| I disagree. My observation is that the scientific community is making assertions of what is more or less the current understanding of the state of global warming to the best of their knowledge. Advocates and opportunists are taking this and converting it to something like "98% percent of scientists agree that global warming is 100% caused by man and we are absolutely doomed if we do not do something right now." (obviously I am being somewhat hyperbolic.) So the scientists are observing this and thinking to themselves "What these people are saying is not technically true, but it seems like most likely an effective approach to invoke action amongst the general public, so we'll just keep our mouths shut." It may very well turn out that this is in fact the most pragmatic approach. What I am saying is, it may turn out that this isn't the most pragmatic approach. Addressing climate change costs money, and lots of it. People generally don't like spending money unless there is a very obvious and more or less immediate benefit. Now imagine a convincing leader comes along who validates this distrust, and can point to legitimate cracks in these assertions (actually, I don't think Trump even had to do this, but don't underestimate the power of YouTube propaganda videos)....you might just find yourself with a president that you never would have imagined could have been elected. It's interesting in a thread where we're generally talking about the nature of public conversation, where I am actually mostly on the side of believing that man-made climate change is a real thing, but my sense is that most people think (or speak as if at least) I am completely incorrect in the things I say, that there is no disagreement in the scientific community on some of the specifics. It's really quite an extraordinary claim. (iirc, this is one of the big reasons Joel Spolsky quit blogging, he found that he had to qualify every single sentence with multiple sentences of disclaimers, as too many people refused to discuss in an intellectually honest way, always nitpicking individual statements while completely ignoring the spirit of the discussion. Likely putting words in his mouth somewhat, but you get the idea.) |
And we're still waiting for you to define what you meant by "speak" and list more names, when you claimed that "There are highly trained scientists who don't fully support the party line, and they are not allowed to speak," offered Judith Curry as your only evidence, and then disclaimed "I must pre-emptively add that no, indeed, she wasn't in fact literally prevented from speaking". If not "literally prevented from speaking", then what exactly do you mean?
Next time you find yourself writing a disclaimer for what you just wrote in the previous paragraph, please reconsider simply rewriting the paragraph so it's not hyperbolic, is literally true, and exaaaaaaaaaaaactly quotes and cites the source.
Your claim she was prevented from speaking in any sense of the word is objectively false, and you've refused to provide any more evidence or examples when requested. She said herself that: "Nobody and certainly not myself is claiming that I am persecuted or there is a plot that is out to get me." Except for you, apparently.
By any definition of the word "speak", Judith Curry often speaks a hell of a lot of hyperbolic hot air, words which you yourself heard and parroted without fact checking, whether she's staring straight into the camera and blinking up a storm at literally 85 BPM while bloviating on FOX News: https://youtu.be/g5LpwL4NKbw https://youtu.be/HiTbd4Mc3kk , or spreading climate change denial lies on live national television, in front of Congress, in research papers, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, on climate change denial web sites, and on her widely read blog.