(Imported Article) Silencing Scientists - FOR REAL!

Hot Air (props)

Scientist silenced by politician for his position on global warming

October 1, 2007 by Bryan

The politician’s name is not George W. Bush. The scientist’s name is not James Hansen.

The University of Virginia’s climatology data center is seeking a lower profile after its former top official, the state climatologist, resigned this past summer amid questions over whether he should use the position to promote his doubts about theories on global warming…

The former state climatologist, Patrick J. Michaels, has been on sabbatical from the university for the past year, said Joseph C. Zieman, chairman of the school’s Department of Environmental Sciences, which houses the center. Zieman said Michaels resigned the post this summer and was replaced by U-Va. research scientist Jerry Stenger, who has been running the center without the formal state title. Stenger has worked at the center for more than 20 years…

Michaels has argued that the climate is becoming warmer but that the consequences will not be as dire as others have predicted. [Va’s Democratic Gov. Tim] Kaine had warned Michaels not to use his official title in discussing his views.

“I resigned as Virginia state climatologist because I was told that I could not speak in public on my area of expertise, global warming, as state climatologist,” Michaels said in a statement this week provided by the libertarian Cato Institute, where he has been a fellow since 1992. “It was impossible to maintain academic freedom with this speech restriction.”

Fight the political orthodoxy and objective science is the casualty.

Whether the global warming hysteria is legitimate or not is becoming more and more beside the point: Public and private education are already on board with it, producing kids who goad their parents into going green.

In households across the country, kids are going after their parents for environmental offenses, from using plastic cups to serving non-grass-fed beef at the dinner table. Many of these kids are getting more explicit messages about becoming eco-warriors at school and from popular books and movies.

This year’s global-warming documentary “Arctic Tale,” for instance, closes with a child actor telling kids, “If your mom and dad buy a hybrid car, you’ll make it easier for polar bears to get around.”

I guess the documentary left out the part about hybrids having about the same or more impact on the environment as standard cars.