those two points as two major contributions I’ve seen in the years I’ve following this site.
I would give both the same weight if they were presented by Jaques Shit or tonyX , because I assess them on their content not on the renown of the author.
Eric Worrall at 7:57 am
“If you truly believe that the future of humanity is in the balance, that if you fail the world may be destroyed, there is no crime which is beyond contemplation. Any act, no matter how heinous, pales into insignificance compared to the deaths of billions of people.”
If the warmists truly believe in CAGW, that the evidence is unmistakeable, then they cannot excuse the hiding of methods and data. I moment I began to pay attention to global warming and the science behind it, I found the scientists were hiding both methods and data. I said fraud.
If I had honestly found what I thought was a dangerous problem I would be showing the data and methods with everyone, saying “Please look at this.” If shown I was wrong, I would be grateful. Thank goodness I was wrong. If ignored, I would be asking for ideas on what else I could do to prove the point. I cannot conceive of failure to disclose the data. I am justified in saying that those who cry wolf and then hide the data are frauds. If they were right, then they are putting billions of peoples lives in danger by hiding the data and delaying the acceptance of the problem.
It was wrong to use the name of Steven Goddard’s son on twitter, I have deleted that tweet and I have apologized for that.
I should not have mentioned the name of Steve Goddard’s son, but the above post is not a complete picture of what happened. He was enormously rude in a large number of tweets, “intellectually challenged”, “talking brownshirt trash”, “ass kicking to improve your behavior”, “scumbags rationalize their cowardice”, “a severely defective personality”, “You are indeed a world class coward. I will bet you have difficulty looking at yourself in the mirror”
As a consequence I asked him if he thought to be a good example for his son. I happened to know the name of his son. After the Heartland Institute published their speaker list, which mentioned that Steven Goddard was Tony Heller, I googled his name and one of the top hits was his YouTube channel, with a video of the graduation ceremony of his son.
In response Goddard published my photo and address and allowed a comment that people should visit me there:
hannuko says: “I wonder are there any readers of this blog in Bonn? Somebody should go visit him at the university and explain that threatening children (or threatening anyone) is not a proper behavour and living far away from your target is not something that justifies this.”
I hope that Goddard will remove that post and apologize, like I did, and will leave it up to the reader to judge who behaved worse.
Greg says:
June 30, 2014 at 11:11 am
Thank you, Sir. I was contemplating my response to Willis, but you said it better than I ever could.
By the way, it was not a retweet and I did not claim it to be a retweet. I have retweeted one of the many ugly tweets of Steven Goddard and ironically commented that that should not be seen as endorsement.
@Victor V – Yea, not too many people as stupid as you as to publicly threaten someone else’s children. Hence, why I doubted it was a retweet by you.