CLIMATE CHANGE: THE FEAR FACTOR

Here, in its entirety, is Tyler O’Neil’s article, at pjmedia.com, detailing the latest scientist who could no longer abide being forced to look the other way on global warming er, climate change – the name reassigned to this claim when warming didn’t happen:

A climatologist at Georgia Institute of Technology resigned from her post because she could no longer navigate the stifling political orthodoxy on climate change.

Former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech Judith Curry announced her resignation in a blog post on Tuesday. While he resignation is technically “a retirement event,” and she is “cashing out” to get her pension, Curry explained that “the deeper reasons have to do with my growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.”

Curry is known for her scientifically astute explanations of the uncertainties in climate science. Indeed, she has been attacked as “anti-science” by other researchers who repeat the rote “scientific consensus” that man-made global warming is a catastrophic threat to humanity. In a cruel sort of irony, the universities — ostensibly the bastion of academic freedom — have become unsafe for those who, using good scientific methods, are skeptical of the received wisdom on climate change.

“A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science,” Curry wrote. “Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.” (emphasis added)

To say that looking at both sides of this issue – some of us call that THINKING – is dangerous to an academic’s professional health would be a gross understatement.

People like Judith Curry, who dare to question the orthodoxy being propounded by the entrenched left, and the “there’s grants in them there hills” crowd (very often one and the same), if they are lucky, will be treated like members of the flat earth society.  If they are not so lucky, they will be attacked and villified until they either knuckle under or go away.

Does that qualify as the pursuit of science?  Or unanimity regardless of facts?

Is this a free and open exchange of ideas?  Or a free and open exchange of idea.

There are two sides to this issue.  TWO SIDES.  And the harder one side tries to stifle the other, the less confidence I have in that side’s position….because I perceive that its proponents are fearful of putting their views up against those of others.  What would they be fearful of?  That the other side makes valid points?

To be continued….