When the denial machine goes after climate scientists it is, as one of them said, like the marines going into battle against boy scouts. The brutality of the attacks has once again been confirmed by the release of some of the emails sent to Phil Jones, the University of East Anglia climate scientist at the centre of the “Climategate” storm.
The emails make for sickening reading and anyone receiving them would be foolish not to treat the threats as potentially serious.
Australian climate scientists have for some years been receiving the same kind of abuse and threats. Every time Andrew Bolt targets a scientist for criticism he or she receives a torrent of aggression from his legion of followers.
The objective of the cyber-bullying is obvious, to drive climate scientists (and anyone else who writes about climate change, including journalists) out of the public debate. Some of the more resolute scientists have said that they will not be intimidated, but they would not be human if they were not at least disturbed by the threats.
Of course, the hate-speech coming from climate deniers is anathema to everything universities stand for. The abuse and threats have taken public discourse to a different level, something akin to the ferocity of the anticommunist crusades against intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s.
I know that some young scientists have been turned off becoming climate scientists because they don’t want to expose themselves and their families to the violence of the debate. And who can blame them? Most scientists are “boy scouts” when it comes to politics; they went into science because they were drawn to the cocoon of the lab where plenty of intellectual excitement can be found without having to muscle up to professional political operatives.
So it was tactlessness bordering on cruelty for the editor-in-chief of The Australian to respond to news of the death threats by telling scientists they just need to “harden up”, as he recently did under the heading “Death threats just par for the course”. For Mitchell receiving an email like the following is just par for the course:
“I will smack the living shit out of you bitch so back the Fuck off I am a one-man swat team You do not want to fuck with me OK do you get the picture friend?”
Mitchell has cause to trivialise the threats because in its war on science his newspaper has done more than a thousand cyber-bullies to disparage and ridicule climate scientists, and thereby validate the kind of hatred the loonies send from the computers in their bedrooms.
In one of its more deplorable tactics The Australian has mounted a campaign to undermine the credibility of scientists’ claims about abuse and death threats. To this end Christian Kerr wrote a beat-up insinuating that ANU scientists had lied about the threats.
Mitchell, Kerr and legal affairs writer Chris Merritt are behaving like defence lawyers in a rape trial, attempting to pull apart the victim’s testimony and in doing so compounding the violation.
When climate scientists both receive threats and are accused by the Murdoch press of lying about them, the campaign only increases the pressure on them to redirect their work to more peaceful areas, with the danger that the Australian public will be left in the dark about the defining issue of the 21st century.
It turns out that climate scientists, innocently going about their research, have turned up a body of evidence that happens to challenge the conservative worldview, the world of “individual freedoms”, unfettered markets, corporate power and exploitation of nature, the worldview shared by both Rupert’s bunnies and the cyber-bullies.
For those of us brought up to have faith in the Enlightenment, it has been shocking to discover that, when a mountain of facts comes up against a powerful ideology, the ideology can prevail.
It is frightening to think that the next Federal Government will in all likelihood be led by a climate denier. The boy scouts will be in for a real kicking then, this time an officially sanctioned one. In the end, of course, we will all feel the pain.
Comments on this article are now closed.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
Not sure what's worse, the despicable, inexcusable emails sent to scientists by a bunch of fringe loonies, or Clive's attempt to silence legitimate scientific debate by linking those emails to anyone who poses serious questions about aspects of climate science, or those who pose policy solutions that diverge from Clive's bleak vision of the future. In the long run I suspect Clive's pernicious influence over the policy debate might be the worse of the two. Death threat emails from morons are a serious repugnant crime, but proposing a suspension of democracy to impose a cranks' warped vision is something else entirely.
Note the emails sent to Phil Jones are entirely different in their tone to those recently released from ANU and reported on by The Australian. Hamilton once again shows himself to be a master of propaganda by linking the two. The later according to an independent review by the privacy commissioner did not contain death threats.
James Walker
logged in via Facebook
if threats have been made - then provide the emails to the police. Threats are criminal. Thanks to the ANU, any claim of threatening email is going to be ignored otherwise.
Stiofán Mac Suibhne
Contrarian / Epistemologist
I accept that scientific positions are at any given time evolving, understanding develops and will always be partial and contingent. Science should be viewed in its sense as method and evaluated. My belief is that climate change has significantly been brought about by human activities and population overgrowth. I supprt the carbon tax. I am thusly a believer, a good guy. Indeed some of my best friends are scientists.
What I struggle with is the whining by scientists that don't like being challenged. By all means discredit those you disagree with, but it is quite odious to appropriate allusions to the Holocaust by coining silly titles as 'climate deniers'. Why make yourself look so silly? It's emotive and undermines the science by resorting ad hitlerium / literary devices.
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Sean Lamb
Science Denier
In fairness to scientists in general, the talented Professor Hamilton is not one of their number.
I am not sure what is discipline is: Sociologist? Philosopher? Academic Politician.
Anyway he is certainly an author, the author of Silencing Dissent:
"Silencing Dissent uncovers the tactics used by John Howard and his colleagues to undermine dissenting and independent opinion. "
Gary Murphy
Independent Thinker
I think I missed the bit where he was proposing a suspension of democracy - where was it exactly?
All I got was that he thought some of the vitriol directed at these scientists was way over the top.
And maybe he insinuated that Anthony Bolt was responsible for some of this - and seeing him describe the greens as "anti-human" in his blog I am inclined to agree.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
I don't support the carbon tax, for so many reasons, the main one being that it will do nothing to alter the climate. Paint me bad.
You make some good points. The evidence indicates significant human effects on the environment, whether the effects could be considered to be "dangerous" or requiring urgent action is open to wide debate, one Clive would rather not have.
Byron Smith
PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh
Professor Hamilton's field is "Applied Philosophy & Public Ethics", as it says on his profile. It is not one of the natural sciences but that doesn't make it any less important.
There is a difference between (a) pointing out that one's opponent is wrong and highlighting a history of their mistakes and (b) telling them that if they don't shut up you will kill them. One of these robust public debate. The other is an illegitimate attempt to silence dissenting opinions.
Davoe McNamee
logged in via email @gmail.com
Three incorrect premises in this comment.
Read moreA. Scrutiny does not include death threats to scientists doing legitimate work. Simply because some dingbats in the media subtly encourage it, does not make it right or legal.
B. Climate change deniers are always the first to breach Godwin's law. Monckton calls environmentalists Hiter youth & Ross Guarnot a nazi. Marc Hendrickx refers to the IPCC as fascist. I have never heard either being referred to as a nazi or a fascist by the other side.
C. Climate…
Davoe McNamee
logged in via email @gmail.com
Although to be fair I do apply the term denier to certain people associated with the left including:
1. GE Food Crop Deniers. People who use discredited studies (ie. Monarch Butterflys), and 'big agribusiness' conspiracy theories to justify their intimidation of all GE research.
2. Vaccine deniers. Use of 'big-pharma' conspiracy theories, discredited research (Wakefield), not to mention their repeated breaches of Godwins law.
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Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Davoe, the exchange I had via personal email with Monckton over two years ago just adds to what you point out re the absurd, childishness of these denier folks.
Monckton responded to one question about hiis misleading videos, that there's so little CO2 in the air, it wouldn't matter if we added as much more.
With that one statement he showed his vacuous thinking and his lack of personal-finance mastery. I simply asked him if the bank down the street offered him 380/280 times his current bank's interest, would he move his account. He simply ended the email conversation with some very un-lordly expletive and that was that.
Of course, he still went on blathering in videos and Fox News and any other 'outlet' that would pay him.
This will go on and on, until various individuals reach their personal level of self-awareness that embarrasses them more than the compensation they get for dis-informing others.
Grendelus Malleolus
Senior Nerd
I love how every time denier's are criticised for their tactics they immediately raise hue and cry for an assault on their freedom of speech.
No.
Criticism of what you say is not the same as preventing you from saying it. These scientists have been threatened with harm if the don't “back the F*** off” - THAT is supression of free speech.
Telling you that you are in error, and giving you a rationale for that view is participation in the discussion not suppression of your right to participate.
Sean Lamb
Science Denier
Well if John Howard, whose stifling of dissent so raise Dr Hamilton's ire. ever threatened anyone with harm if they didn't "back the F off", I would be interested to hear it.
Sean Lamb
Science Denier
Whether or not Applied Philosophy is more or less important than the natural sciences must be a matter of personal opinion. At very least I would say the ratio of noise to signal would be considerably higher in the field of Applied Philosophy.
"telling them that if they don't shut up you will kill them."
Oh well I don't know anything about that. At any rate no ANU scientist was able to produce any email like that. I dare say Phil Jones would have received something along those lines - although one of the things he was accused of was using his position to shut down robust public debate by unethical behind the scenes manipulation.
Grendelus Malleolus
Senior Nerd
The PM (any person at all in that role - of any political persuasion), has substantial authority and can suppress dissent without ever having to utter any threat, you simply redirect government policy. If you perhaps take the time to read Clive's book you will perhaps understand why your question appears to be substantially politically naïve.
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Sean Lamb
Science Denier
So let me see if I have got this straight:
Coining the phrase "black armband view of history" is stifling dissent and atrocious oppression of armies of heroic academics.
Where as "climate deniers sending death threats" describing a small handful of rather anodyne communications is not?
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Sean Lamb
Science Denier
"When the denial machine goes after climate scientists it is, as one of them said, like the marines going into battle against boy scouts."
I have to say if I was a climate scientist using such an analogy, I would have reversed the roles - ie Team Insanity would be the marines and Team Denial would be the boy scouts - but if that is how the fragile petals view the situation, so be it.
However, I do agree with Dr Hamilton about the disgraceful behaviour of The Australian over the death threat…
Read moreJames Sexton
Network administrator
Yes, see, very, very mean to the poor boy scouts. Every one should politely listen to rubbish and then thank them for wasting everyone's time and money.
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Tim Scanlon
Author and Scientist
When you can't win an argument with facts start threatening them.
Since science doesn't deal with anything other than facts, those who are unwilling to accept them are bound to launch into ad hominems and threats at some stage.
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
"those who are unwilling to accept them are bound to launch into ad hominems and threats at some stage."
Ben Santer about Pat Michaels:
"I’m really sorry that you have to go through all this stuff, Phil. Next time I see Pat Michaels at a scientific meeting, I’ll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."
Byron Smith
PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh
Notice the difference: Ben Santer was sympathising with a friend about a frustrating third party. Santer never did beat the crap out of Pat Michaels, or even (as far as I am aware) threatened to do so to him directly. The email was not directed at Michaels nor did Santer ever intend for Michaels to read it and so feel threatened by it. In contrast, the orchestrated abuse of climate scientists is directed to them with the clear goal of intimidation. These is no equivalence between them.
Byron Smith
PhD candidate in Christian Ethics at University of Edinburgh
These --> There.
(Edit function please moderators.)
Marc Hendrickx
Geologist
The term "orchestrated abuse" needs some clarification. It seems Phil's emails are from a few individuals, how this could comprise a conspiracy is beyond me. The term beat up comes to mind, if you pardon the pun.
In regard to Santer's remarks, they demonstrate that recourse to ad hom with threats of violence, in the face of frustration is a common human trait. That they were not sent to their intended " victim" is not relevant to the point I was making.
Oh and Tim, if science only dealt with the facts it wouldn't be all that interesting. The science part is about explaining the "facts". but I'm sure you knw that.
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Hugh Sturgess
Student
It's truly remarkable how mechanical and brainless denialist talking points are. Death threats to scientists? <<ROBOT RESPONSE>> "Ben Santer said mean things about Pat Michaels in a stolen email once!" You honestly think they are equivalent? It's not relevant to you that a threat made in frustration to a colleague wasn't sent to its subject? It's not a threat, anyway, it was a figure of speech. "I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him." How is Santer "threatening" Michaels, when Michaels was…
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Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Yep, I wrote down "Marc" on a scrap of paper before I opened this piece and sure enough, Marc's here, in a jiffy, lamenting his victimization while standing up for something. Let's see, what would a geologist stand up for regarding emissions from combustion? TimS is here too, wondered where he's been lately on these 'horrible' articles that are just soooo unscientific.
Read more;]
So Tim & Marc, and any denier buddies, have you shown your maturity by opening a trust or a bond for your descendents to cover…
Tim Scanlon
Author and Scientist
I assume you meant Tim Curtin.
Me, I love science and knowledge.
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Tim, please scrap my use of your name in my first comment -- had you mixed with someone else. -- sorry.
Luke Weston
Physicist / electronic engineer
Of course, it's not always only climate scientists, we shouldn't forget about all the other scientists in other disciplines as well - particularly pharmacologists, immunologists and the like helping to develop vaccines and medicines, anybody who dares to speak up sensibly and knowledgeably about nuclear power, and agricultural scientists and anybody working in research and development of recombinant crops.
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Science & engineering are performed by people. Oops (to quote a 'famous' US politician).
The purpose of science & engineering is to learn from Nature and apply that knowledge to the world. There's no guarantee someone can't be bought to twist things to suit particular interests. We see that all the time, because humans are flawed, greedy, etc.
Science & engineering only surmount our defects by repeated efforts by those not biased as they expose facts of nature. The problem is timeliness…
Read moreJames Sexton
Network administrator
Oh please. This is simply hilarious. Alarmists don't learn very quick, do they? They haven't embarrassed themselves enough by the false claims of death threats that they now have to double down on this?
Threatening e-mails are actionable. At least they are in the U.S. Both civilly and criminally. It isn't that difficult to trace many types of e-mails, others would require cooperation from other parties, like MS or Google, and ISPs.
From the batch which Clive referenced, it looked as if…
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Davoe McNamee
logged in via email @gmail.com
" He referred to the e-mails as being "hacked". Any skeptic worth his salt knows there is no proof of the e-mails being hacked."
No the Kent police have ruled out the emails being 'leaked' as claimed by climate change deniers. And are investigating several bloggers for their links to the hacker <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire>;
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James Sexton
Network administrator
Hello Alex, it's so good to hear from you again......
Hey, I was just drawing the parallels.... if Clive wants to whine, I'll show him something. This garbage about "climate scientists, innocently going about their research..." is shown to be bunk. And, pretending that skeptics haven't been targeted for some of the most inhuman and mean spirited threats by alarmist scientists and their surrogates is straight out of the "rule book for radicals". It's projection.
Skeptics have been subjected…
Read moreJames Sexton
Network administrator
Davoe, you may wish to click on the link provided. Sometimes, the Guardian is forced to remove articles which aren't true. Or maybe you can provide a link which works?
James Sexton
Network administrator
Sorry for the double response, but I should clarify.
Davoe, whether the emails were or weren't hacked isn't relevant to my point. Skeptics don't refer to the emails as hacked. Further, if you look at the time of the mailings, that was well before the Guardian story alleging "leaked" emails being ruled out.
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
James, you might be taken more seriously if you laid off the hackneyed phrasing, like "alarmist scientists", "inhuman and mean spirited threats by alarmist scientists ", "atrocities are brought to you by", or even "skeptic".
That latter is a wimpy way of hiding from responsibility to study real data. It's what folks like Monckton hide behind while making $ endangering others' futures.
No one agrees with people being wrongly evicted from their lands, so why raise that irrelevancy? If you're…
Read moreSandra Dennis
logged in via Facebook
James, the articles is there, it took me under a minute to find it by searching on The Guardian website. Just remove the final > that has snuck into the link. i.e. it should be: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/15/hacked-climate-emails-police-west-yorkshire
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James Sexton
Network administrator
Alex, you don't agree that the examples I sited were atrocities? I believe we should call them what they are. But, that's just me. You accuse me of hiding? I'm putting it on the table. Here is what the advocacy has wrought. Again, I'll state the responsible parties......
Clean Development Mechanism, the Nature Conservancy and the African Wildlife Foundation, New Forest Company (via Kyoto protocol), Department for International Development, and many others. But, mostly because of the advocacy…
Read moreJames Sexton
Network administrator
Yes Sandra, I was looking for the confirmation that the police had ruled out a leak as opposed to a hack. That information isn't in the article you linked.
I'm familiar with the harassment of TB.
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Nice try James. Your use of those atrocities is irrelevant to scientists arguing over climate issues. But you know that's what I said.
Your "alarmists" crutch limits the value of what you say, because, for example, cheap energy for the poor around the world is what many of us environmentalists are indeed working for. We can certainly talk on that, but the topic here was the silly behavior of folks trying to claim they can at once be critical of scientific work and be selectively ignorant of its full content.
So, I repeat my question to you re your "Atrocities" listed earlier -- what are you doing about it? I'm going to do something about the Sanburu & all else I can in the am. You?
James Jenkin
EFL Teacher Trainer
Hamilton's writing is always simple-minded. It's like reading a progressive Christopher Pearson.
Hamilton doesn't just promote climate action. He focuses on the motivations of people, painting a Sunday-School-like picture of good versus evil. Climate researchers are 'innocent' and 'resolute'. AGW skeptics are 'brutal cyber-bullies' and 'Rupert's bunnies'.
It's unfortunate, because Hamilton raises some interesting issues. Indeed, commentators like Bolt provoke aggressive responses. But so do AGW advocates such as Peter Gleik. It would be useful to explore why the climate issue creates this fervor - on all sides.
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Stiofán Mac Suibhne
Contrarian / Epistemologist
The point about why climate change raises such passion is an interesting one.
I imagine that the interest is largely confine to those of us that belong to the chattering classes. I think the average citizen is more interested in their power bill than Gaia apocalypse at some future date.
No doubt vested interests such as mining companies, nuclear power, wind turbine manufacturers and scientists who earn a crust out of it are all part of that mix. Stirring it up to protect or create positions of advantage.
I would rather see some progress on reducing CO2 emissions, moving to clean electricity generation processes, population overgrowth containment strategies etc rather than endless hot air debates on nasty emails.
David Howard
Home Duties
We live in an age of email and people in the public eye get a level of antagonistic communication as soon as you enter the public arena. In many ways this varies from abuse to people like local councilors through to threats against state and federal MPs. I think we all know this occurs.
This is an example of how to spin a set of half truths into something that seems more sinister,
Read more(1) Take statements made to someone in the public eye and describe them as threats “There will be a day of facing…
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Reminds me of the exchange by phone George Monbiot had when following up with a doctor in Wales who'd lied about nuclear power dangers and was selling "anti-radiation pills" to Japanese after Fukushima. The gut, Busby, was unhappy people were finding out about his scams...
""When I [Monbiot] phoned Busby to ask him some questions about these issues, his responses were less than enlightening. He began as follows: “You can f__k off frankly.” When I asked him what his involvement was with the Christopher Busby Foundation for the Children of Fukushima, he told me: “I think you can f__k off. I’m not going to answer your questions.”"
Sound familiar?
Shauna Murray
Research Fellow
I would think the comments by the Australian should be looked at very closely by VCs, CSIRO and BOM.
As they employ scientists, they have a responsibility to protect them in their course of their work.
I would suggest at the very least a boycott of any media to be sold, studied or dealt with by a University campus if it condones or advocates violence and bullying against University personnel.
Stephen Prowse
CEO at Wound CRC
Clive Hamilton raises a some very important issues in his article. As a society we face a wide range of very complex social and environmental issues to which there are no clear answers. Scientists and science have a very important role to play in the discussion which must be informed by more than ideology, personal bias and the generation of wealth (not that there is anything wrong with wealth). We should be creating an environment where we can have a sensible and reasonable discussion on these issues. One would hope that The Conversation provides such a forum. Unfortunately in reading the comments here and in other climate change related articles, this is rarely the case with many of the same culprits producing more of the same , hardening entrenched positions.
Chris Harper
Engineer
I'm sorry, but this is a joke.
That a man who is on record as proposing that the free and democratic institutions should be abolished so his preferred solutions to a heavily disputed issue can be imposed while suppressing opposition should rail about unpleasantries from his opponents really is a joke. That he be taken seriously is absurd.
That an 'expert' in ethics should use pejorative language to describe people who disagree with him raises questions about his understanding of ethics, and that he should use baseless smears such as 'war on science' against those who don't agree with his interpretation of the observations raises questions as to he even understands the philosophy which backs science.
James Sexton
Network administrator
Clive, I should also point out, that many people are of the opinion that the term "denier" is a form of hate speech. It certainly serves to marginalize the people you are referring to. But, that's the point, isn't it?
And the "ferocity of the anticommunist crusades against intellectuals in the 1950s and 1960s"?
Well, considering the accomplishments of likes of Stalin, Mao, and Pot, I can say I'm certainly glad for that ferocity. And, you should be, too. It's well documented what happens to academia when Communists take over. My father says , "you're welcome."
Dennis Alexander
logged in via LinkedIn
Clive, don't read the Australian: it is toxic waste at best and excrement most of the time.
As for the denialists/sceptics: they are not marines, they don't carry automatic weapons and, in the main, they are not worthy of response as they do not engage with the actual climate science and the issues therein. Indeed, in the main, they cannot as they have little to no relevant training, preferring to proffer the same tired links to the same tired non-science. With them, it is not a conversation because they do not listen and have said all they can and been found wanting.
Alvin Stone
logged in via Facebook
It has been been fascinating, although not unsurprising trip through today's comments. The fact is, quite simply, that climate scientists regularly receive abusive emails - many more and more vicious than most I received as an editor of newspapers over two decades.
Whether they can be classed as death threats or not is beside the point.
The facts remain, climate scientists are honest people trying their best to drill down into the details of climate change, essentially for the benefit of…
Read moreAnthony Nolan
Ruminant
Science is merely bearing the brunt of this first, sustained assault on Enlightenment values by classes whose interests are no longer served by pretending to be forces for good. Modern day pharaohs send armies of drooling minions and subordinates out to threaten and intimidate any who stand in the way of their unending appetite, their engrossment, their insatiable need for more, more, more.
Scientists need to politicise. Quickly. No more hoping that the facts will persuade, that rationality will triumph because...well, it just will. That sort of thinking derives from faith. Faith is inadequate to the task of toppling pharaohs. It is not a matter of whose side are you on so much as will you, as scientists, bring science once again into the service of humanity?
Stephen Prowse
CEO at Wound CRC
Good comment. Scientists need to engage in the debate with a good understanding of culture, behaviour an politics. The traditional notion of data speaking for itself has long gone. In the big policy debates of recent times (GMO, nuclear power, vaccination and now climate change) the tendency of science has been to shout louder and imply that the data speaks for itself so why can't everyone see this and agree. This does not work!
Science organisations need to use and promote scientists who understand the complexities of the public communication of science and carefully craft arguments that are tailed for the issues and the audience. Not all scientists need to nor should engage but many must if we are to address the complex sustainability issues that face us today. They need to be thick skinned to withstand the irrational and emotive attacks that will follow.
Science has incredibly important messages that must not get lost.
alexander j watt
logged in via Twitter
i just think the risk is that you enter a spiraling war of spin, where facts become more and more unimportant and it is all about how much of the argument you can control, which is where money comes into it and the whole thing gets distorted.
no i think the argument needs to be grounded, returned again and again, to plain facts. that is the only answer to vitriol and spin.
Stephen Prowse
CEO at Wound CRC
I completely agree with the need to return again and again to the data. However it is the importance of the context and the way in which the facts get presented to different audiences is what is often not well understood. Letting the data speak for itself works at a scientific conference but not out in the wide world.
Gil Hardwick
Anthropologist
No, I disagree with this. Get over it finally, guys. Stop being such bloody wimps.
I mean, email from trolls is akin to marines going into battle against boy scouts? Really? Get a grip!
An email is not even paper. It can't even nick your finger, which is about the worst injury most of you guys will experience in your entire life.
And why "climate scientists" in particular? Everyone gets trolled and spammed. Sometimes there are entire offshore websites set up against people, hosted off the…
Read moreTim Scanlon
Author and Scientist
I've been on plenty of forums and involved in heated debates previously, so I don't disagree. If you haven't received a threat on personal safety or had Godwin's Law come into play then the internet discussion must have been in an echo chamber or about something mundane. You need a thick skin on the internet.
But the problem with death threats and threats against the person (bodily and professionally) is more about fallout. I have received several emails that have threatened myself and my job. I replied with grammatical corrections and some insulting cartoons. The problem arises when breaches of workplace codes of conduct occur. A complaint against a person in many organisations demands an investigation, regardless of its validity. This is when the threats become more than just trolling and come to life.
Bob Weis
Film maker
Very good Clive - let's hope the torrent of abuse and misinformation that you got after your last piece isn't repeated, I will put a pointer to it on my website, ourbookcircle.com. I have enjoyed all the work of yours I have seen,
Adam Butler
Engineer and Data Analyst
Oh dear. It never ceases to amaze me how humans behave.
Our society has lost the basic ability to be human; to share the basic bonds that make us who we are. To use the gifts of communication, love and understanding.
These failures are perpetuated by the pedlars of instant gratification - those that seek to ensure you are enslaved by the desires that they say you must fulfil.
When was the last time anyone crossed "no man's land" in order to talk and understand each other's version of reality. In the 1960s Erich Fromm wrote about "the sane society" and how we are destroying ourselves. This article, the commentary highlights this. We are doomed because we are stuck in a mindset of tearing down, instead we should be building each other up.
Alex Cannara
logged in via Facebook
Adam, yes, it's too bad that we share 98% of our genes with chimps and that they & we are the only animals who, after a battle with opposing clans, mutilates dead bodies.
The problem is that our minds are devious and that's how folks with ulterior motives can hide intents that benefit themselves, while appearing to exhort reasonable positions.
Here, the evidence of our mutual antipathies is evidenced by the large number of comments removed by our genteel admin. Would that a moderator could detect disingenuousness as easily.
;]
John Bennetts
Engineer
If the content of the emails isn't actually real death threats. then it is at least an attempt to bully the subject.
Since when do climate deniers condone bullying?
At whatever level, these emails and much of the uglier correspondence which is easy to find out there is unacceptable, on a scale ranging from unsavoury, through bullying and abusive and right to the top.
So, I suggest that the point of this article is broader than realistic or perceived death threats. The point is and was the fact that bullying, in all of its forms, is not acceptable.
This is true, regardless of the personal opinion of an editor of the nation's daily, which as we all know is a touchy-feely journal with only the highest personal, social, ethical and academic standards. The last sentence was typed from my family room, where I sit watching the pigs fly backwards overhead towards the afternoon winter sun.