Aussie Climate Scientists Receiving Death Threats 638
An anonymous reader writes "With the Australian parliament beginning the debate on setting a carbon price, climate scientists are reporting an increase in threatening phone calls and even death threats. The threats are serious enough that several universities have increased security for their ecology and meteorology researchers. The Australian government is seeking to introduce a carbon tax by July 2012."
Re:Just goes to show the lunacy of the conservativ (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a dislike of fudged numbers, BS, doom and gloom, including the usual "If we don't..." and "we'll be drowning in 10 years, no wait 30 years, no wait 80 years!!11!" that people get tired of
Good thing you don't ride a bike to work like me then because its a never ending stream of "if I don't do something now things could be really bad for me in about five seconds".
For me managing the planet should be like riding a bike. I keep an eye out for developing problems and take action when I think something might kill me. The fact that it hasn't so far doesn't invalidate the assumptions I make.
Re:Whichever (Score:4, Interesting)
Turnabout (Score:3, Interesting)
Go find a medical researcher who works with animals and ask him for his death threat collection....
Re:Whichever (Score:4, Interesting)
All the above isn't joke, and you can't just dismiss all these facts because you trust blindly only one side. Recognize that it's a highly politicized field, and that we should be extremely careful reading each results, and we SHOULD ASK and CHECK FOR THE DATA. There's no other field on science where this doesn't happen. Why should we do an exception for climatology?
Please don't reply with insults, I'm sick of it, and FYI, I'm not on any side of this, I just think a CO2 tax isn't a good answer, and that currently, there's NO consensus and we should ask for more research, AND THE DATA that goes with it.
It's not about Science (Score:3, Interesting)
The anger and hatred isn't over the science. It's about taxes. People get tired of being taxed to death. Here in the US they had terrorists throwing tea in the harbor over the tea tax back a few years ago. I think they were the neo-cons who started the whole tea party thing.
Re:Scientific debate, huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just like with religious people there are many different types of atheists. Not all, heck not even many are of the type you describe. I know I cringe when I see people on TV claiming to speak in God's name about things and they are full of hatred and anger. These two things have no place in Christianity as Christ commanded us to love those that hate us. It's hard to do sometimes but all that hatred is a poison to the soul. Most atheists I find hate any mention of God and react almost violently to any mention of him. I see little reason from them and a lack of any willingness to debate. Unfortunately I see the same from so many claiming to be Christians and that hurts me far more.
Re:Just goes to show the lunacy of the conservativ (Score:3, Interesting)
If we were doing the right thing we would stop burning brown coal tomorrow and live without power for a while. The carbon tax is very nearly the least the Government could do. What should happen is that polluters should pay the full cost of the pollution they create so that cleaner energy generators can compete. The carbon tax is a small step in that direction.
Re:It's too late ... the work has been published . (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Tree Planting? (Score:5, Interesting)
FTA: "One researcher told of receiving threats of sexual assault and violence against her children after her photograph appeared in a newspaper article promoting a community tree-planting day as a local action to mitigate climate change."
Death threats for planting trees? WTF?
Re:Whichever (Score:4, Interesting)
It's very clear from a quick google of Vincent Courtillot that his opinions are not held in high regard by climate scientists. Indeed one of the leaked emails suggests Phil Jones rejected one of his papers as "awful".
Of course Phil Jones doesn't like Courtillot, because he has a complete different opinion as his, and he is giving out numbers, curves, and plausible scientific explanations on what he says, WITH the data together.
Therefore why should a scientist bend over backwards to satisfy his requests?
Maybe because:
- It may give a chance to anyone to prove or disprove what has been researched
- It is what everybody does on all science field
- Because your dislike of someone who doesn't agree with you isn't a scientific argument
- Because it's public financed research
- Because it's the only way to do a satisfying peer review
I do agree that some protocol should be put in place for scientists to release data and in return to be immune from being pestered by FOIA requests but that's a separate topic altogether, and certainly does not imply that absence of arbitrary-data-request-being-satisfied that somehow it implies conspiracy.
Come on! Nobody is pretending we are in a James Bond movie. We are just saying that the head of the IPCC is refusing to have his work peer-reviewed by people he dislike, or who will have enough knowledge to redo all the calculation and maybe disagree. That's important! It's not at all what you just wrote. We aren't just talking about the average scientist here, but THE HEAD OF THE IPCC, Phil Jones. To date, we still don't have his data (unless I'm mistaking), even after the leaks. Shame on these researchers.
The UEA emails don't reveal any "smoking gun" at all, just a bunch of scientists engaged in technical, mundane and occasionally bitchy chitchat with their peers.
It does reveal however that Jones doesn't like his opponents to peer review his work, and is hiding behind copyright.
Re:Cognitive dissonance endgame (Score:3, Interesting)
I am fairly sure any level of honest investigation on this subject by anyone with reason and understanding of the difference between faith and science, will find themselves yelling in favour of prevention of this experiment during their or their descendants time on earth.
The arguments against action on climate change are so specious and contradictory that they can only be intended to fool those who want to be fooled.