There has been another sighting of the regular complaint that climate scientists are being subject to hurty comments on Twitter. The Guardian reports a “huge” rise in abuse since Elon Musk took over the platform last year. “It’s mostly just people saying you are talking rubbish,” admits Professor Richard Betts from the Met Office, although the Guardian headlines its story with a “vicious abuse” charge. This would appear to be the same Guardian that apologised in 2019 for saying David Cameron felt only “privileged pain” upon the death of his handicapped young son. The same newspaper that recently published George Monbiot’s belief that “taking out” pipelines, refineries, abattoirs, coal plants and SUVs is “morally justified“, and the same publication that has taken to printing racist cartoons aimed at its political opponents that would not have looked out of place in a Third Reich newspaper.
The Guardian reports that some of the U.K.’s top scientists are struggling to deal with this rise in abuse from “climate deniers”. They are fighting to make themselves heard over what is described as a “barrage of hostile comments”. Twitter employees who ensured ‘trusted’ content was prioritised have been sacked, while Right-wing culture warriors such as Jordan Peterson have been reinstated. The newspaper cites a recent survey from Global Witness which suggested prominent scientists were the most likely to face abuse.
One of those prominent scientists is UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin, who received an ‘abusive’ tweet that referred to “a fairy tale about the big bad weather”. Another correspondent replied: “Great stories about BS science Mark. But I am tired of sci-fi.” Dr. Helen Muri, a Norwegian researcher, was sent a graph of Greenland ice core temperatures over the last 10,000 years suggesting current temperatures were at an all-time low. The writer asked in polite terms, “Any luck finding the climate crisis yet?”
Of course there is abuse across social media, some of it not very pleasant. Nobody condones threats of violence, or indeed support for violent acts, and it should be removed from public discourse. But anyone who takes an inquiring view on the current mainstream narrative on issues such as climate change and Covid gets enormous amounts of abuse on a daily basis. Slightly less concern seems to be in evidence for all the hurty feelings this may be causing us (not that it is something that really fusses us).
What is happening of course is that the horrors of the collectivist Net Zero project are becoming increasingly apparent, as a widespread attack on almost all human activity is launched under the suggestion that the climate is breaking down. Until recently the ‘settled’ science promoting this view had a safe, largely uncontested space to prosper. But scepticism about the unproven hypothesis that humans operate the climate thermostat by burning fossil fuels is growing, with two recent polls showing that over 40% of people surveyed worldwide believe climate change is mainly due to natural causes. Far from coughing up the huge sums required to hit Net Zero, 4 in 10 Americans are not even prepared to pay more than two dimes a week to combat climate change.
Professor Maslin has noted an “uptick in stupid comments” when he says something “very logical” such as “if we all eat a lot less meat, we’ll live a lot longer and be healthier”. As regular readers will recall, Maslin believes that climate change politics helps build “a new political (and socio economic) system”. It is hardly surprising that the banning of meat eating, along with all the other notable Net Zero suggestions such as no flying, shipping, barely enough energy to heat homes and cook food and restrictions on all common building materials, is starting to foster wide debate – even sometimes robust debate. Maslin, along with many of his fellow climate extremists, seem oblivious to this gathering trend. This is perhaps not surprising. In 2018, he was one of a number of eco-activists who signed a letter to the Guardian saying they would no longer “lend their credibility” by debating climate change scepticism.
The loss of Twitter as a ‘safe’ space for climate alarmists has been a bitter blow. It is not seemingly enough to exert considerable control over most other public platforms including social and mainstream media. Global Witness is of the view that if climate scientists are unable to do their work because of “stress and fear caused by harassment”, the critical evidence that undergirds climate action and solutions is put at risk. For his part, Maslin seems particularly disappointed, since he discloses that he held regular meetings with the platform’s Head of Sustainability to ensure ‘trusted’ information was pushed to the top. But the sustainability chief was sacked and Twitter “became the Wild West”, he laments.
It is reasonable for social media users to tell delicate activists like Maslin that there is really nothing to worry about from our climate. It’s just free speech, and it applies – in fact it is vital – in science and geography, as elsewhere. But it’s not just about science anymore. It is becoming apparent that Net Zero is being used as an attack on almost all human activity. Everything humans do to survive, from keeping warm to growing food, is being cast as an attack on Mother Earth.
In his Guardian article backing eco-saboteurs “who have acted with courage”, George Monbiot argues that if we take out the obvious targets, “we are still committed to extinction”. He finds that the case for a campaign of violent attacks on the industrial economy is “compelling”. In his view, the struggle is not just with fossil capital and the governments that support it. “We are fighting against all capital and, perhaps, most of the people it employs”, he explains.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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And when attending a gathering in Australia, with a Victorian Liberal MP among others, a group of black shirted “Nazis” turned up, confronting the women.
Because of this, the MP’s own party is trying to expel her; every media outlet has branded the group “Nazi sympathisers”.
So, our conservative party is trying to expel a woman MP whose crime is attending a rally to fight for the rights of women to not be exposed to naked men in toilets, gaols, etc, or in sports, and that is considered to be “Nazism”.
Can someone explain to me what I’ve missed?
I suspect that just like in the UK, politicians, judges, senior police ranks etc are all drawn from the same liberal elite clique. The colour of rosette they wear when it’s time for an election is the only difference.
Groupthinkers like this usually wear the same colour rosette
How can anyone expect the liberal elite clique to change tack when it is not in their career interests to do so? Besides, the liberal elite clique are far more fearful of the displeasure of the Left than the centre Right. The former are active, well organised, well funded, committed and successful in driving their agenda. The latter are disorganised, poorly funded, rarely if ever politically active and invariably find it easier to yield than fight their corner.
They get away with it because they can, and the police are effin useless. Even if they weren’t useless, they’d be on the wrong side.
One thing. The majority of young people supporting woke, trans ideology are girls.
Trans ideology is not the anti-women movement it is being portrayed to be.
Having said that, the world’s biggest and strongest lobby, the feminist lobby, seem to be having the most success at pushing back trans ideology.
My money.is on the feminists winning this one. They outnumber the trans and they have so much more experience self victimising.
In my opinion you have a chip on your shoulder about womens’ rights and Feminism as a whole, and your responses are getting rather predictable. Feminism has sought the political, economic, personal and social equality of the sexes.Of course, equality does not and has never meant ‘the same’, just as 2+2=4 the way 3+1=4. Different but equal. As a principle I would think Feminism is difficult to argue against,The radical outliers of the Feminist movement do not represent the whole well at all, and in many cases do a great dis-service to us all, regardless of sex. If you only look to them to decide what Feminism is, you will not see the deeper difficulties the radical trans movement poses to women.
Hear hear, regarding your entire post! It’s like if people judge all Muslims by the tiny minority who like to go around wearing suicide vests and blowing up civilians in crowded places. Utterly idiotic, nonsensical and shows a great deal about the bigotry the uninformed and ignorant person continually insists on spewing. And you’re spot on, there is certainly a chip there, as evidenced by the predictability we’ve all come to witness. I just scroll on by now. Some people are just pathological lost causes.
So true
Well said
“The majority of young people supporting woke, trans ideology are girls.”
You may well be right but where do you get that info from?
Assuming true, any theories as to why this might be?
My pet theory – women are nicer than men, less disagreeable, and wokeness attracts people who want to feel and be seen to be “nice”.
How about After 78 years of relentless German-bashing, Nazi has turned into a general expletive which means nothing but Someone of whose loathsome opinions I really disapprove of? With loathsome meaning different from mine.
Rona taught me that 80% of the sheeple are morons.
Transgender fascism has simply confirmed the above.
Mentally ill perverts, sick whackjobs, chromosome-DNA-mitochondria denying half wits.
Witch hunt indeed.
If Posie was Black, Muslim, or spouting Rona gibberish, she would be left alone.
So now the new witch is the normal, white, heterosexual female?
The Enlightenment –> To the Age of Stupid. Straight. Red. Line.
I said the same in my comment on the linked article. Imagine if a similar mob had done this to a speaker calling for taking in unlimited refugees for example…
Love the last line.Ferdlll. Puts me in mind of Clemenceau’s quote: “America; the only country to have gone from barbarism to degeneracy without the usual interval of civilisation.” And getting truer by the day.
It’s called ‘bullying’, plain and simple. The gang gets off on feeling empowered and goad each other on. It’s a tribal ‘Lord of the Flies’ thing.
It’s a pity there appeared to be no sane folk at the gathering to support/aid Ms Keen.
Disturbing though these scenes are, is there not a common factor linking them back a decade or two? Or even centuries? That factor is the bullying of dissidents in attempt to get them to comply with the party line, or “consensus”. Twenty years ago if you were working in an academic environment and expressed the slightest doubt about the issue of the day, you would find your life made uncomfortable, miserable and would wind up either leaving voluntarily or being defenestrated. The issue of the day mutates: twenty years ago it was “global warming”, ten years ago it was “reparations for the Slave Trade”, two years ago it was the persecution of the covid-sceptics and today it is gender identity. Centuries ago it was the Spanish Inquisition or Salem. The difference is superficial, concerning whether the soup is literal or metaphorical, and details of the heretics’ opinion, and the dress-code of the inquisitors. If anybody says that the Earth is warmed by the Sun and not by the oxidation of carbon, or that gender is set at conception, they will be excommunicated. The commonality runs deep, the message being “comply or be crushed”.
This is where woke ideology leads.
As Elon Musk observed:
“At its heart, wokeness is divisive, exclusionary and hateful. It basically gives mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armored in false virtue.”
The rent a mob nasties turn up at the behest of the state to infiltrate & function as a useful tool to legitimise the woke mob’s cries of far right/na$i & the bile which they spew against whomever is standing up against the mob.
Every group which threatens the blob is at risk of being infiltrated by the blob.
I guess the BBC would call this A mostly peaceful witchhunt conducted by the innocent victims of a well-known hateful extremist. Ye shall know them by their fruits.
I just finished writing an email to friends and family describing how [a certain country that the Daily Sceptic seems not to like very much] found anti-Christian woke /CRT/ trans ideology unacceptable, degenerate and perverted … and considered the West to be doomed. I then clicked into today’s DS and found the first two articles amply describing how people with orthodox Christian views are today’s heretics for ideological zealots (woke being the new religion for both fanatics and the STATE (+ THE WHOLE OF THE WEST ) it would seem.
I then received a TikTok video of Nigel Farage amply describing in the EU parliament 8 years ago how it was going to cause war war with Russia in Ukraine. “Have you taken leave of your senses?” He asked.
The vilification of good, truthful people is one of the most disturbing features of life today.
I leave you with an image of Vice President Biden shaking hands with Prime Minister Putin in 2011…. rejecting, nevertheless, Putin’s proposal of visa-free travel in order to foster better relations.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-biden-idUSTRE7293LQ20110310
I have it on good authority that Putin was once anxious to repair relations with the west – even to the point of joining NATO. All that is now gone and the West has been consigned to what the Russians would probably describe as ‘the intellectual and spiritual dustbin’. They are looking elsewhere for sanity.
I have it on good authority that Putin’s stooges blurt about again planting a red flag on the Reichstag in Berlin and reconquering and renslaving the Germany that’s rightfully theirs. To which I reply “Good luck, chaps! You have only about 1120 more miles to go and this time, you’re not allied with all of the world but have to rely on your own merits and abilities.” And we know how that ended in 1917.
Thats horrendous, these people deserve to be on the periphery of a society, spores.
The fruits of Ardern’s labours.
So what was the point of International Womens Day?
”And what is Parker’s crime? What did this witch do? ”
She took on the role of stating that ”the Emperor is not wearing any clothes” and of course this whole thing relies on everybody accepting the ludicrous and preposterous proposition that mammalian male and female are interchangeable.
In a way the people protesting against this lady are pitiable stooges of the insidious and horrendous racket that is working to undermine our society and destroy any sense of living in a rational and reasonable world.
“Put 100 women and 10 men on a deserted island and in 100 years you will have a thriving community of men, women, boys and girls.
Put 100 Trans women and 10 men on a
deserted island and in 100 years you will find
the skeletons of 110 men.”
Like it
I might borrow that one. Very good.
Does the mob’s behaviour have anything to do with the behavioural characteristics resulting from living at the arse end of the world with sheep and rugby vying for the nation’s attention?
Imagine plod’s reaction if this were a BLM rally and a bunch of goose steppers showed up with whistles and megaphones and tomato soup. They’d have been kettled, assaulted and banged up in swift order. But waive a tranny flag and of course it’s all good. I hate the 21st century mostly because there’s nothing I can do to change this insanity.