Voices: Harassment of scientists reaches a fever pitch

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:51:09 -0500

In recent years, climate scientists, particularly those involved in communicating the risks of anthropogenic climate change to the public, have faced increasing levels of vitriol from politicians, pundits and the public alike. The news earlier this year that leading Australian climate scientists were receiving death threats, in the midst of a fierce debate on the implementation of a carbon tax, is just the latest escalation. Other recent events include the legal harassment brought to bear on Penn State climatologist Michael Mann by the Attorney General of Virginia, and the baseless media firestorm over the hacked “Climategate” emails in late 2009, which also led to prominent British climate scientist Phil Jones receiving numerous death threats. And then there is this week's release of 5,000 more hacked emails. This has to stop, or we may start seeing a backlash where scientists refuse to explain their research findings at all. If that happens, society loses.

Hazardous Living: Climategate climatologists cleared of wrongdoing

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Megan Sever (pictured at Yellowstone) writes Hazardous Living for EARTH. Megan Sever

Last November, a thousand private e-mails between prominent climatologists were hacked, resulting in a brouhaha that threatened to discredit the work presented in the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. A new report released this week, the latest in a series of independent reviews of the e-mails and the situation, cleared the climatologists of any real wrongdoing.

Climatologist on EARTH Magazine

Voices: Harassment of scientists reaches a fever pitch

Hazardous Living: Climategate climatologists cleared of wrongdoing