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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.
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.
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
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".
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 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.
I think you just gave us the answer.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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......
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.
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