We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
–John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our e-mails, at our peril, risk and hazard.
–Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764
Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.
–Margo Kingston, 21 November 2005
We value freedom of expression precisely because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox. Free speech is a barrier to the tyranny of authoritarian or even majority opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of particular doctrines or thoughts.
–Yale University, Freedom of Expression Report, 1975
The primary function of a university is to discover and disseminate knowledge by means of research and teaching. To fulfill this function a free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well. It follows that the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.
–Yale University, Freedom of Expression Report, 1975
By broadcasting programmes that appear to manipulate and even fabricate evidence, Channel 4 has impeded efforts to forestall the 21st century’s greatest threat. For how much longer will this be allowed to continue?
–George Monbiot, The Guardian, 21 July 2008
It is arguable that it is not the Great Global Warming Swindle that has bred public scepticism, but the desire of some environmentalists – evidenced by the identikit complaints orchestrated against the film – to stamp out dissenting voices. This intolerance undermines confidence in the rightness of the cause. As does Monbiot’s selective reporting of Ofcom’s ruling.
–Hamish Mykura, Channel 4’s head of documentaries, 22 July 2008
TV companies occasionally commission programmes just to court controversy, but to misrepresent the evidence on an issue as important as global warming was surely irresponsible. ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ was itself a swindle.
–Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, 22 July 2008
As for the factual inaccuracies not causing offence, well, I get hopping mad when I see a pack of lies presented as the truth. Does that kind of offence not count? Clearly not. What’s more, with its advertising revenues falling, Channel 4 is currently campaigning to get its hands on part of the BBC’s licence fees. What a horrifying prospect. In my opinion, if Channel 4 carries on producing programmes like The Great Global Warming Swindle, the sooner it goes bust the better off Britain and the world will be.
–Michael Le Page, New Scientist, 22 July 2008
I do feel strongly that the current wave of climate blasphemy that seems to be popular among prominent scientists involved in the climate issue is one day going to be looked back upon as a low point in this debate. Climate change is important, but so too are other values, and freedom of expression is among them.
–Roger Pielke, Jr., Prometheus, 22 July 2008
There are no perfect human institutions, but some of us continually strive to make them as fair as possible. If Wikipedia can’t reform itself, then the first social networking model that achieves significantly improved fairness will eventually sweep Wikipedia into deserved obsolescence.
–Tom Van Flandern, CCNet, 23 July 2008
Wikipedia had my birthdate in 1944. I corrected it to 1950. That stood for one day and then it was turned back. John Christy has told me he simply stopped putting in corrections because they were overwritten or disregarded.
–Pat Michaels, CCNet, 23 July 2008
The diverse groups of critical analysts and researchers will need to develop alternative infrastructures and media outlets if they wish to provide open-minded science writers and policy-makers with judicious evaluations of disaster predictions and a genuinely impartial assessment of evidence. Given the evident biases of the mainstream science media and environmental journalism, there is growing demand for more balanced and even-handed coverage of climate science and debates. Scientists and science writers who are concerned about the integrity and openness of the scientific process should turn the current crisis of science communication into an opportunity by setting up more critical, even-handed and reliable science media.
–Benny Peiser, European Parliament, Brussels, 18 April 2007
The above quotes were first published by Benny Peiser in CCNet 118/2008 – 23 July 2008.
Thanks Benny.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Voltaire had e-mail?
You could argue that seeking to stifle debate is in itself an act of free speech, provided it is not coercive. Simply stating that certain points of view should not be heard does not constitute censorship.
Acting to silence or persecute those who try to express a particular viewpoint is a different matter, especially if it is done by government.
We are fortunate to have the internet, which is, in effect, an ongoing auditing procedure of ideas.
The left is digging itself into a hole it will not be able to get out of without seriously losing it’s credibility.
That concerns me deeply because without a credible left, the right has a field day.
If all deniers can up with to make their case are lies and deception, then it seems to me they don’t have a case.
If can up with deniers lies all then to case me it seems they don’t give a sjt. Got it?
SJT
When you started calling us “deniers” you lost the case.
“You could argue that seeking to stifle debate is in itself an act of free speech, provided it is not coercive. Simply stating that certain points of view should not be heard does not constitute censorship.”
True, it’s hypocrisy and anti-democratic and destructive to the social fabric, but probably merely a misdemeanor against humanity…
However, oppression by a majority against a small minority does not have to be overtly coercive. I’m aware of civil servants in certain positions in Canberra who are afraid freely expression their private opinions on AGW even after work in a pub.
How many denialist thought criminals still work at the ABC, SBS or CSIRO? The purges have already occurred.
That’s how oppression works in China, and worked in the Weimar Republic and now in Australia.
When Margo Kingston suggests prosecuting denialist speech she has cast her lot in with the worst authoritarian impulses of humanity. History will judge her harshly.
“If all deniers can up with to make their case are lies and deception, then it seems to me they don’t have a case.”
SJT – where do you get your $hit from?
Are you working from a modern translation of Mao’s little red book?
Do you own an idea or thought that spans more than one sentence and/or 12 words?
THE TRUTH PROTECTED BY A BODYGUARD OF LIES –
CLIMATE NO CHANGE
Who will speak for science when the barbarian is already inside the gate?
Science today, that triumph of humanity over primitive superstition, that monument to the
evolutionary miracle of the human brain, is now being debased by barbarians.
The Church of green warming religions is very big in Christian Europe. Everyday anythings are now blamed on warming and reported uncritically by media. The dumbed-down, trumped-up science is the modern religious medicine used to mesmerise the masses. Institutionalised across the globe, politicians and activists of all persuasions, present their arguments in terms of what ‘the trumped-up science’ is telling them to do. The so called “world’s best thinkers” have grabbed and promoted this moral agenda emphasising sinful behaviour change over technological innovation – purchasing the absolution of carbon offsets for their sins.
Climate environmentalism is a political mission with a religious agenda, offering disciples the delicious prospect of being in the right and running things under the motherhood banner of saving the planet – very attractive to the young and fearful old. Activists demand the high moral ground, with an epitaph chanting “O Mother Earth… pardon me for trampling on you.” Any movement enforcing this degree of moral certitude is a sign of uncertain things to come.
The science of future climate is in its infancy and is multi-disciplinary, no one branch knows the whole story. The truth is – climate prediction is hard, half of the variability in the climate system is not predictable and modellers don’t expect to do well. We are being asked to take irreversible actions today, to produce un-testable postulates for tomorrow, based on computer simulated predictions in excess of 100 years. Very iffy stuff! When the Western world became increasingly pessimistic about Man’s carbon footprint, science was hijacked to decode nature’s message. The more scientists research global climate, the more we learn how much they don’t know. The more alarmists talk, the more we realize they know even less.
We live on a majestically dynamic planet with intertwining complexes. Scenarios for future climate involve natural equations of infinite variables. Fluctuation in the Sun’s intensity is arguably the controlling factor in Earth’s climate. To assume human induced carbon emissions alone will significantly alter predictions is pretentious pseudo-science. Advocating carbon change will change the way you live, but will not change future climate. It’s a blatant tax on breathing. To accept the mantra of evil carbon is to invite the death of nationalism to dinner.
That’s the thing about history…when you live it, you’re rarely there. Real science is alive and lives in time. It is what it is. Not what it should have been or would have been. It is what it is. So enjoy the journey, because the destination may not be that great. Look at the best educated generation in history… all dressed up with nowhere to go. Superstition is the mantra of the day. Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
Science, that once esteemed bastion of knowledge and fertile pillar to truth, has been neutered into the floppy-dick instrument of global politics and vested activists. Not only does the censorship of science render it impotent, it also looses its ability to objectively inform the public, producing an atmosphere of deafness towards insight and freedoms. What is at risk is not the climate but freedom. Today we live in the most censored of times.
Is it not high time we entered a dialogue to awaken an audience to the enveloping clouds of non-news that invade our everyday? “Global warming” is only a vehicle that exemplifies part of the way the system works. It is the insidious procession of the erosion of human rights through the co-verted use of selective censorship, that we should be most interested in. Climate science is in the van-guard of such a procession.
The scientific method is not perfect but it does “sophisticate the superstition” and provides a method upon which to gauge progress and proximity of truth. The funnelling of science to deliver a prescribed outcome happens everywhere everyday. In the past, science has arguably aided well for prescribed beneficial outcomes. But the stakes are sky high and connived in the case of global warming.
The western world is not going to cripple itself to iron-out injustice. The moral or philosophical question here is, does the end justify the means or the start of a slippery slope? The real question is, what will they pick on next using “science” to substantiate their stance?
THE CARBON TRADING SCHEME is like scratching your back with a dildo – SOMEHOW it just doesn’t feel right.
The mentioned that Pearman was ex CSIRO, they failed to note that Dr. Graeme Pearman currently works for The Climate Institute. The Poola Foundation (Tom Kantor Fund) donated $10 millions to establish the Climate Institute, a body which then promoted Tim Flannery’s book ‘The Weather Makers’.
In 1999 Dr. Graeme Pearman was awarded the Australian Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to atmospheric science and promotion of the science of climate change to the public.
Hardly a balanced scientific view.
GLOBAL WARMING – SEX TOYS –
CARBON EMISSIONS TRADING is like scratching your back with a dildo – SOMEHOW it just doesn’t feel right. Blind Freddy can see the sums just don’t add up!
Last month “the world’s best thinkers” at the Copenhagen Consensus reported on a PRIORITISED list of solutions to combat the biggest challenges facing the planet.
Their findings included, research showing that even the most extreme carbon emission reductions would have an undetectable effect on warming.
The truth is… the damage cost of carbon in about $2 per Tonne – not $20 to $50 as reported by media.
SAVE YOUR BILLIONS – direct it to where it will do the most good today rather than tilting at windmills for tomorrow. For example – address malnutrition and malaria cheaply today and save millions from death. The brain dead dilemma is – wasting trillions for naught effect with carbon trading or spend two bob today to iron-in doable good.
Carbon cap and trade is extremely costly and will have negligible effect on future climate.
The net effect of emissions trading will have the worst impacts on the poorest people.
WHAT IS REALLY NEEDED IS SMARTER TECHNOLOGY.
WAKE-UP AND BE COUNTED NOW.
Thanks to Benny Peiser. Here’s one for his collection. Logic is “The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.” Ambrose Bierce, Devil’s Dictionary, 1911.
I forgot to say, Penny and Kevin to note.
And Brendan and Michael …
Ah…Malcolm…er…Trumble that is …
Very good article! Thank you, master!