Earlier this month, Aaron Ross reported at Mother Jones that Austrailian climate scientists were receiving death threats.
Because of their work supporting carbon emissions taxes, more than 30 climate researchers reported that they received "threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members." In fact several universities moved targeted researchers to secure locations. Many researchers have had to get unlisted phone numbers because of the harassment. One researcher received threats of sexual assault and violence against her children after her photograph appeared in a newspaper article promoting a community tree planting event.
The climate denial narrative is fueled by hate as much as its purveyors are fueled by pulling carbon out of the ground and putting it in the atmosphere. Following a similar pattern that appeared in a threat campaign against US climate scientists, the Austrailian researchers are getting similar gruesome treatment. These threats are not to be ignored. In the UK threats were viscious enough that climate scientist Phil Jones considered committing suicide.
Now that the climate debate turns nasty as Australia tries to price CO2, famous UK climate denier Christopher Monkton turns up to throw more fossil fuel on the fire. He has to make sure that the hate remains as high as the logical fallacy by launching a full effort to brand Austrailian climate advisor as a Nazi and a fascist.
Christopher Monkton is a leader in climate denial buffoonery, who appeared under oath before US congress. He has degrees in Classics and Journalism, and is the Chief Policy Advisor to the right-winged Science and Public Policy Institute. He has not written a single peer-reviewed paper on any scientific topic. All major science organizations have positions that differ from Christopher Monkton's. This talk by John Abraham, Professor of Thermal Science at University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, is well worth your time.
In the meantime, the climate denial narrative continues to be about everything under the sun that isn't climate science.
More from Climate Change News Roundup
Energy, and Technology
- Where Renewables Stack Up ThinkProgress' comparative chart on levelized cost of electricity of renewables versus fossil resources.
- Solar Cell Breaks Efficiency Record "Alta Devices, a start-up in Santa Clara, Calif., presented research at the 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference, in Seattle, this week that claims its thin-film gallium-arsenide cell can convert 27.6 percent of the sunlight striking the cell into electricity, under standardized conditions. Since the paper was submitted, the company says it has upped the efficiency to 28.2 percent." The previous record was 26.1%.
Business and Economic Impacts
Climate Change in US Politics
- Historic Anti-Corn Ethanol Amendment Faces Uphill Battle "The Feinstein-Coburn measure, which passed June 16, was tacked on to a bipartisan jobs bill that was larded up with close to 100 other unrelated amendments. Democratic leaders are blaming that clog on GOP senators stretching an agreement made earlier this year that lets floor legislation be laden with unlimited amendments."
Climate Policy and News Abroad
Water, Natural Resources, Health, and EcoJustice
- Danger Heats Up for the Platypus A study published in Global Change Biology predicts that the Austrailian Platypus could lose one third of its habitat because of global climate change.
- Wandering gray whale was spotted off Israeli coast last year... "When a 43-foot gray whale was spotted off the Israeli town of Herzliya last year, scientists came to a startling conclusion: It must have wandered across the normally icebound route above Canada, where warm weather briefly opened a clear channel three years earlier." Scientists have also found plankton in the North Atlantic where it hasn't otherwise existed for the past 800,000 years.