Crossposted at The Examiner
Intimidation, political persecution, even veiled death threats, are usually the purview of authoritarian regimes and fictional characters on the silver screen. But the alarming uptick in gun toting militias and violent rhetoric isn't limited to angry tea drinkers still sore over the 2008 election. More and more it spills over into into every aspect of national discourse, like oil oozing out of the BP wellhead 5000 feet below the surface of the ocean.
Fed up with intimidation, faux media balance, and attacks by industry funded apologists and opportunistic lawmakers, a group of 250 scientists have written and signed an open letter calling for an end to the underhanded tactics and open threats:
We also call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them. Society has two choices: we can ignore the science and hide our heads in the sand and hope we are lucky, or we can act in the public interest to reduce the threat of global climate change quickly and substantively.
The signatories are all members of the National Academy of Science but noted they do not speak for the organization, but rather for themselves and their colleagues. The authors lay out the basic empirical evidence for anthropogenic (Human caused) global warming including the fact that the multiple independent global temperature records clearly demonstrate a clear warming trend over the last century, the corresponding increase in man-made greenhouse gases, and concludes with a warning of the potential consequences on coastal communities and human civilization:
Warming the planet will cause many other climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea-level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle. Rising concentrations of carbon dioxide are making the oceans more acidic.The combination of these complex climate changes threatens coastal communities and cities, our food and water supplies, marine and freshwater ecosystems, forests, high mountain environments, and far more.
For a dramatic example of the double standard employed by climate change skeptics, one need only watch this short video Jed and I put together last fall: Sean Hannity was against stolen emails before he was for them.
The fact that every participant in those stolen conversations was completely cleared of even the appearance of wrongdoing by several investigating bodies didn't get anywhere near the breathless hype the usual suspects lavished on the original story. Instead, climate change skeptics and right-wing leaders have ramped up their ridiculous claims.
Intimidation by right-wing extremists aimed at scientists and facts they find inconvenient isn't limited to climatologists. When Judge John E. Jones III, appointed by George W. Bush, issued a blistering decision against creationists in the Dover ISD case, he went from a 'good old conservative boy' to an 'activist judge' overnight. With chilling results:
And I will share something else with you that I have in common with Judge Whitamore, who presided in the Terri Schiavo case. That is, after our respective decisions, mine in the Dover case and Judge Whitamore's in the Schiavo case in 2005, both of us were under round-the-clock marshal protection for a period of time due to threats that we received ...
Science isn't going to go away. And it's our great fortune that science does not shirk from truth even when it's not expedient or profitable. The applications that flow from it are critical to the day to day survival and long term prosperity of the entire world. There is indeed a debate to be had about one of the most important gifts science has provided, energy and energy policy.
But those who threaten the messenger would do well to consider by what technological means they actually deliver their threats. Are they using telephones and email, or word of mouth traveling down Roman roads or carried by passenger pigeon? Obviously the former. But ideologically, they have an awful lot in common with the regimes that did use those ancient methods. And tactically, the cadre of industry shills and broadcast blowhards now polluting our discourse with anti-science propaganda bear more than a passing resemblance to one Senator Joe McCarthy.