Don’t believe the rumours of well-funded climate change denialism. We at Climate Resistance lack the hi-tech equipment and web infrastructure to offer the kind of webform that Friends of the Earth USA has at its disposal. Maurizio Morabito suggests we use the FoE form to send an alternative message to the Publishers of American Government, offering support, rather than harassment. We think that’s a good idea. But we should also let Prof Hansen and FoE know what we think of their silly campaign.
We wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to expect you to agree with the following, but if you do, then please send it to the following email addresses by copying it into your mail application. Or write your own. Either way, let them know.
TO: James.E.Hansen@nasa.gov ; nberning@foe.org
CC: trade_publicity@hmco.com
SUBJECT: ECO-CENSORSHIPProfessor Hansen and FoE USA,
I am writing to urge you to immediately publish a corrective addendum to your recent efforts to encourage members of the public to be outraged by text in American Government, 11th edition, by Professors James Q. Wilson and John J. DiIulio, Jr, published by Houghton Mifflin. Your calls for pressure to be applied to the publishers to withdraw or amend the book to suit your own political biases are factually inaccurate and misleading, and undemocratic.
Wilson and DiIulio are correct to describe the scientific understanding of climate change as “enmeshed in scientific uncertainty”, especially with respect to the political response to climate change. Although the IPCC has provided projections from various scenarios to inform the political process, none of these projections have been offered as forecasts, but ‘what ifs’. The international political response to climate change science to date has been precautionary, not based on scientific certainty. The extent to which certainty is absent from climate science is epitomized by the contrast between Professor Hansen’s projections for sea-level rise, and the IPCC’s, which differ by an order of magnitude. Professor Hansen would have us believe that the IPCC is wrong, and has gone on public record to that effect. Why should others not be allowed to challenge mainstream scientific and political orthodoxy without attracting accusations of dishonesty?
The application of the precautionary principle in response to fears about ecological catastrophe is not the result of politically-neutral, objective calculation. In recent years, the political environmental movement has been successful in presenting the precautionary principle as a ’scientific’ response to uncertainty, while greatly exaggerating the scientific plausibility of imaginary apocalyptic scenarios to elicit a response in their favor from a terrified public. In other words, the environmental movement has hidden its politics behind science. And unfortunately, some high-profile scientists have been content to go along with this deception – with the best of intentions, no doubt, but at the expense of democratic debate that draws on the best available scientific evidence.
Allowing alternative perspectives to enter the climate change debate would deprive the political environmental movement of its oxygen, and in turn undermine its political leverage and public profile. I suggest that your demands for statements of correction to American Government in the interests of “the facts” belie a desire for political censorship to silence your detractors and opponents.
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Sincerely,
