Rasmussen Poll: 27% of Democrats favor prosecuting ‘global warming’ skeptics – 63% of all Americans say debate is not over

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/environment_energy/little_support_for_punishing_global_warming_foes

Global warming advocates are calling for the prosecution of groups who disagree with them, and New York State has taken it a step further by investigating Exxon Mobil for refusing to play ball with the popular scientific theory.

But 68% of Likely U.S. Voters oppose the government investigating and prosecuting scientists and others including major corporations who question global warming. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 17% favor such prosecutions. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Among voters who believe scientists have made up their minds about global warming, one-in-four (24%) favor prosecuting those who question that theory, but 64% are opposed.…

Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl: ‘The incredibly indefensible prosecution of Exxon’

 

Even if Exxon could have a “corporate opinion” about the scientific question, this opinion is completely irrelevant. It is a scientific question so the relevant opinions are those that are backed by the scientific evidence, usually articulated in scientific papers.

Papers isn’t what Exxon is producing (at most, papers about the technology of drilling etc. may matter in the company but not those on different topics) so its opinions about a scientific question, especially an incredibly controversial one, is simply irrelevant and cannot serve as the basis of anything.

Now, Exxon has over 80,000 employees. So one of them was a “climate alarmist” back in 1977 – almost everyone else ignored him or thought that Mr Black was just bullšiting – and even now, 38 years later, this fact is supposed to be a problem for the whole company whose capitalization is $0.35 trillion.The incredibly indefensible prosecution of Exxon

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/LuboMotlsReferenceFrame/~3/JIblgoGYK6A/the-incredibly-indefensible-prosecution.html

America is the land of the unlimited possibilities. Sadly, it’s often the case when it comes to unbelievably outrageous events, too.The New York State’s prosecutor Eric Schneiderman has actually started the investigation of Exxon. The company is accused of “having lied about the effects of carbon dioxide on climate change for 40 years”.What is going on here?I will discuss the actual events that are supposed to form the “foundation” of these lawsuits momentarily. But there’s one obvious point: “the effects of carbon dioxide and/or/on climate change” are a scientific question and it may only be answered by scientific research.Exxon wasn’t and isn’t an institution whose goal is to do scientific research at all. It is an energy company meant to make profit by providing its clients with products and services related to the energy and the fossil fuels.So even if Exxon could have a “corporate opinion” about the scientific question, this opinion is completely irrelevant. It is a scientific question so the relevant opinions are those that are backed by the scientific evidence, usually articulated in scientific papers. Papers isn’t what Exxon is producing (at most, papers about the technology of drilling etc. may matter in the company but not those on different topics) so its opinions about a scientific question, especially an incredibly controversial one, is simply irrelevant and cannot serve as the basis of anything.So one immediate problem is that Exxon is simply not a scientific institution so it cannot be claimed to “know” the right …

Skeptical Climate Scientists Fire Back at RICO 20 Colleagues: Demand Investigations Against Their Warmist Accusers

Washington DC – Scientists who dissent from the man-made global warming fears fired back at their warmist colleagues who want to see RICO investigations into skeptical claims. (See: ‘Bring them to court’: Warmist scientist Alan Betts wants RICO prosecutions of climate change opponents & Update: Scientist leading effort to prosecute climate skeptics under RICO ‘paid himself & his wife $1.5 million from govt climate grants for part-time work’)

“I would like to see RICO investigations for people on the other side of this,” demanded Climatologist and former NASA scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, at a CATO Institute climate forum in DC today.  Spencer is the leader of a climate research group at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

“People have been pushing for energy policies for people that we know will kill them. And they know that, and yet they have hidden that information from the public and from politicians for the purposes of advancing an agenda,” Spencer said.

“They should be careful what they ask” Spencer added, warning that the investigations “could be going the other direction in spades.”

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, the former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, spoke about the new climate of intolerance.  “I am very concerned by scientists calling to stifle dissent, disagreement,” Curry explained.

“The last three or four months have made it clear to me that I could be spending time in court. If it’s not just for RICO kind of activities but all of these lawsuits,” she said.

“It looks like climate scientists are going to be spending more time in courts. This never occurred to me until three or four months ago,” Curry lamented. Curry also challenged other climate claims and spoker of her evolving scientific views on climate change. “There is so much flouting over mythical 97% consensus…This is stifling debate. I fell into that (consensus trap) and after 2009 with Climategate, I said no more!” Curry explained. “There is enormous pressure for scientists to fall in line behind the consensus,” she added.

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue of WeatherBELL Analytics said: “I have personal experience with two of the RICO 20” professors. Ryan warned that such efforts to silence scientific dissent will have a chilling effect on young scientists.

“The question would be for a graduate student — if you have a professor who is signing petitions calling for …

Lawmakers Probe Taxpayer-Funded Academic Who Wants Obama to Prosecute Climate Skeptics Under RICO

Soviet-Style Tactics?

William Happer, a Princeton University physicist, has another idea.

Instead of launching RICO probes against dissenting scientists and others who raise legitimate questions about government-funded global warming research, Happer told The Daily Signal, policymakers should take a hard look at the “Lysenko cult” that held sway in the days of the Soviet Union.

“There are honest climate scientists today who are trying to straighten out the contradictions between climate models and observations, just as there were honest biologists in the Soviet Union who had the courage to speak out against Lysenko’s cult,” Happer said in an email.

Trofim Lysenko was a biologist who directed the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. With the support of Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin, he dictated scientific results in step with the government’s political agenda.

“Lysenko’s biology was adopted as official truth by Stalin’s communist party by about 1930,” Happer said.

The “falsification” and “bogus proofs” used to prop up Lysenko’s schemes is well-documented in the book “Power and Science: The History of the Destruction of Genetics in the USSR,” the Princeton physicist said.

Happer added:

Climate science has attempted to do the same thing. In spite of a recalcitrant Mother Nature, which has refused to warm for 18 years or more, grave government pronouncements continue to claim that this month is the warmest on record [and] that the most recent storm or last winter’s record snowfall in some locale was due to global warming.

Global warmists tell feds: Use anti-mafia law to prosecute ‘climate deniers’

http://canadafreepress.com/article/76007

The RICO threat is intended to shut down debate because it can inflict treble damages upon a defendant. Enacted to stop organized crime and specifically to prosecute individuals tied to loansharking and murder-for-hire, it was long seen as so powerful a tool that the government warned prosecutors to limit its use.

“The demand by Senator Whitehouse and the 20 climate scientists for legal persecution of people whose research on science and policy they disagree with represents a new low in the politicization of science,” says Georgia Tech’s Judith Curry on the Fox News website. She should know, as one of seven academics investigated last winter by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D., Ariz.) for their climate research.…

Walter Williams: ‘Suppressing Free Speech’: ‘The global warming agenda is a desperate effort to gain greater control over our lives’

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/suppressing-free-speech

 

My university, at which I’ve toiled for 35 years, has a political makeup like that of most other universities — middle of the road to liberal/progressive. What distinguishes my liberal/progressive colleagues is that they are courteous and civilized, unlike many of those at universities such as the University of Massachusetts and the University of California, Berkeley.

So I investigated this call for the use of RICO, or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. It turns out that Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has called for the criminal investigation of people and organizations who are seen as global warming deniers.

Newsweek Oped: ‘Should Climate Change Deniers Be Prosecuted?’

http://www.newsweek.com/should-climate-change-deniers-be-prosecuted-378652

It is certainly strange to see many supporters of the Whitehouse approach suggest that the speech they dislike is actionable because they find in it half-truths, selectively marshaled data, scientific studies that spring from agendas, arguments whose ultimate sincerity is open to question, evasion of telling points made by the other side and so forth. Those are the common currency of everyday debate in Washington (and not just in Washington).…