How heated has the debate over global warming gotten? Climate scientists in Australia are receiving death threats. From the The Canberra Times:
Australia’s leading climate change scientists are being targeted by a vicious, unrelenting email campaign that has resulted in police investigations of death threats.
The Australian National University has confirmed it moved several high-profile climate scientists, economists and policy researchers into more secure buildings, following explicit threats to their personal safety.
Scientists at universities in NSW and Queensland have told of being moved to high security buildings, where their names do not appear on staff directory lists or on their office door.
”If you want to find me, it’s impossible unless you make an appointment, sign in with some form of photo identification, and are personally escorted to my door,” one scientist said.
”That’s directly as a result of threats made against me.”
More than 30 researchers across Australia ranging from ecologists and environmental policy experts to meteorologists and atmospheric physicists told The Canberra Times they are receiving a stream of abusive emails threatening violence, sexual assault, public smear campaigns and attacks on family members.
Part of me says that this is a result of a growing polarization in politics. Another part says that it’s just the result of improvements in communications. It’s much easier to whip off a threatening text message than it is to write, address and mail a threatening letter.
They gots Rethuglicans in ‘Stralia?
Oh yeah. Starting with our Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott. There is a very strong undercurrent of social conservatism here, and our fair share of loonies. What we don’t have is much of a culture of marching in protest, so the loonies write letters instead of having a nice walk in the open air carrying a banner where everyone can see them.
You’ll love this, they’re called the “Liberal Party”.
The U.S. is ever so much more civilized. Here, we simply legislatively declare unpopular scientific data to be false. Australia, you can have the prize for viciousness, but we claim the one for jaw-dropping stupidity.
I believe these type of threats are a combination of improvements in communications, that is, the easy manner in which we can convey our ideas with an easy degree of anonymity, but also ignorance. I mean, we must have less religious fanatics, thanks to Science and the same greater communication access we have on them (works both ways), but we have now much easier ways for those few to disseminate their ideas of hate and intolerance against people like you (and me) who hold ideas, scientific or not, different to their views. About ignorance: Weather someone sends you threats or not when they try to expose their ideas to you may have more to do with their frustration due to a) lack of personal communication skills due to lack of access to education or simply due to mental disorders, or b) brainwashing by Religion, to the degree they are successful at placing so much emphasis on Faith, circular reasoning, and ignoring obvious facts, that is, “don’t think and reason, just believe what we tell you” that eventually erodes and degrades your natural mental reasoning powers. Any of these factors leaves the writer with immense frustration that their only release is to make animal-like threats, devoid of Reason, pure impulse/emotion. It is the conundrum of every serious devoted religious person: to achieve max devotion/Faith you must let go of Reason, completely! However, without Reason, how in the hell can you argue reasonably with anyone, including yourself? How can you make sense of anything around you causing you pain, because of all the stupid things you must do (since you don’t use Reason)? It must be incredibly, rabid-mad frustrating to live like that, completely devoid of Reason in order to believe in certain religious events and writings, and yet be forced to deal with every day life, which requires a great deal of Reasoning skills. Switching on and off your brain like that can not be healthy to the mind.
next thing you know they’ll be targeting climate-science authorities like they did Dr. Tiller.
I wish this was made up………….but it’s not.
I’d like to believe instead that the scientists were moved to more secure buildings away from low-lying areas near the ocean, so they can continue their research uninterrupted by rising sea levels.
Not necessary in Australia. It’s the continent that will be least affected by rising sea levels. It takes a humongous 20 to 30-meter (60-100 ft) rise in sea level to do any serious damage to Oz (as in, good-bye to Adelaide and Sydney, and even then, substantial parts of those metropolitan areas remain dry).
Phew. That’s good to know.
That’s a matter of opinion!
This must be read with the knowlege that Australia is currently debating the imposition of a Carbon tax to ultimately reduce consumption of carbon inducing fossil fuels. Those oppposed are running a rather nasty campaign that is scaring many. No excuse for death threats, but it is a heated topic in Australia, hence the passion.