Seminole County Environmental News ExaminerKirk Myers

The extremist disciples of modern climate-change theology are hard at work trying to silence unbelievers who express doubts or misgivings about the “proven science” of anthropogenic (man-made) global warming.

The True Believers – those who claim man is warming the planet – view non-worshipers as heretics who should be ostracized, silenced, fired, put on trial or jailed (no talk yet of firing squads or public hangings) for the crime of “terracide” – destroying earth.

The eco-ecclesiastics brook no dissent from official dogma, as two university professors discovered. Climatologist Pat Michaels was forced from his post as a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia for postulating a belief in naturally induced climate swings – for example, changes caused by solar activity or ocean currents. And Oregon State University professor George Taylor, the state’s climatologist, was damned in the media for apostasy and forced to defend himself publicly for challenging the Book of Global Warming Revelation.

Many university professors who question the man-is-warming-the-earth dogma – and their numbers are growing – remain silent out of fear of reprisal. Those who are courageous enough to speak out are ridiculed and sometimes threatened. Dr. Timothy Ball, a former professor at the University of Winnipeg in Canada, received five death threats after publicly confronting the tenets of global warming.

"I can tolerate being called a skeptic because all scientists should be skeptics, but then they started calling us deniers, with all the connotations of the Holocaust. That is an obscenity. It has got really nasty and personal."

Put them on trial, says Dr. James Hansen

Among the chief keepers of the faith is Al Gore comrade Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, who declared that global warming dissenters should be put on trial for “crimes against humanity.” This is the same James Hansen who has been called an activist and an embarrassment by his former supervisor at NASA, Dr. John Theon, and was roundly criticized for testifiying on behalf of six Greenpeace activists who had vandalized a coal-fired power plant in Britain. On the witness stand, Hansen testified that CO2 emissions from the plant would damage the environment through the effects of climate change. 

It gets worse. Speaking at a business conference in Montreal, prominent scientist David Suzuki branded as “criminals” politicians who challenge the global warming orthodoxy, much to the delight of the standing-room-only crowd.

"What I would challenge you to do is to put a lot of effort into trying to see whether there's a legal way of throwing our so-called leaders into jail because what they're doing is a criminal act," said Dr. Suzuki, a former board member of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

"It's an intergenerational crime in the face of all the knowledge and science from over 20 years."

Robert Kennedy, Jr. calls skeptics 'traitors'

Not to be outdone, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during a fire-and-brimstone speech at the 2007 Live Earth concert, lambasted the “crooked scientists who are lying to the American people day after day after day . . . and these rotten politicians . . . who are nothing more than corporate toadies . . . .”

“This is treason, and we need to start treating them now as traitors,” he thundered.

Heidi Cullen, former host of The Weather Channel’s “Forecast Earth,” called for the American Meteorological Society to revoke the Seal of Approval for any weatherman disputing the tenets of man-made warming.

“If a meteorologist can’t speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn’t give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn’t agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns,” she wrote in her Weather Channel weblog.

Thought control on the Internet?

Stripping non-believers of their professional credentials is only the start. Several eco-cultists have called for the appointment of Internet gatekeepers to monitor the opinions of global warming doubters. In Britain, environmental journalist Alex Lockwood of the University of Sunderland writes that “there is clearly a need for research into the ways in which climate skepticism online is free to contest scientific fact.” Translation: How do we best muzzle dissenters?

He continues: “I would argue that climate disinformation online is a form of cultural and political Malware. . . [that] harms not only our democracy, but our planet.”  Lockwood also views favorably those who have called for nationalizing the Internet as a public utility and requiring online publications to register with an “Internet watchdog.”

In the minds of some eco-alarmists, banning contrary thinking does not go nearly far enough. More draconian measures are needed to rein in and punish views that deviate from officially sanctioned dogma.

David Roberts, a staff writer for the environmental organization Grist, wants to see leading warming skeptics hauled before a “war crimes” tribunal.

He writes: “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us, and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards – some sort of climate Nuremberg.”

To his credit, Roberts says he is interested only in the truth and is “opposed to state-sanctioned execution in all cases . . . and would certainly never advocate it merely for the crime of being a lying scumbag.” No word yet on whether water-boarding or flogging would be acceptable.

The climate-change Torquemadas no doubt yearn for the good old medieval times of the rack, thumb screw, heretic’s fork, head vice, Inquisition chair, and Virgin of Nuremberg. Let the red out and the green spirit in.

The first sinners in line for spiritual cleansing would undoubtedly be Lord Monckton of Brenchley, Steven McIntyre of Climate Audit and Anthony Watts of Watts Up With That? – three well-known apostates held in especially high disrepute by the high priests of global warming.

Have the environmental-global warming-climate change jihadists finally lost their moral bearings – and sense of fair play in the forum of intellectual debate? When thoughtful people can no longer express their doubts about man-made global warming – a still unproven theory – without fear of on-the-job reprisals, ostracism, jail or worse, something has gone terribly awry. Environmentalism then has crossed into the dark province of eco-extremism, interested not in the pursuit of truth, but in strict adherence to a neo-fascist religious code.

The following missive forwarded recently to Climategate.com, captures the gravitas and profound philosophical underpinnings of the global warming cult:

“it doesnt really matter what you people say – all your arguments and all the bullsh!t won’t make a lick of difference to what we are facing and what will happen to our climate.

“i don’t know how you can live with yourselves. please just put some arsenic in your coffee and let the rest of world get on with it.”

 
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