Dr. Susan Crockford
Academic freedom is squashed when scholars challenge any of the principle tenets of climate change and one of the most egregious examples of this has been the hounding of Roger Pielke Jr., explained in detail in a briefing paper published today.
If this is what climate change activists and their supporters in academia will do to a senior professor like Roger Pielke Jr., who really only disagrees with them on a single point, it’s no wonder that adjunct professors like myself have been virtually powerless in defending ourselves when the university mob mobilizes to attack with earnest (Laframboise 2019).
Here’s the executive summary, by civil liberties journalist Donna Laframboise:
Climate change, we’re told, threatens the ‘viability of our societies‘. In August 2021, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres declared the alarm bells ‘deafening‘. If this is even remotely the case, humanity is in urgent need of clear thinking.
But the climate movement rejects clear thinking. It has little interest in sorting facts from fiction, in ensuring its efforts are based on evidence rather than dogma. The hostility and venom directed at Roger Pielke Jr, a natural disasters expert who wholeheartedly supports decarbonisation of the global economy, demonstrates this beyond doubt.
Stray but a little from the dominant climate narrative, and activists will fantasise about your violent death. They will dismiss your peer-reviewed publications as marginal, accuse you of spreading disinformation, and successfully campaign to get you fired from part-time jobs. They will publish false allegations about you on the White House website, target journalists who quote you in news stories, and subject you to punitive, intrusive, and extensive financial investigation.
In recent years, Roger Pielke Jr has further discovered that academic freedom is an empty slogan at the University of Colorado (Boulder), his primary employer. Rather than defending its most senior environmental studies professor, his own department is now determinedly harassing and humiliating him.
From the paper’s press release issued by the Global Warming Policy Foundation:
Professor Pielke, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists, has been a vocal supporter of decarbonisation efforts, but this has not prevented green activists from engaging in an extraordinary campaign to silence him because he refuses to support claims that extreme weather is worsening.
And he is still being hounded today, with the University of Colorado Boulder launching and then dropping an investigation of his conduct, and forcing Pielke – their most senior environmental studies professor – to move to a tiny windowless office…
GWPF Director Dr Benny Peiser said:”The witch-hunt against Roger Pielke Jr. is symptomatic of a problem that we are seeing in universities across the developed world, with activists trying to silence dissenting opinions, and with the tacit, and in many case the active, support of administrators.
“Universities need to take great care – if the public lose faith in the system, public funding and generous donations from alumni can dry up very quickly.”
Laframboise, D. 2021. The Hounding of Roger Pielke Jr. Global Warming Policy Foundation Briefing Paper #58. 11 November. Pdf here.
See also
Laframboise, D. 2019. The Defenestration of Dr. Crockford: Silencing Dissent at the University of Victoria. Global Warming Policy Foundation Briefing Paper #45. 21 October. Pdf here.
Dissent is heresy or deviationism to the True Believer. No one can disagree with established dogma honestly, and must have evil intent.
A “belief” needs no data, just an agenda.
This is nothing but blatant advertising!!
What are they selling?
A lifetime of servitude
Thanks you mods
Just like in the Middle Ages; what a progress we have made……
Apocalypse Never? | Michael Shellenberger | The JBP Podcast – S4: E:51
https://youtu.be/aLxZF_EWaLE?t=17
Like medieval inquisitors, the left seeks out and destroys heretics. Journalists who at one time played up both sides, if only to generate controversy and sell papers, now slavishly follow the party line and join gleefully in the destruction of people and careers. Our only hope is that things they can’t hide, like higher gasoline and energy costs, will cause more people to question the premise of catastrophic global warming from greenhouse gases.
The pubic is still unaware that NOAA alters temperature data. Also, The Weather Channel continues to post a false video about July 2021 being the hottest ever … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQKbm4qU_lQ
GISTEMP follows what NOAA does, and so far this year month by month they have made the following number of changes to their Land Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI):
Last month I found that NOAA fabricated over 300,000 monthly USHCN temperature means since 1895 — and that was just the Max Mean Temps.
This is old news. Didn’t anyone follow Bob Tisdale’s Extremes and Averages in Contiguous US Climate? https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/13/separating-truth-and-misinformation-in-u-s-climate-data-guest-bob-tisdale/
The “Ten Commandments” is old news, yet when it comes to “Thou shall not fabricate climate data” it appears that there is still a failure to communicate. Therefore, any day now … CNN should pick up on this data violation.
Just treat them in the same manner as a rabid religious zealot. They’ve long since given up their understanding of science (if one was ever had) and they’re just running on belief.
I never bother engaging with people who think CAGW is real. You’re not in a rational argument
When you argue with a fool, two fools are arguing….
When academia becomes the enemy of inquiry and discovery, academia becomes the enemy of education. We will have to do our experiments somewhere else.
Defund the university.
The Wisconsin legislature recently passed a bill requiring school districts to publish on their web pages, the books and curriculum that are being used for teaching in the classrooms.
The union is, of course, having fits, claiming that this bill is cyber bullying and accusing those who want transparency in the classroom of being fascists.
Sounds like standard procedures of the political left, call anyone who questions or challenges them a fascist!!!
And/or racist.
Bang on target!!!
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cartoons-slideshow
If you view this after 11/13/2021 you will have to back up to that date.
Fascism is what the current governments and the compliant private sector are practicing now.
Alumni need to communicate their feeling$ about their universities behavior. And their future demonstration of their $upport.
There was a time when science was perceived as being above politics. Since ‘the science’ became dogma and is now settled it is the science that drives politics.
People who have backed political parties with substantial funds will be seeking politicians who speak for their constituents.
I was a witness to this worship of Academics in 1980 at a science camp where I witnessed the green mob firsthand! There were a couple dozen young ecologists in training at an eastern Oregon Museum of science and industry camp where we engaged in professional archaeology and paleobotany – I was there actively engaged in archaeology… So when I attempted to dig up a partially trampled lily which I knew was edible and delicious and eaten by all of the major tribes, a crowd of 16 year olds threatened to have me kicked out for daring to touch that plant that grew in profusion on millions of acres – it was in an Oregon protected category as “threatened” and none of them changed their view even when I was able to show them a distribution map showing that the plant grew basically everywhere – these young zealots were very clear that the infallibility of a government document cannot be questioned…
Their unquestioning acceptance of a government document displayed such religious intolerance that I realized I was basically questioning their god, and that was the moment I realized that people raised in cities were fundamentally different than folks raised in the country…
Sounds like good old fashioned ignorance coupled with a good measure of arrogance, whereby people who live in towns & cities are well educated but their country raised cousins are dumb & ignorant of the “sophisticated” ways of those in towns & cities, we have the same here in the UK!!! As said before, according to my faithful 1925 Pocket English Dictionary, a sophist was a public speaker in Ancient Greece paid to stand on street corners & spout whatever he was paid to spout, & the word “sophisticated” means corrupt & adulterated, nothing changes, & it really grates when I hear people saying that this or that is really “sophisticated”, when they really meant it was “complicated”!!!
The terms “Sophisticated” used to be an insult – as in wine where it means adulterated, watered down, adjusted in a way to its detriment.
https://www.google.com/search?q=sophisticated+original+meaning&sxsrf=AOaemvJ_ldnBIXqZsPVKQB9qWHZtYR2Kyw%3A1636796904252&ei=6ImPYfjbDunR1sQPy–c4AU&oq=sophisticated+original+meaning&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAwyBQgAEIAEMgYIABAIEB46BwgAEEcQsAM6BwgAELADEEM6BwgjELACECc6BAgAEA06BggAEAcQHjoICAAQCBAHEB5KBAhBGABQ8wpYyRpgvStoAXACeACAAYADiAGNE5IBBTItNy4ymAEAoAEByAEKwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwj476_Qh5X0AhXpqJUCHcs3B1wQ4dUDCA4
Over time its meaning has changed. In my opinion to its detriment.
But we still see its origins when we refer to the use of “Sophistry” of which there is a lot of in this subject – the deliberate adjustment of data is sophistry,
Thanks for that.
I always understood ‘sophisticated’ as meaning superior in some way and so was puzzled by the term ‘sophistry’ meaning deception.
That change of meaning explains it.
Anyway, isn’t it odd that city dwellers regard primitive societies as superior but rural residents (who are closer to primitive societies than they are) as inferior.
There seems to be some sort of mental block in the minds of long term urbanites that blinds them to the realities of life.
They are completely unaware of the precariousness of thier sheltered existence hence the eagerness with which they are adopting suicidal green belief systems.
That’s why I live on 9 acres with a creek, trees, a few cows, and room to plant crops. I have equipment to till and plant. Wait till the urban folks figure out supplies aren’t grown in the back of the grocery store.
Believe it or not, there was a time a few years ago that some urban children when asked where milk came from, they replied, “the supermarket!” No kidding!!!
Did you mean that it’s the politics that drives ‘the science’? Because that is the case now.
Or the politicians pretending it’s science, given that it’s really dogma anyway.
It was long held that the model scientist was to be a disinterested observer, motivated only by a desire to understand.
No matter how green you are, you will never be green enough for the green mob.
That’s true for leftism but not for the green.
Once you are dead you are green enough.
But the left won’t even leave you alone even after you are dead
and keep on insulting and hating you and tear your statues down
even if you had been the most progressive person on earth 200 years ago.
As soon as some billionaires MSM declares you “problematic” they will instantly start their show.
If you are a European, you are to be judged by the wokist of modern standards. No matter when you lived.
If you aren’t European, you can’t be judged, because that would be racist.
It’s not just in climate change, now that the progressives feel themselves to be in complete control of our academic institutions, they are going after anyone who disagrees with them on anything.
Fail to use someone preferred pro-noun, and you will be fired.
If you disagree that Trump was a dictator and was trying to destroy the world, you will be hounded until you quit.
If you fail to agree that every cop is a racist murder and that millions of blacks are being hunted down and killed every year. Then you are a racist and must be fired and hopefully jailed.
Progressives have no tolerance and only hatred for those who are not like them.
Sounds like a description of the walking dead.
Yep, they only have one life and they’ve already lost it essentially. Think of it as their punishment.
Sounds like a description of Mao’s China.
Or any other communist country.
If Roger Pielke Jr. was forced to move to a lesser office, without any reason other than censorship, he may well be able to declare “Constructive Discharge”, collect severance pay, and leave. Life is full of choices>
Einstein made his choice and left Germany — while he still had that option.
Universities, and CU Boulder in particular, don’t like to fire people as they don’t like to pay out such sums. They also worry about the threat of litigation.
A favored tactic is to make it miserable for employees, such as making them move to smaller offices, labs, etc. Pielke has been on CU’s shit list for a long time. CU faculty and administration in general are brainwashed and many are overtly Marxist. Eventually, they eat themselves.
Update: yes, “Constructive Discharge” has been used successfully in Colorado (thanks for bringing this up R Long).
Here’s a good reference. https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/federal-law/32101/constructive-discharge-law-in-colorado
Don’t know when that Constructive Discharge law was passed, but 40 or 50 years ago, in order to ‘make it miserable’, they might remove you from any chance at research and assign you to teach a class of freshman astronomy or something similar.
Add to that creating a “hostile working environment.”
The thing about Roger Pielke Jr is that he continually fights to uncover scurrilous claims by climate alarmists yet at the same time he is a lukewarmist who believes the GHE is real and that the ECS is a viable construct.
But I still value him. He just needs to make his mind up.
I went to one of his seminars a couple of years ago and at least two of his slides declared his allegiance to the Democratic party and his support of Hillary Clinton.
I do commend him for his objective use of data. It is what it is.
Wrong good scientists should never make their mind up they need to follow what they can prove no matter how much they dislike the answer.
Huh?
I have long suspected that Pielke’s leanings towards promotion of CO2 abatement is mostly or solely defensive. (The Activists also believe this). None of his work would see the light of day without his consistent verbal defense of the Climate Crisis.
All thus flys in the face of Pielke’s frequent revelations that nothing bad is developing in the Climate…that there is no evidence of any developing Catastrophe.
My daughter had Dr. Pielke, Jr. as a professor at CU. I’m a long time natural resource industry veteran (mining) and an ex-professor (10 years). Pielke was one of the only clear thinkers in the Environmental Science Department at CU and this is his reward. Go figure. There is no hope for CU, or for Colorado. I did the righteous thing and moved out.
“Stray but a little from the dominant climate narrative, and activists will fantasise about your violent death. They will dismiss your peer-reviewed publications as marginal, accuse you of spreading disinformation, and successfully campaign to get you fired from part-time jobs.”
*******
WITCHES WITCHES!! BURN THEM ALL!! BURN THE WITCHES!!
In some ways, we are still all living in Salem of 1692. We have learned much less than we think in 300+ years.
The only reason they stop at fantasizing, is that they don’t yet have to power to enact these fantasies. That day is not far off.
That day is here already if you consider that various municipalities around the country, mostly in California, are banning natural gas (methane) in new residential construction. This will only expand to the rest of the country and to more than just new residential construction.
The notion that methane is a powerful greenhouse gas is bullshit.
I think the day is here because in several american cities, law enforcement will not stop “protesters” who get violent. Think about Kenosha- riots continued for days because city, county and state cops stood down. If the kid is aquitted (local prosecutor should be prosecuted for bringing this case) and lefties go after the judge as they are threatening to do, what happens if police stand down again? Right now, the state is calling out nat guard (one year late) in anticipation, but if the gov decides these “protesters” are justified, what then?
We are in a new world brought on by leftists.
This case reminds me very much of the Zimmerman case in Florida from about a decade ago. every single prosecution witness ended up supporting the defenses, case.
About the only law the kid might actually have violated is the one against anyone under 18 having a gun. Which a law that the jury should nullify.
This is why Democrats want to make college “free” for everyone by federal funding. Then, control of colleges will be centralized and not reliant on state legislatures and alumni.
Excellent point, thanks for posting.
Mr. H: Agreed, I have been suspicious of anything the feds promote as “free” for my adult life. Now I’m supposed to suspend skepticism due to a public health emergency, and take the vax or be a threat to the vaxed. No free medicine, either.
It was reported today that the U.S. government is not even keeping track of people who got infected with the Wuhan virus to see if they can get re-infected with the Wuhan virus a second time.
We know that some people who get vaccinated can still get the virus, but we don’t know if people who have already been infected can get it a second time. That would seem to me to be some pretty important information for us to know.
Maybe it’s not high on the priority list for those promoting the vaccine.
By the time the general public wakes up to the eco-science fraud that is anthropogenic global warming, and the dissenters cannot anymore be labeled a few alt-right science denialist, by then, the universities and colleges will have done a flip, or a flop decrying any such past enviro-nazi dogmatism at their end. And at that time, the alumni donors will sigh a sigh of relief, and sign on for that new library wing dedicated to environment in crisis novellas. 😏
Nah, Philip…sadly, that will never happen. Their unending goal is the destruction of the US Constitution…it stands in the way of their Globalist Socialist Utopia (with them in Central control). The lies and their Cancel Culture will never end until their (unstated) goals are met.
Here’s a link to:
Allan MacRae’s post from June 2012
Juicy quotes from the “Hey hey Ho ho, Western Culture has got to go!” crowd. They are more than still among us, indeed they have seized control of most of institutions in the country.
The unending leftist goal is self-defeating idealism. By the time the left advances two steps into their quagmire of progressive human hating, us ‘common folk” begin to feel the pain and rebel at the inflicted costs of that idealism. High taxes, inflation, wasteful spending, election tampering, politicizing government agency, obnoxious government authoritarianism, racialized education, injustice as justice, thought policing…
Their idealism is a global toxicity. One, fortunately that only the US can afford to perpetuate at the moment. Thus, keeping it alive around the world. The EU is lost to unelected bureaucracy and cannot be trusted to do the right thing for Europeans. China has taken up UN ventriloquism, while building a new coal fired plant every month or so. Russia just threatens to cut off the flow of gas and is left alone. The rest of the world is getting paid off in Westen tax dollars so see a gain to maintaining their current third world dysfunction. Though some are already expressing unhappiness, perhaps just looking for more money. The few countries untouched by this productivity crippling idealism are keeping their heads down hoping to continue to sail under the CAGW radar.
So, the whole world is waiting on the Americans. We thought we had a good chance to end some of this while Trump was in office. That some rational thought would puncture the bulwark of radicalized environmentalism but, the environazi’s, unions, media, and desperate politicians all got back into their carnal bed together and [expletive] the US, and by extension as world leader, the rest of the world. Out of that rat’s nest of self-preservation we got Biden-Harris. The prom King and Queen of progressive politics. Those still hoping to advance as productive contributors among the community of nations are now back to square one. A NOT developing nations limbo.
Perhaps this particularly American ‘wokism as education’ thing breaking in the States’ will affect, um, an awakening beyond that that we see in the US now. Perhaps the beginning of a ‘taxpayers awakening’ as such. Fingers crossed.
A replay of 1935 Germany (when Hitler rose to power)…but with many allied Globalist Billionaires who control both the MSM Press and Science Funding pushing the Climate Fraud in their quest for more Illegitimate Power.
Evil Powerful group who do not bother with persuasion based on the truth…they cover the airwaves constantly with their lies and unending propaganda.
Even so, a strong majority of US Voters still reject these lies. All we need to slow them down (they will never go away) are Fair Elections, and they are hell bent on preventing fair Elections from ever happening again… with their (Unconstitutional) Federalization of Elections buried in the Build Back Better Brandon Bills wending their way through Congress…And with attacks in the Press about how Voter ID (with 80% popular support) is equivalent to Jim Crow voter suppression. They will never quit and the good guys have no platform to reach the masses with the truth.
The claim that voter ID prevents minorities from voting has been around for longer than the claim that people are being forced from their homes due to climate change.
In both cases, the activists have yet to find a single person who actually qualifies.
Progressive vs Progressive – a sectarian schism.
The warmunists eat their own, but they eat everybody else, too. They’re non-selective cannibals. The hatred, fear, and vitriol spewing from the alarmist camp is alarming.
Academia has succumbed to the Left. They embraced the Marxists, joined the Revolution, and thereby destroyed their own institutions. No one Dean or Chair can be held responsible; they all are. Free thinking and open inquiry have been cancelled, banned, and extirpated.
Pielke Jr. is an interesting case. His crime is very mild questioning of authority, a minor misdemeanor at most, but he angered the Alarmist Elite and so has been burned at the stake. A cruel lesson has been delivered to the slaves: conform to the Party Line or suffer dire consequences.
The only safe haven from the hyenas is independence, self-sufficiency, and personal integrity. To thine own self be true and get off Big Brother’s careening bus.
A cruel lesson has been delivered to the slaves: conform to the Party Line or suffer dire consequences.
____________________________________
Ashli Babbitt, Seth Rich, Jeffrey Epstein, Derek Shauvin
Well, maybe Dr. Pielke should get a clue and stop “wholeheartedly” being a “vocal supporter” of “decarbonization”.
Oh, and it isn’t just “climate change”, name any field in academia that is not ruled by the intolerant thought police.
Mr. Gasloli: But, but, if he did that he might get hounded by a college run by a mob!
It has long been a characteristic of the Left to seize on a Great Cause, which they believe is so great, so overwhelmingly important, that individuals must be sacrificed in its pursuit. I knew it was a terrible milestone when the first eco-fascist was quoted as saying, “Tackling climate change is too important for democracy,” a mantra taken up by Extinction Rebellion and exuded by COP26.
Prince Charles’ green accounting agenda, put into play by UN Marc Carney Climate Finance czar and a group of banks and hedgefonds, GFANZ, is cutting off any financial credit for any projects that do not pass the gangrene test. Everyone here knows what will do to industry and agriculture.
It sure looks like the Uni’s are right now being vetted by exactly this rules-based order.
Peer review has become a gangrene sniff test.
It is imbecilic naivitee to think Uni’s and science should be ‘safe’ when this bankers dictatorship is being put in place – the cabal desperately needs that $150 TRILLION green credit sluice to open.
Attempting to appease them with lukewarm tea is pathetic!
Note Lord Monckton’s rousing speech at COP26 :
https://youtu.be/R7p1O6aYlnE?t=5619
The sun circles the Earth, and anyone who thinks otherwise must be burnt at the stake.
Galileo Galilei must be turning in his grave.
I suspect “spinning” would be more appropriate!!!
Oh, come now, there is plenty of academic freedom, simply think and say what your commissars command you to. Freedom achieved!
Nothing new. John Holdren bragged about using a Harvard lunch table to cast personal aspersions on Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. (Climategate e-mails)
(Holdren as Obama’s Science Advisor was one of the original attackers of RP Jr.)
Climate change has become mystic to those who will tolerate no other view. It is clearly undefined.
To those who would destroy a way of life of a civilization, a little proof please.
Galileo, if alive, might have something to say about restricting good science. Those who abuse scientists or anyone else doing their job are no better morally than the ones who burned poor women at the stake for causing something obviously beyond their ability.
I agree with this message, Pielke Jr worked hard to assure ethical climate science research and was punished for doing so. We need to put restore Science to climate research / science. How many thousands and thousands of people are on the “climate” payroll… just think about it … academics – yup. bankers – yup. carmakers like Elon Musk – yup… fer sur. I am not advocating for one side or the other, just to restore ethical science that starts with hypothesis, tests alternatives to disprove hyptheses rather than push agendas rather than ethical science.
Science that starts with hypothesis prior to collection of data and the analysis of that data makes avoidance of both expectation bias and confirmation bias difficult.
Feynman – if the data doesn’t agree withe the hypothesis the hypothesis is WRONG.
It is a painful badge of honour and courage to be targeted by these CAGW miscreants this way. The personal attacks are an admission that they lack any scientific evidence to refute the claims made by honest scientists such as Roger Pielke Jr. and Susan Crockford. History will remember their honest efforts favorably and condemn the dishonest idiots for what their total lack of integrity.
The left loves to latch onto to Eisenhower’s warning about giving influence to the military industrial complex, while wholly ignoring the warning against federal funding of university research.
From the article: “GWPF Director Dr Benny Peiser said:”The witch-hunt against Roger Pielke Jr. is symptomatic of a problem that we are seeing in universities across the developed world, with activists trying to silence dissenting opinions, and with the tacit, and in many case the active, support of administrators.”
This sounds like a problem that should be addressed by a Republican-majority U.S. House of Representatives.
The Developed world needs big changes in the way it educates its youth. The United States is a good place to start.
It is not surprising that the University of Colorado Boulder is hanging Roger Pielke Jr. out to dry. They did the same to Murry Salby.
Roger Pielke Jr. is to be admired for his intellectual rigor and courage.