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A Call To RICO Climate Change Science Deniers
GregLaden writes: The argument could be made that the organized effort to disrupt climate change science and the development of effective policies to address climate change is criminal, costing life and property. The effort is known to be generally funded by various actors and there are people and organizations that certainly make money on this seemingly nefarious activity. A group of prominent scientists have written a letter to President Obama, Attorney General Lynch, and OSTP Director Holdren asking for this to be investigated under RICO laws, which were originally designed to address organized crime.
Because arresting people is what science is about now.
We know from emails that climate alarmists have fabricated data, and excluded scientists with heretical views from publication in scientific journals.
How does any of this behavior differ in any way from any other organized crime ring? Why are they immune from punishment for what amounts to an organized ring of terror, silencing all opposition for monetary or pelican gain?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This attempt to stifle dissent is going to backfire. The denialists are already claiming that they are victims of a left-wing anti-capitalist conspiracy, and this is just throwing gasoline on the flames.
RICO is more clearly an issue for the Climategate authors. Socialist nonsense and bulllying are reaching high tide in Amerika. Notice how many guns people are buying. Those aren't their best weapons either.
Better yet, sell it to Republicans. You get money and natural justice in one.
Table-ized A.I.
If you chaps don't mind the environmental lobbying groups audited... and the financial paperwork of AL Gore's carbon trading schemes checked out... Pull the trigger.
Double dare you.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Most climate-change models don't actually predict that all humans will be killed.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
It also doesn't make a ton of sense from the left, at least if you're consistently on the left, since the tendency to over-criminalization through broad federal laws isn't exactly having great progressive effects on society.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Edward Maibach, for example, is the Director of Climate Change Communication, and holds a BA in social psychology from University of California at San Diego, an MPH in health promotion from San Diego State University, and a PhD in communication research from Stanford University. He teaches how to talk about climate, but he doesn't study it.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
No, because the Republicans will then demand billions spent to protect (as well as further develop) their investments. Everyone will be on the hook while they get subsidies on their purchases that should have never been purchased.
See reference: New Orleans
When you have to file lawsuits to silence your opposition, that's the clearest possible sign that you are not a scientist, and what you're doing is nothing CLOSE to being a "science".
Exactly. I've already seen friends whom I'd otherwise consider very intelligent posting tinfoil hat nonsense on social media decrying this latest "proof" of conspiracy. Not helping, guys!
Most climate-change "models" are incapable of predicting anything. Given all the data up to last week, they cannot predict the weather today. The Old Farmer's Almanac has more accurate predictions.
Challenge yes.
Wield weaponized bureaucracy against, no. Modern-day federal prosecution is indistinguishable in conduct and likely result from a witch hunt.
I see this as a blatant heresy law. The Church of Global Warming wants to make it illegal to publically disagree with the Received Doctrine. Humanity has been there before, with state-mandated religions, and parts of there world are there now, and it's a dark and ugly place we should never again go.
Think the above is trolling, because global warming is so obviously correct? Remember, almost every religion in history has declared that it is obviously correct, and anyone disagreeing is obviously a political troublemaker out to subvert the legitimate authority of the church, or worse, to do the devil's work. Clearly no one intelligent could actually disagree with the Received Doctrine, right?
Even if you agree fully with the man-made global warming hypothesis, that's not the question here. The question is not who's right, the question is: do you respect the humanity of people who disagree with you on something you believe (and believe to be important)? Are you willing to compete in the marketplace of ideas to convince the non-believers? Or are you really willing to use force to squash all dissent? We know just how ugly that road gets, how it leads through some of humanity's most appalling history, and that road was walked by people who were also utterly convinced they were right!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Climate change deniers are scientists too. The earth is not nor has it ever been outside of its normal range of possible temperatures -- we are still not even close to the "The Great Minoan Warm-up" -- and, the most polluted place on the planet -- Linfen, China has only raised 2 degrees F in 50 years. (You can confirm that with wolfram alpha if you like... You can chew Linfen's air -- that's how nasty it is... Anyway, our whole planet would have to look like Linfen to have this global impact and it just isn't going to happen since we don't actually live on most of the planet -- it's water. Does that mean we shouldn't control emissions? No, we definitely should -- there are health considerations to this, but it doesn't matter what we do... The planet will warm or cool as it pleases like it always has. Mostly, this is coming off to meas an NOAA funding scam -- because no one cares what the do so they have no money without a climate change media scare... And, consensus reality doesn't presume truth -- truth is from data and analysis.... These opinions are not congruent with the data... We're facing normal warming patterns so far -- we've had times in history where the Arctic ice completely melted off before -- this is nothing new. We are also in an El Nino pattern in the USA and historically that has lead to warmer wetter winters and cool summers -- they are projecting that it will last 2-5 years. Early in the 1900s and earlier the Arctic was experiencing and abnormally cold period and we're just going back to normal. In 2007 there was a "great rapid decline" that was probably climate related, but by the next year or so the ice had grown right back to where it was. We're not losing ice so much as the ice there is "new". Most of the melt is old ice -- that could be due to contaminates or just the fact that older ice reflects solar energy differently... either way it is still there... I have links.. But, I don't want to cream every related site with slashdotters... Mostly, I am not concerned that was should do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint -- I am concerned that we shouldn't emit chemicals for health considerations. The heat won't kill us quickly, but a floating airborne cancer soup will. Do _NOT_ trust the US media at all with these issues -- they have been telling lies about other things as well... Try to get data from overseas sources who aren't influenced from the corporate world.... The EPA for example used to have air quality charts for years in the past for most of the world -- they took them off their site. Search: "Iceland 10000 year climate study" "Arctic Ice Cap Growing" (it has since 2012!)
The effort is known to be generally funded by various actors
Curse you Matt Damon!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Hate to break it to you, but it's not the right wing which is pushing for trigger warnings, training against/punishing microaggressions & safe spaces.
Classical liberals have long been in support of free speech, unfortunately the progressives long ago hijacked the left and this kind of anti-free speech is just par for the course.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I agree in general. But the issue here is that certain people and groups are accused of agreeing with the climate science while orchestrating public denial of the science for personal gain. Still a tough question, but when framed that this way it seems more understandable. You really can't have a "democracy of liars".
is the Director of Climate Change Communication,
I'm seriously questioning why a university feels the need to have a Director of Climate Change Communication.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
"Not to start a flame war, but there are tons of scientists on both sides of this argument, " - well that's a great start by saying there are tons of scientists on both sides - there are hardly any on the dissenting side. over 95% of climate change studies are in agreement that climate change is happening. When you find 95% of of climate change studies say there is no climate change, please post a link
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
A point that I think they're probably missing here, is that having a political opinion (which is essentially what denial is) is as an ironclad rule of sorts, protected by the first amendment. Simply saying you're against it is just speech, so I'm trying to figure out what they're going to RICO them for. Might that be voting in favor of their opinions?
I think hell would freeze over before that would ever fly.
There is a hellacious difference (both moral and legal) between someone who genuinely has drawn a different conclusion from the data and someone who is being paid to confuse and obfuscate that data in the pursuit of profit.
I agree in general, but the question must be asked, at what point does it go from genuine dissent into outright fraud for gain? I wouldn't say it's necessarily time to invoke RICO, but perhaps it's time to ask how far is too far.
Keep in mind, they are not talking about organizations simply saying things like "we are not satisfied that the data supports the conclusion" or "we believe there are flaws in your raw data". They are talking about very deliberately setting out to produce fraudulent data and calculations to confound the issue (good old fraud).
I assume that they would find some kind of crime, probably some sort of conspiracy, and charge them with that. Then by using RICO they can steal all their property and anything they could use to hire a lawyer before they even come to trial.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I disagree with ALL uses of RICO. But it might be time to prosecute them for fraud.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I agree. Charge and prosecute them for fraud. Probably with aggravating circumstances. (Can it be fraud if it's not for gain?)
And repeal RICO. RICO is a vile law that should never have been passed, and should have immediately been thrown out as blatantly unconstitutional. RICO has two purposes:
1) to let the enforcers steal your wealth without proving anything at all first, and
2) to prevent the accused from having any resources to hire a lawyer.
Perhaps there are other parts of the law, but those are the parts most frequently used.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Simply saying you're against it is just speech, so I'm trying to figure out what they're going to RICO them for.
Fraud. The cigarette companies were damaging people by intentionally deceiving them (and advertising to kids). So, to get a settlement from this, you'll need to show that:
1) Oil companies (or whoever) intentionally lied about what their scientists told them, or told their scientists to produce studies with the 'correct' result. I've skimmed through some of the documents provided by the link, and I'm not sure I see evidence of that.
2) They have to prove that someone was damaged. The cigarette companies didn't lose because they lied, they lost because their lies damaged people. The link says there are threats of future damage, but doesn't present evidence of any actual damage. That's something they will have to fix.
It's not illegal, unethical, or wrong to fund science. It's a good thing, even if oil companies do it. It's only unethical when they require a specific result, or otherwise pressure the scientist. The more funding we have for science, the better.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I don't think some people understand how much shit like this hurts their argument.This is the kind of thing that scammers and charlatans do. When someone challenges their view they do whatever they can to silence them, very often including trying to abuse the court system.
So when someone advocates using tactics like that, well it makes some people wonder: What do they have to hide? Why are they acting like scammers?
I mean you don't see this with evolution. You don't see people trying to sue creationists, no they just make fun of them and point out how wrong their arguments are.
This shit needs to stop.
A survey from 5 years ago found that a large majority of Americans (75%) believe in human caused warming of the atmosphere.
And
However
So Americans are in favor of tax incentives but are against tax increases to solve the problem. The debate needs to shift to dealing with solutions and promoting solutions now. The longer we wait the more the unpopular choices will be needed. We need to highlight to the politicians that the public is in favor of tax incentives and by opposing these measures they are in the minority and are less electable.
I think you just gave us the answer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
You're speculating, because you don't like oil companies. In court you have to give a preponderance of evidence.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A majority of Americans also believe in a deity that will hook them up with a winning lottery ticket if they just pray hard enough.
I would say that when it comes to science, the opinions of scientists is a little bit more useful than the opinions of people who talk to pollsters.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Unethical != criminal.
Or we would all be in jail.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Why would you assume that there is a 1 to 1 correlation of PUBLISHED studies to scientists?
Talk about bad logic...
Not every scientist publishes.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Go ahead and RICO climate skeptics, so long as we get to RICO climate fans who try to stand in the way of the massive nuclear program it will take to go carbon free.
Remember "Hide the Decline"? That's when bona fide "scientists" came across an inconvenient truth. In a multi-variate graph of several measurements showing the temperature was rising, one recalcitrant measurement trended downward to contradict very accurate contemporary thermometers. Rater than show the data they had, these "scientists" used a hiccup in the data to make it disappear. It went into the pile of lines, but did not come out. If they had left it in there it would have been a red flag they would have to explain, so they "hid the decline." This was one of many revelations in the Climategate e-mails so many people have conveniently forgotten.
So what exactly was this recalcitrant measurement? It came from tree-ring data. Why is this somewhat important? Because tree-ring data was used as a proxy for thermometers to show the temperature thousands of years ago. Those tree-ring data "prove" the temperature is rising. But the modern graph of tree-ring data shows the temperature falling when everything else shows it rising. What's up with that.
Well, it's a lot easier to hide this uncomfortable issue than it is to explain it. That's how "science" "works."
How about applying RICO to that bunch?
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
95% may agree that climate change is happening, sure. That's obvious. Climate change has been happening for millions of years, well before humans even came on the scene, forget about discovered fossil fuels.
The number who agree on human causes and extent is nowhere near that high, though.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Freedom of speech is all about listening to other peoples' lies and bullshit.
If you can't produce the evidence you have to shut up the people who want to see it. That's the Democratic SOP. They are no longer capable of even attempting a rational argument, all they want to do it drown them out, shut them off, close them down, do whatever they have to do to "win" - whether they are right or not is something they never think about, or care about.
The evidence FOR warming has been years in the custody of true believers, most of whom have been caught fudging the data, all of whom have other agendas besides saving the planet from heat - these range from destroying capitalism, as the UN has admitted is its real target for GW alarmism, to just plain power and favors, like Obama doling out money to his backers, who then shutter their bogus solar power companies, take the money, and run - and they don't have to run far because Obama never allows them to be followed.
I'm tired of it. I'm tired of all the lying, I'm tired of the endless invective, the endless, aggressive pushing of "solutions" that will eat up trillions of dollars but which will budge the thermometer literally only HUNDRETHS of a degree IF THE GLOBAL WARMERS ARE RIGHT. Never mind the net effect if they aren't.
You want to find the culprit you follow the money, and the money is huge, it is vast, it is not being monitored and it's being spent like they can print it for free on paper. Which is just what they are doing. It's a shell game, played by liars, to rob the suckers - which is you, folks. All you. Oh, me, too. Maybe I should become a bundler for some socialist moron and get myself on the gravy train, too. Then I could join the choir and shout "the global warming is coming!" knowing the money we milk out of the idiot voters will end up in MY accounts.
But then I couldn't sleep at night. And I wonder how Democrats manage to do so, and do so in spite of the fact they apparently also sleep right through the daytime, too...
IF GOD HAD NOT MEANT VOTERS TO BE SHEARED HE WOULD NOT HAVE MADE THEM SHEEP. Calvera said something like that to Chris in the "Magnificent 7" and you know what? He was right. It didn't make him a nicer person.
In 1931 a book was published in Germany, Hundert Autoren Gegen Einstein (A Hundred Authors Against Einstein), a collection of criticisms of Einsteinâ(TM)s theory of relativity.
When asked about the book, Einstein retorted by saying âoeWhy 100 authors? If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!â
Percentages of anything are utterly irrelevant to the evaluation of scientific matters.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
But only when they are on the side that's wrong.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
Yup. I remember when everyone global warming dipshit was screaming "LOOK AT THE DATA!!!111" when Berkley threw up a big dump for public consensus.
The majority of the data is fake, and the data sheets themselves state this. A whole fucking catalog of asterisks and their meaning, from adjusted data, estimated (guessed) data, thrown out data (because they didn't like it), etc.
It's a fucking farce and if anyone with half a brain would LOOK AT THE NUMBERS they'd realize it.
We simply do NOT have accurate, widespread, or normalized temperature measurements for any decent amount of time to be making ANY conclusions about climate.
It's about fraud. Widespread organised fraud.
Should that really be legal in your opinion?
Or should it be legal if they do it "for the party", since it's fraud for the sake of politics?
The entire reason we've got all this shit is because of some donors setting the agenda and turning science denial into a political point of difference between two parties when both used to consider reality previously.
Do you deny science for The Party comrade? Papers please.
How about a RICO investigation into the left, for using AGW (let us assume the claims are true, keep this in mind) as a political argument for a massive takeover of the economy, to slam the brakes on business, arguably killing far more than AGW will due to causing lagging technological advancement.
Any takers? Or is your itchy trigger finger to mod me down, a censorship in microcosm of that which pleases you to think about in this thread?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A good case could be made for fraud if it can be shown that data or analysis has been deliberately contorted to achieve a "conclusion".
Certainly the deniers were all for that when they thought they could convince enough people that there had been fraud on the AGW side.
Publicly lying for profit pretty much falls into the fraud category. So a News organisation by virtue of it's branding and marketing that purports to report the truth, when caught out being paid to tell lies should be penalised under fraud laws for doing so. Politicians knowingly telling lies should quite simply be prosecuted under electoral laws for attempting to be elected based upon lies.
Companies that market themselves as one thing say "Think Tanks" that claim to deal with facts and produce reports claim to be based on real facts, found to be releasing reports based not on facts but on presenting lies as truth, should be prosecuted for fraud.
This is no about idiots repeating dumb lies, this is specifically about groups conspiring to defraud the public for profit with a total lack of regard for the consequences of their actions. You publicly tell lies for profit and you should be prosecuted the greater the harm produced by the lies, the greater the penalty.
Who should be the arbiter of truth, obviously the courts, absolutely no different to the police accusing you of robbing a bank and you claiming you were at your mothers house at the time (more evidence is obtained and presented and based upon that a decision is made as to what is the truth and what is the lie)
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
That's just regular hat nonsense. Let me explain to you how it works:
* The original moon landing was fake - (10 Tin foil hat)
* 911 was an inside job - (8 Tin foil baseball cap)
* Benghazi/Clinton emails - (6 - Tin foil beanie)
* Oil interestes pay politicians to downplay the dangers of climate change - (1 Regular hat)
RICO is a bad law, tailor-made for prosecutorial overreach, and this would be a bad use of it.
I really dislike what the heavily funded "denialist" campaign has done to any chances of actually dealing usefully with this problem (not to mention what it has done rational discourse in this country), and if someone feels they can prove damages, more power to them if they sue everyone they can find behind the astro-turf, but please don't use this abominable law in the process.
The thing I find most annoying about the global warming issue is that there's entirely too much politics and too little science. For instance, ask people the question "What greenhouse gas has the most influence on Earth's temperature?" and the vast majority will say "Carbon Dioxide."
Only problem with that answer is that it's wrong.
Water vapor accounts for about 95% of the total greenhouse effect on earth. Only about 5% is due to carbon dioxide. And the interesting thing is that most of that 5% is totally natural. Mankind only creates about 5% of that 5% giving about 0.27% of the total greenhouse effect that is contributed by mankind. Yes, just a smidge over one fourth of one percent.
Do I believe that global warming is real? Yes, I do.
Do I believe that global warming is due to mankind? No, I do not.
Some minor little details that the global warming crowd ignore that they really need to address.
1. Viking farms underneath the glaciers in Greenland. Archeologists have found these farms. Interesting thing. The existence of those farms indicate that Earth was warmer in the past than it currently is. Else those farms wouldn't be covered by glaciers. And given when those farms were made, mankind wasn't generating appreciable levels of carbon dioxide. That little detail right there makes their "global warming is due to mankind" argument more than a bit suspect.
2. Scientists have found a definite correlation between carbon dioxide levels and global temperature by analyzing ice core samples, tree growth rings, etc. It is a proven fact that higher global temperatures are associated with higher levels of carbon dioxide. Sounds like something good for the global warming crowd doesn't it? However, there is one slight problem. The correlation is skewed over time. It turns out that carbon dioxide level changes lag global temperature changes by approximately 40 to 50 years. That's right folks, when the temperature changes, the CO2 changes about 4 decades later. If you have a cause and effect relationship between two variables, I would expect the variable that changes first to be considered the cause, and the variable that changes later to be the effect. And the data doesn't look good for the "global warming is caused by mankind" crowd.
Why would CO2 levels change after a temperature change? One theory is that the solubility of CO2 in water decreases with increasing temperature and increases with decreasing temperature. And we have a very large body of water on this planet. The oceans can be acting as a huge CO2 repository and when they get warming, they release some of that CO2 and when they get colder, they absorb some of that CO2. That would definitely explain the lag.
Right now in my opinion, the global warming caused by mankind crowd are using CO2 as a means of demonizing the west. After all, it is a proven fact that burning fossil fuel does generate CO2. So those people can point to the west and say "See? They're harming the environment." They can't demonize plain old water vapor, even though water vapor is the biggest contributor to the green house effect. Are we having a significant effect on Earth's temperature? I wouldn't think so since we're only having about one fourth of one percent of the total effect.
Climatologists are not statisticians and when one points out the flaws in their stats they just claim that they're "not climatologists". Not all scientists who can poke holes in a hypothesis are (or need be) in that field.
So kinda like how Al Gore is pushing for positions he is set to make a killing in or how his buddies at Goldman Sachs hired the woman who came up with credit default swaps, aka "economy killers", to write the cap and trade rules so that their friends get carbon indulgences while only the peasants have to pay?
I hate to tell ya but there is scammers on BOTH sides, and all it takes is to look at a fat fucking hypocrite like rev Al living in a McMansion, driving in a fleet of stretch SUVs, and flying in a personal Lear jet while he says YOU need to tighten your belt you filthy fucking peasant you, after all he is "carbon neutral" because he pays himself carbon credits from his own company which is like moving your money from your left pocket to your right, to see some serious scamming going on.
Cap & Trade might as well be called "give these rich fucks your money tax" since the BRIC have ALREADY said "we ain't playing that game" and thanks to the same rich fat fucks pushing "globalism" AKA 'pay peasants peanuts while poisoning their land and water" its not like we can do jack shit about it, without Cheapo Chinese Crap our stores wouldn't have shit to sell. Without BRIC on board its not gonna do shit except give the corps an excuse to send what little work is left here over there (which they will probably get a tax break for doing) because news flash America, those countries are bigger than you and China especially is putting out a hell of a lot more smog and crap than America has for awhile.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
If ice is melting at an exponential rate, how can WWII planes crashed on Greenland be buried under 260 feet deep of ice?
http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08...
Courts are good at establishing official truth. They are not so good at discovering actual truth.
If legislation gives the courts permission to rule on political matters, that may just be the final nail in the coffin of the Constitution. (I'm assuming here it's not completely, irretrievably dead already.)
Ain't no coming back from that.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
You mean....like health care reform based around a mandate to buy for-profit insurance, which was the cornerstone of right wing health care plans for 25 years until y'all lost your shit the second it was proposed by a Democrat?
Awww, did wiidle baby wingnut have his mind blown by an epiphany? You're as much of a brain dead partisan troll as an Obamabot. The centrist way would be to phase out coal over ten years while building nuclear. The leftist way would be to take a cool trillion dollars out of the annual imperial budget, and spend it on wind, solar and mass transit. Which, by the way, would only lead to the greatest economic boom this country has ever seen due to the number of jobs created.
Carbon trading is a conservative, capitalist "solution" to climate change, and that's just a fact you're going to have fucking deal with.
Dead wrong. Prosecuting deniers will proceed under the same legal theory that makes shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater illegal. You can't shout "FIRE" in a theater and you can't shout "NO FIRE" in a burning theater. Both are speech acts which cost people their lives
Deniers are shouting "NO FIRE" when they :
1) know it's a lie or could reasonably be expected to know it was a lie
2) are shown to be unable to defend their junk science theories to duly qualified scientists, either through sheer incompetence (they are not duly qualified in any meaningful sense) or their theories are shown to be made-to-order junk science as determined by a combination of facts on the ground and the larger judgement of actually duly qualified scientists.
And yes, I am saying we're going to put junk science of trial. As we should have done for tobacco and the tobacco executives and scientists and PR firms that advised them.
And yes, I am saying that every citizen does bear and has always borne an inalienable and unshirkable duty to use rational good judgement in matters where human life is at stake.
And yes I am saying that that is at the foundation of civilization, the foundation of the Enlightenment specifically and the foundation of Constitution implicitly and shirking that duty negates all defenses including the ones based on enumerated Rights found in the Constitution.
We don't need to spell out that your rights are voided if you behave in such a depraved way that you put the continuation of human civilization at risk through your actions. No one needs to express that idea explicitly to anyone, and anyways there never was a reason to since it wasn't formerly possible for humans to realize such depravity It's is now and always have been "self evident", as the Founding Fathers were fond of saying.
It's amazing to me how people so preoccupied with 1st. Amendment rights are unable to parse even the most basic application of same to the real world.
...but I wasn't a climate change denier, so I kept silent
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user