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The strange case of the Greenpeace FOIA of David Legates (Hydroclimatology prof, and skeptic) at the University of Delaware (US)
The Delaware State Law says FOIAs only apply to things supported by state funding and David Legates didn’t receive any. That should make this story incredibly short, except that, as Jan Bilt explains: “For reasons administrators have declined to explain, a small portion of Legates’ teaching salary was, curiously, placed on the list of state-funded activity shortly before Greenpeace filed its FOIA request in 2009.” In the end a heavyweight, Lawrence White, at the Uni of Delaware leaned heavily on Legates to provide not just everything Greenpeace asked for, but virtually everything he’d ever done — his teaching notes, emails, even ones written on his own time, and on his personal computer. At the same time the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) filed FOIAs against three other people at the Uni of Delaware who had worked on IPCC reports. The same Lawrence White said simply “No” to those requests. When is a law a law, and when is it merely a tool to fulfill the personal wishes of those in high places? Apparently when it’s on a university campus.
Compare Legates […]
Lennart Bengtsson joined the GWPF only two weeks ago. He’s a very well respected Swedish leading climate scientist. But he’s been put under — as he describes it — unbearable pressure to quit. Steve McIntyre calls it a fatwa.
What an extraordinarily raw letter:
Dear Professor Henderson,
I have been put under such an enormous group pressure in recent days from all over the world that has become virtually unbearable to me. If this is going to continue I will be unable to conduct my normal work and will even start to worry about my health and safety. I see therefore no other way out therefore than resigning from GWPF. I had not expecting such an enormous world-wide pressure put at me from a community that I have been close to all my active life. Colleagues are withdrawing their support, other colleagues are withdrawing from joint authorship etc.
I see no limit and end to what will happen. It is a situation that reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expecting anything similar in such an original peaceful community as meteorology. Apparently it has been transformed in recent years.
My sympathies go out to anyone who lives in fear for their life, no matter what their beliefs are about a certain climate theory. I soundly condemn death threats.
Though, as it happens, such a thing is completely out of character for any skeptic I know.
After 50,000 comments on my site, violent thoughts are exceedingly rare, from skeptics anyway. Only a few [skeptics] have even issued vague allusions wishing ill-health on someone. (And these were made not by regulars, but by anonymous “hotmail” commenters; real skeptics, or poseurs perhaps?)
Indeed, the team that makes naked death threats publicly has always been the pro-carbon-tax fans. Think of Greenpeace “we know where you live…“. Think of 10:10, “we will blow up your children”. Joe Romm encourages the idea that skeptics will be strangled in their beds. A blogger at TPM pondered when it would be acceptable to execute climate deniers. Richard Glover, suggests forcibly tattooing skeptics opinions on their bodies’ (though wisely thinks maybe it’s a bit too Nazi creepy). Willis Eschenbach came up with a list of hate-related behavior. There is plenty to pick from.
So when the Canberra Times claims skeptics have been threatening climate scientists, I am, not […]
UPDATE: It appears ANZ is not feeling apologetic or likely to cave in to green threats. ANZ chief executive Mike Smith, has delivered a savage attack on Julia Gillard, declaring her party was part of the “weak government club” of the world.
Greenpeace have produced a hit job on the ANZ Bank: a (fairly) slick production designed to seriously hurt the bank’s brand name, and to make it harder for coal miners to raise funds (which ultimately makes it harder for the poorest in society to pay their electricity bills).
This is why I insist: Yes, this IS about the science. Even if we defeat the tax and trading scheme, as long as the public think “carbon is pollution” any honest business or business working with them will be subject to this bullying. Coal provides about three quarters of all Australian electricity. Yes, we need to get rid of the pollutants in coal production, but carbon dioxide is not one of them.
We are carbon life forms. There is no evidence that the climate models are right, and that CO2 emissions hurt the planet. Greenpeace could attack the coal industry because of poor safety standards, or because of […]
Maintained by bullying and bluster, the facade grows more brittle by the day, as heretics start to come out of the woodwork — being pragmatic, concerned, but unapologetic.
From the Daily Mail in the UK — Johnny Ball says Beware of the Global Warming Fascists. More evidence that this is a propaganda campaign, not a question of science (as if we needed that). Kudos to the Daily Mail for printing thousands of copies of this story. A hat-tip to Johnny Ball for being brave enough to face down the bullies.
In the past decade or so I’ve been mocked, vilified, besmirched — I’ve even been booed off a theatre stage — simply for expressing the view that the case for global warming and climate change, and in particular the emphasis on the damage caused by carbon dioxide, the so-called greenhouse gas that is going to do for us all, has been massively over-stated.
And something very similar has happened to Dr David Bellamy, who has never been shy about expressing his belief that climate change is an entirely natural phenomenon. His media career, particularly in television, has suffered as a result. 8.3 out of 10 based on 7 ratings […]
Click to read the full PDF
The world was baffled. What were they thinking?
This colossal PR disaster was 20 years in the making, and it took a special set of conditions to achieve a true marketing black hole. Never before in the history of public relations has so much star-power, money and kudos been used to score such a monstrous global own-goal. The campaign to dehumanize skeptics laid the groundwork and somehow, fittingly, the eco-terrorists own name-calling has come back to bite them.
How could people with red carpet careers make a mistake so smashingly spectacularly awful that they scored negative press all round the world, lost 20% of their members, and drove away three out of four major sponsors within days?
They can’t be written off as a little side group of extremists. 10:10 was sponsored by the UK government, major corporations like Sony, and was a group of nearly 100,000 people (now only 73,000). A hundred odd people must have spent months preparing, with casting, scripting and special effects meetings, so they could capture the effect of exploding ten-year-olds without once noticing the rather invidious parallels with, say, Pol Pot. Incredibly the 10:10 […]
This moment is shaping up to become a part of modern folklore.
The toll for the reputations of all involved in SplatterGate continues, and this downfall is so worth documenting.
The Wall St Journal
But it’s evil, not just stupid. Some critics, such as Don Surber and The American Spectator, describe the video’s message as, in the words of Surber’s headline, “Just Blow Up Global Warming Skeptics.” Even this is an understatement. The “crime” for which the children in the video are “executed” is one of omission, not commission. They are murdered not even for dissenting against 10:10’s political crusade, but merely for being indifferent to it. This is the essence of totalitarianism.
One may hope that Jim Edwards is right when he denies that “this is actually what environmentalists want.” But it’s bad enough that this is what they fantasize about–and that they manifestly felt no inhibition about airing such a depraved fantasy in public.
The Independent h/t Benny Pieser 7.8 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]
I just had to pop in.
Thank you 10:10. We could not have come up with better promotion to show how malignantly dangerous the totalitarian eco-fascist dark side of Green is. Send copies of this to your friends. Send them to your enemies!
10:10 produced a star studded sicko fantasy of what their real Christmas gift wish is for the world. When you can’t convince people with reason, mark anyone who disagrees, blow up their children.
Their true nature is so on display… softly, softly, quietly under the guise of “nice”: trick them, decieve them, say “No Pressure”, and then be judge, jury and executioner in gratuitous orgasmic revenge: press a button and see exploding blood and guts splat on the wall.
The sore losers are so frustrated.
Spot the difference with green terrorism and Islamic Extremists. At least the jihadi’s are not pretending to hide their greedy egotistical self-interest by pretending to “care” about the planet.
[Warning: This contains graphic violence. ] The original video was removed.
The entire green movement of the world needs to answer this. It doesn’t matter whether they made it or not. They can’t hide behind this as a joke. […]
Then today Richard Black of the BBC finds out how ugly it can be when you make the mistake (the travesty!) of missing a chance to tell everyone that the Earth’s falling apart due to Man-made Global Warming.
It’s the first time Richard Black has been on the receiving end. He’s a bit put out.
It seems that something new, and not altogether welcome, may be happening in the politicking over climate change.
I have written before of the orchestrated villification that comes the way of climate scientists from some people and organisations who are unconvinced of the case for human-induced climate change – “sceptics”, “deniers”, as you wish.
This week, for the first time, I am seeing the same pattern from their opponents.
Joe Romm, the physicist-cum-government-advisor-cum-polemicist, posted a blog entry highly critical of the Arctic ice article I wrote last week.
Joe Romm took him to task for doing a story on the hottest year without “mentioning the primary cause of global warming” (according to climate models which are known to be wrong). Romm set lots of emailers onto Black. The original “dreadful” story is just reporting how arctic ice melted fast, but didn’t shrink as much as […]
Ivar Giaevar
The guys at Popular Tech have done a Very Nice List. They’ve put together seven names of eminent scientists who are skeptical of man-made climate catastrophe, along with their stellar biographies and quotes. It tells us nothing about the climate, but before you write it off as just a fallacious appeal to authority, ponder that these eminent people are the same people that teenage tree-huggers would call “deniers”.
To see just how mindlessly puerile “denier” is, try the thought experiment of putting those-who-use-it in the same room as one of the more notable “deniers”.
Julia Gillard (the new PM downunder) used “denier” 11 times in one recent speech. So imagine she’s in a room talking with, say, Ivar Giaever. She studied arts and law, he got a PhD in theoretical physics two years before she was born, and won a Nobel Prize by the time she was nine. Picture him talking atmospheric physics and her telling him he’s a denier.
Julia Gillard, PM of Australia. Source: The Daily Telegraph
A Nobel doesn’t mean he’s right, but when Gillard says “Denier” she is referring to thousands of people including Freeman Dyson, Ivar Giaever (Nobel Prize), Robert Laughlin […]
Hate Crime legislation is the last resort of those with no real case. It’s the last resort in the “shut-up” campaign that Team-Carbonari have been running against the free world for two decades. The unverifiable, unknowable crime of intent. (Anyone have one of those Handy-Hate-Meters that reliably measures the dreaded Evil-Score to two decimal places? No? It’s a matter of time…)
A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called Evidence What Evidence? where I dismantled the words of a famous Australian science journalist for parroting bureaucrats and not investigating the evidence. What I wrote is not a recipe for building a better bomb with your Mazda, but Ben E took issue with my pointed discussion in the comments:
“Sad, but scarcely surprising. Sites like this one will eventually be shut down in future updates to hate crime legislation, as they are well on the way to inciting violence and hatred towards scientists and science communicators.”
Willis Eschenbach popped in with a devastating reply that deserved to be repeated.
“Well, let’s review the bidding regarding “violence and hatred” …
10 out of 10 based on 14 ratings […]
Australian polls have plummeted, and the credibility gap I mentioned earlier has already translated into votes. Whether people agree or disagree with the Emissions Trading Scheme, no one is impressed when a leader hypes something in the most hyperbolic and inflammatory terms, then bails suddenly, as if it was not a big deal.
The front page of The Australian today:
KEVIN Rudd’s personal standing has taken a hammering after his decision to dump his climate change policy last week, and for the first time since 2006 the Coalition has an election-winning lead.
Curiously, while the Labor Party dropped 8%, the Greens primary vote (10%) didn’t pick up a single point. The Coalition (the main opposition) gained just 3% (to 43%), so most of the rest of the disillusioned voters went to “others and independents”. All the commentators are writing it up to the “Climate” issue.
It may have taken a long time to come, but eventually things based on bullying and bluster crash to Earth. Both sides of politics could have stood taller in this if they had bothered to get a forum of advocates and skeptics together in the same room (perhaps a Royal Commissioner’s room) to politely […]
UPDATE (My reply to Greenpeace comments, below.)
UPDATE 2 Greenpeace have responded to the outrage by removing the original page.
Watch out people. Greenpeace resorts to threats.
The moderator on-site is fighting a wall of disparaging, dismissive, and “dare you to” comments, but insists it’s all “non-violent”–really.
Judge for yourself:
“We need to hit them where it hurts most, by any means necessary: through the power of our votes, our taxes, our wallets, and more.”
“‘We must break the law to make the laws we need: laws that are supposed to protect society, and protect our future. Until our laws do that, screw being climate lobbyists. Screw being climate activists. It’s not working. We need an army of climate outlaws.’
“The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism.
“If you’re one of those who believe that this is not just necessary but also possible, speak to us. Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.
“If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments […]
It’s tough when you can’t talk evidence, and the topic is science. What’s left is just the Stone Age mud-throwing campaign.
There’s a Matrix-moment coming for Clive Hamilton. Skeptics are now the grassroots activists against Big Money and Big Lies, fighting for the poor and the environment. He’s doing his damnedest to suppress community participation, promote intolerance, and effectively fight for banker profits, corrupt scientists, and plundering bureaucrats.
The AGW camp has on its side all the authority positions in climate science (you don’t get appointed unless you believe), all the climate and science journals, all the government and university funding, the computer models, the Nobel prizes, the Western governments, all the propaganda money can buy, the Greens, the politically correct, the UN, and all the mainstream media (at least, until recently). And the skeptics have…evidence, logic, retired scientists, and donations to blogs. Clive imagines he is speaking truth to power.
Since he can’t win on the science, he tries to bully instead (ironically while whining about…bullies). He peddles easily refutable lies, using unverifiable words from anonymous entities. Twice, Hamilton even contradicts himself, probably because he knows he’s making defamatory claims he can’t back up.
Hamilton realizes […]
…
Civilization is the problem. Hansen recommends a book that incites violent sabotage, and promotes illegal activities to bring about an end to industrial civilization. Is this kind of book legal in the US?
James Hansen has called for industrial sabotage and defended lawbreakers before, but did he really read all of Keith Farnish’s words before he endorsed the book “Times Up”?
Farnish has put together a frightening compilation. He tried non-violent protest with Greenpeace for five years, but then he changed tactics. He got angry, and recommends you do too:
“Constructive Anger, on the other hand, does achieve something useful – even if it may not be exactly what was originally intended. For instance, if all the evidence you have to hand suggests that removing a sea wall or a dam will have a net beneficial effect on the natural environment then, however you go about it – explosives, technical sabotage or manual destruction – the removal would be a constructive action. If this action was fuelled by anger then your use of explosives involved Constructive Anger.”
The four key rules of sabotage
1. Carefully weigh up all the pros and cons, and then ask yourself, “Is it […]
… Richard Black from the BBC won’t name me or link to me. Is he scared of sending people my way? Afraid my arguments are too compelling? He claims the evidence for man-made global warming is overwhelming, and he’s wondering why more women aren’t skeptics, so surely he would help his readers if he directed them to the two Australian bloggers he specifically refers to: Jennifer Marohasy and myself.
In fact, across the entire sceptical landscape, as far as I can see, the female contingent numbers one UK columnist, a couple of Australian bloggers, UK academic Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen and US counterpart Sallie Baliunas…
But thanks for the backhanded endorsement, Richard, I’m delighted to find out you read my blog and I can tell you exactly why women don’t leap to announce they are skeptics. All you had to do was email me to ask…
10 out of 10 based on 3 ratings […]
A denier has many tactics to stop people talking about evidence. The real deniers here are those pushing a fake crisis. 10 out of 10 based on 4 ratings […]
From now forward nothing will be quite the same for climate skeptics. It’s true that there is still a major war against unreason, and massive vested money which will fight all the way from the bank, but the ClimateGate story has taken on a reality that cannot be stopped.
Jon Stewart is a liberal (meaning leftie) comedian in the US, and watch him mock Gore, and give people the real import of “hide the decline”. …it’s just scientist speak for using a standard statistical technique for recalibrating data in order to… …TRICK YOU!. He delivers the blows beautifully.
[ Darn. This youtube video was removed from youtube…]
Most people in polls might say they believe we should do something about the climate, but only 10% of them are truly committed followers. The other 90% are dutiful. And because the dutiful followers of the greenhouse crisis are well… dutiful, they aren’t going to object too hard when someone tells them it was all scam, and… they don’t have to pay more money, or apologize for taking long flights, or swap their dog for a goldfish (which has a smaller carbon footprint). That’s why, once this begins to fall, there […]
Science is broken. Bloggers are paid to smear scientists, and rather than decry the intimidation and bullying, groups like the David Suzuki Foundation, New Scientist, the UN and Nature (the journal!) actively support it. DeSmogblog is run from a PR firm “Hoggan and Associates”, and Jim Hoggan is on the Suzuki Foundation board. Professional marketing types attack scientists for any mistake on any topic they may have ever made, for their funding, their religious beliefs, and they scorn their credentials (that’s rich, coming from PR graduates). If they can’t find “funding”, they imply it anyway. Who needs evidence?
10 out of 10 based on 5 ratings […]
Finally, Part II in the Skeptics Handbook series – the bluster and bluff, the deceit, and the money. Enjoy & Share.
It’s unthinkable. Big Government has spent $79 billion on the climate industry, 3000 times more than Big Oil. Leading climate scientists won’t debate in public and won’t provide their data. What do they hide? When faced with freedom-of-information requests they say they’ve “lost” the original global temperature records. Thousands of scientists are rising in protest against the scare campaign. Meanwhile $126 billion turned over in carbon markets in 2008 and bankers get set to make billions.
7.6 out of 10 based on 8 ratings […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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