Climate change deniers have used many tactics in their fight to prevent action on greenhouse gas emissions. From manufacturing doubt (a tactic borrowed from the tobacco wars) to buying scientists to claiming that climate scientists are part of a global conspiracy to invent climate change in order to obtain grant money, there has been no tactic too sleazy or absurd to be used in defense of the fossil fuel industry's status quo.
Harassment of climate scientists has long been one of those tactics. Scientists who find themselves in the denial industry's crosshairs have been subjected to avalanches of FOIA requests, personal smears in the blogoshpere, hate mail and hackings. Recently these tactics have spread and intensified, with some scientists receiving threats of death and sexual assault against themselves and even their children.
links below the squiggle...
The American Association for the Advancement of Science felt compelled to issue a statement condemning the harassment, saying that it "created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and makes it difficult for factual information and scientific analyses to reach policymakers and the public.." (Of course, inhibiting science and factual information is exactly their goal.) The most excellent Dan Vergano of USA Today contributes analysis and good links. The AAAS' statement was also covered by the NYT.
Tim Lambert (Deltoid) covers the truly frightening harassment being suffered by Australian climate scientists, as does Climate Progress.
Have you hugged your climate scientist today?
Meanwhile, in the real world: David Roberts of Grist tells us that that moderate terror we were all feeling is in fact a false sense of security.
Dr. Jeff Masters of Weather Underground put together a fantastic post on how the weather of the past year has been the most extreme since 1816 - and that year was the 'year without a summer' resulting from the eruption of Mt. Tambora.
