Reposted from Polar Bear Science
Posted on November 20, 2019 |
My satisfaction over four successful lectures in and around Delft in the Netherlands over the last few days was somewhat soured yesterday by the news that the EIKE conference in Munich scheduled for 22-23 November (my next and last stop on my European tour) was on the verge of collapse because of threats from anti-science protesters.
Yesterday, I gave a polar bear lecture to more than one hundred 15-16 year olds at a high school The Hague who gave me their undivided attention. The teachers who invited me were very please with the content I presented: I talked about reading science papers and reports critically, hypothesis testing, and the consequences of being over-confident of one’s assumptions. Two days before that, I saw the polar bears at the Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam and spoke in front of the shark tank to a large audience that included several journalists.
My satisfaction over these successful lectures was short-lived. I found out late yesterday that the organizers of the Munich conference had had their venue cancelled at the last minute due to intimidation by activists from a group called the ‘Anti-Capitalist Climate Society.‘ Apparently, a crowd of about 20 thugs staged a flash mob at the hotel booked to host the EIKE meeting and threatened further havoc and disruption to guests if the conference was allowed to go ahead.
Shamefully, it appears that either the hotel did not bother to call police or the police did nothing about the activists’ threats. Why not? The hotel now claims the safety of their guests are their first priority. However, the increased risk to the safety of these guests was coming from the protestors, not from EIKE members and speakers. Why blame the mild-mannered scientists for being ‘controversial’ rather than the radical activists threatening hotel guests with violence?
For EIKE’s report on these events, see the Google translated English version here, original German here. Those in support of this anti-science extortion crowed about it here, while Breitbart provided a journalistic report here.
Pierre Gosslin at NoTricksZone has written a scathing blog post, which has been reposted at WUWT: Thugs bully Munich Conference Center – Force Cancellation of Climate Skeptic Conference
An alternative venue for the conference and accommodation has been found but it will remain secret for the time being to avoid more of the same threats. Organizer Wolfgang Mueller has had to really scramble to put the conference back together but he has gotten the job done.
Which means I’ll be in Munich on Friday and Saturday to talk about the polar bear catastrophe that never happened because of failed sea ice projections and bad polar bear survival models, and to support others who come to present their findings and discuss the latest climate change issues. As for every conference I have attended in my long career, I do not expect to agree with everything said but I will defend the right of these colleagues to have their say without threat of violence.
Freedom of speech must be defended in the strongest possible terms: without it both science and democracy are sunk. I agree with the conclusion of Jo Nova this morning: the best response to this pathetic attempt by activists to shut down a civilized discussion of climate science is to make the EIKE conference twice as big next year.
From the article: “Freedom of speech must be defended in the strongest possible terms: without it both science and democracy are sunk.”
That’s right. It’s as simple as that.
This is very much a freedom of speech topic!
But the organizers should take the opportunity presented by the intolerance,the hapless cowering by the hotel management and the broad media interest!
Contact the media at once! Mock the “Climate Science” community for running away from debate! Challenge them to a nationwide debate reviewing key IPCC claims. If the science is settled, the fear-mongers should win hands-down.
Or do they fear losing an argument based on facts?
Kurt in Switzerland
I totally agree, call them out on their “facts”. The only people who act aggressive or violent are the ones who lie or feel threatened by the truth.
They cannot win an argument so they turn violent. Low IQ.
But they’re winning the battle!
Time to come up with a different strategy (and more ingenious tactics).
Dress up like them and launch counter protests against what they support. Fight Skull-Thuggery with Skull-Thuggery
I wonder if the alarmists have given up on Polar Bears. That would be an impressive win for Dr. Crockford.
Meanwhile, the Sumatran Rhino has gone extinct in the last few days. It was due to addressable non-climate problems, not hyperbole. The darling Polar Bears face nothing like true endangered animals.
“Meanwhile, the Sumatran Rhino has gone extinct in the last few days. “
Mark, they are only extinct in Malaysia. Still 80 alive worldwide.
Blame the chinese bush doctors.
“because of threats from anti-science protesters”
This is a very good description of these climate protesters…anti-science. That is what we should refer to them as, and use that term when describing them to others. They are the anti-science ones.
Congratulations to Susan Crockford for continuing to soldier on.
“make the EIKE conference twice as big next year”
and move it to a country where the rule of law is still respected.
That would not be any country in the EU. That ship left dock long ago.
Hold the conference in Tulsa, OK on April 4-5, 2020. That’s the weekend of an 11 acre indoor gun show. Maybe the climate thugs would like to come to flyover country where guns, oil, and gas are highly valued, and the anti-capitalist thugs would get a good run for their money. It is a really nice and friendly city, especially lovely in the Spring.
Sad. History repeating itself in Munich.
Until the spineless cowards in our governments and businesses wise up and realize that these are just climate fascists and meet their threats with force and jail to protect the rest of us, we’re headed to a dark future not seen since the fall of the weimar republic. If a conservative did the kinds of things these thugs are doing they would be behind bars instantly.
The authorities continue to treat these thugs the same as peaceful protesters. They are not peaceful, and they are not protesters. They are Brown Shirt thugs.
You certainly have your work cut out for you Susan –
I happened to listen in on a 4th graders school project on polar bears recently, and the main theme was how hard life and survival is for these animals now because global warming has melted all the ice that they live on at the Arctic.
Main source of reference was National Geographic.
One kid contributed her ‘knowledge’ that everything is dying now all around the world.
Teachers who push this kind of tosh at innocent kids should be locked up for child abuse.
“Teachers who push this kind of tosh at innocent kids should be locked up for child abuse.”
Yes, they should. Along with alarmist scientists, politicians and journalists. They are all scaring the children with their dishonest CO2 horror stories.
Look what you have done, Alarmists! You have a child thinking everything on Earth is dying an unatural death! No doubt that child is not the only one. How does it feel to scare children to death with your pure speculation on human-caused climate change? Are you proud of yourselves for fooling the public? I wouldn’t be surprised if you were. Look what the Climategate conspirators have done with their lies. This is a direct consequence. Somebody ought to pay.
Tom, don’t you realize that your cultivated sense of morality is so yesterday? The only real life-affirming excitement for these people is their own brute force power wielding over their defenseless rational countrymen to make a “historic” difference. Couldn’t depriving them of such personal fulfillment where so many factual findings are plainly uncomfortable for them to bear be regarded as cruelly abusive?
Susan, are you sure these threats of violence and shutdown have actually taken place?
I’ve not seen anything about it in The Guardian.
(/sarc)
That old-time leftist, Eric Arthur Blair, had it right when he wrote, under the pseudonym of George Orwell, that totalitarian propaganda has a habit of calling something the opposite of what it really is. ‘Ignorance is strength’ is a classic example from his works.
Here we see those that freely label others as ‘science deniers’ (that is, labelling others as ‘deniers’ for actually seeking truth in science), to be the real deniers of scientific method and reason. To such people, ignorance is indeed strength. Therefore, all those that seek truth in science must be, in the totalitarian minds of those who shout ‘Science denier!’, resisted at all costs.
I do wish Dr. Crockford well, but one good way to beat these thugs at their own game is have the conference on a date different from the publicly announced date. Since those local cops are do-nothings in regard to protecting the public from violent crowds, I think it’s FAR past time that someone sued the pants off Merkel.
Oh, wait – sorry, sue the living daylights out of her. Suing the pants off her is a kind of pfffttt image in my head. Gack!!!
Munich has real form when it comes to stopping freedom of speech. You would think anyone with historical awareness would be aware of that Nazi history and stop it rather than allowing it to be repeated.
Sadly, Germany has learned nothing from its history. They think they have; they believe they are woke and responsible . But consistently when their values are tested, the rule of law implodes. Look at this situation, where the brownshirt thugs get to decide on whether a science conference goes ahead, while police shrug and blame the victims and their news media refuses to report the situation. Remember the mass New Years Eve sex assaults?– police did nothing but blame the victims while the news media refused to report on it until shamed into it by the outrage on social media.
I hope the UK gets the courage to leave the Euro-mess.
IIRC 17.5 million voters did vote to leave in 2016. However, the political elite and ruling classes didn’t like that result and have been delaying ever since so much so there is now going to be ANOTHER vote on the matter in December to achieve the “correct” result.
They hope to defeat the deplorable democracy with democratic gerrymandering forced through immigration reform (e..g. displaced populations) and planned parenthood (e.g. selective-child), witch hunts and warlock trials (e.g. labels and judgments), and a multi-decadel anthropogenic conflict of diversity (e.g. racism) and exclusion. They have made great progress.
Dr. Crockford, thanks for all your great work, giving kids and grownups the wisdom by example to think critically and looking for the truely good things in life.
The following interview has been mentioned before on WUWT and is worth mention again, it is captivating and insightful:
KGB defector Yuri Bezmenov’s warning to America
It is interesting to note that shortly after that interview with Bezmenov, the Soviet Union collapsed. He never predicted that! So while his discussion of the Soviet propaganda efforts is interesting, it’s important to keep in mind that he overestimated its effectiveness. That’s not to say there’s nothing to worry about; the Communists and Marxists have not given up. Just don’t panic.
I’ll second that, Paul Penrose.
Gary Kasparov, the otherwise-admirable ex world chess champion, is another emigre from the Soviet Union who also promotes an inflated view of the political capabilities of the Russian Secret Services.
While they are certainly capable of individual assassinations, they simply don’t have the resources to subvert the entirety of Western Democracies as long as we keep our own heads out of our asses. I know why I voted the way I did in the Brexit Poll, and most Trump Supporters know why they voted him in as President. Vladimir Putin had no say in that, whatever Gary Kasparov thinks.
As with the CIA, many of these people and organisations are quite happy to let others think they are smarter than than is the case. Just like climate climate modelers in many respects.
Well done, Dr. Crockford,
It is a sad comment on our values today that the governments, the media, and academia are not bothered by this Orwellian behaviour. Keep on plugging the truth! Many if us are behind you.
John, from Victoria, BC.
Release the polar bears on the activists…let they see first hand that the polar bears are alive and well (and will eat just about any animal when hungry)…
When do we get to see the content of these presentations at the conference?
Thank you Dr Crockford for your example.
You embody Andrew Breitbart’s maxim at the end of this post about ‘Walking towards the Fire’
Giving young people the facts is the beginning of their education, along with Critical Thinking.
This was discussed here WUWT, and NTZ just recently.
The antifa are in fact anti-deutscher, a radical group well known and classed by the BfV (Constitutional Protection Agency) as akin to terrorists.
That means certain laws come immediately into effect when civil peace is threatened.
It does add something to your panache to be the Undercover Polar Bear Scientist!
‘the polar bear catastrophe that never happened because of failed sea ice projections and bad polar bear survival models’
The sea ice is still in bad shape, still declining and there is no way this isn’t affecting polar bears. Constantly telling people the contrary without any actual field work or direct evidence is politics, not science.
24,000 in 2005
26,000 in 2015 (22,000 – 31,000)
28,500 in 2017
29,500 in 2018
https://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2019/02/State-of-the-polar-bear2018.pdf
I guess Griff got it wrong about the Polar Bears.
And he sounded so sure of himself.
Ronald Reagan: “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.'”