In a short news item, the Scientist picked up on a story out of Australia.
A public smear campaign, death threats, and threats of sexual violence, have prompted leading Australian climate scientists to take drastic measures to secure their safety.
more....
The Scientist is picking up reports from The Guardian and The Telegraph. The Guardian news item attributes the threats to the increasingly rancorous debate between the government and the opposition over imposing carbon taxes to begin dealing with climate change. A recent advert featuring Cate Blanchett in favor of the proposal seems to have stirred the pot further. Quote:
A number of Australia's leading climate scientists have been moved into safer accommodation after receiving death threats, in a further escalation of the country's increasingly febrile carbon price debate.
The revelation of the death threats follows a week of bitter exchanges between the government and the opposition in the wake of a pro-carbon price TV advert featuring actor Cate Blanchett.
The Telegraph piece gets into more details of the impact on targeted scientists:
As an intense debate over how to tackle climate change in the country becomes increasingly vicious, a team of high-profile researchers at the Australian National University in Canberra has been given increased security protection after a campaign of menacing and abusive emails and phone calls intensified in recent weeks.
The threats, which included sexual assault, sexual attacks on family members and public smear campaigns, were so serious and so explicit that the Australian Federal Police have been called in to investigate.
Dick Young, the ANU vice-chancellor, said the thrust of the messages were to stop research on climate change or face violent retribution.
“Obviously climate research is an emotive issue at the present time,” Mr Young said.
“These are issues where we should have a logical public debate and it’s completely intolerable that people be subjected to this sort of abuse and to threats like this.”
IF the White House ever decides that maybe someday something should be possibly discussed about this alleged climate changey stuff, consider what's happening in Australia (exporter of Rupert Murdoch) to be a preview of the battle that will ensue. Conservatives are becoming less civil every day - and hate talk radio is becoming a sewer. It won't be pretty.