The Hounding of Roger Pielke Jr amid the demise of academic freedom in climate change – Watts Up With That?
Dr. Susan Crockford
Tutorial freedom is squashed when students problem any of the precept tenets of local weather change and one of the vital egregious examples of this has been the hounding of Roger Pielke Jr., defined intimately in a briefing paper published today.
If that is what local weather change activists and their supporters in academia will do to a senior professor like Roger Pielke Jr., who actually solely disagrees with them on a single level, it’s no marvel that adjunct professors like myself have been virtually powerless in defending ourselves when the college mob mobilizes to attack with earnest (Laframboise 2019).
Right here’s the chief abstract, by civil liberties journalist Donna Laframboise:
Local weather change, we’re advised, threatens the ‘viability of our societies‘. In August 2021, United Nations Secretary-Normal António Guterres declared the alarm bells ‘deafening‘. If that is even remotely the case, humanity is in pressing want of clear pondering.
However the local weather motion rejects clear pondering. It has little curiosity in sorting information from fiction, in making certain its efforts are primarily based on proof fairly than dogma. The hostility and venom directed at Roger Pielke Jr, a pure disasters professional who wholeheartedly helps decarbonisation of the worldwide economic system, demonstrates this past doubt.
Stray however just a little from the dominant local weather narrative, and activists will fantasise about your violent loss of life. They are going to dismiss your peer-reviewed publications as marginal, accuse you of spreading disinformation, and efficiently marketing campaign to get you fired from part-time jobs. They are going to publish false allegations about you on the White Home web site, goal journalists who quote you in information tales, and topic you to punitive, intrusive, and intensive monetary investigation.
Lately, Roger Pielke Jr has additional found that tutorial freedom is an empty slogan on the College of Colorado (Boulder), his main employer. Slightly than defending its most senior environmental research professor, his personal division is now determinedly harassing and humiliating him.
From the paper’s press release issued by the World Warming Coverage Basis:
Professor Pielke, one of many world’s main environmental scientists, has been a vocal supporter of decarbonisation efforts, however this has not prevented inexperienced activists from participating in a rare marketing campaign to silence him as a result of he refuses to help claims that excessive climate is worsening.
And he’s nonetheless being hounded right this moment, with the College of Colorado Boulder launching after which dropping an investigation of his conduct, and forcing Pielke – their most senior environmental research professor – to maneuver to a tiny windowless workplace…
GWPF Director Dr Benny Peiser mentioned:”The witch-hunt towards Roger Pielke Jr. is symptomatic of an issue that we’re seeing in universities throughout the developed world, with activists attempting to silence dissenting opinions, and with the tacit, and in lots of case the energetic, help of directors.
“Universities must take nice care – if the general public lose religion within the system, public funding and beneficiant donations from alumni can dry up in a short time.”
Laframboise, D. 2021. The Hounding of Roger Pielke Jr. World Warming Coverage Basis Briefing Paper #58. 11 November. Pdf here.
See additionally
Laframboise, D. 2019. The Defenestration of Dr. Crockford: Silencing Dissent at the University of Victoria. World Warming Coverage Basis Briefing Paper #45. 21 October. Pdf here.
Associated
