 In the increasingly polarized world of climate research where, with increasing
frequency, one side is labeled “deniers” and the other is called “alarmists,”
the decorated scientist at Georgia Tech has become a target.
But the fire isn’t coming from those who deride her conclusions about a hotter
planet, but instead from scientists who actually agree with her.
Why? Because Curry questions how much of the earth’s warming can be attributed
to humans and is resistant to calling for political prescriptions for climate
change.
“We have this politically correct, green position that all scientists are
supposed to pledge allegiance to,” Curry told Watchdog.org. “I’m not going to
pledge allegiance to that silliness.”
For such plain talk Curry has been called a “climate heretic” by Scientific
American magazine and was described by outspoken climate change advocate and
Penn State scientist Michael Mann as a “serial climate misinformer.”
Earlier this year, Curry was one of seven climate scientists who had letters
sent to their respective universities from U.S. House of Representatives member
Raul Grijalva, D-Arizona, demanding they disclose “potential conflicts of
interest and failure to disclose corporate funding sources in academic climate
research.”
Grijalva backed down after receiving criticism of McCarthyism, but another
controversial political tactic from Capitol Hill has Curry believing scientists
who question the numbers and conclusions put out by organizations like the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are under attack.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, in May called for the federal
government to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to file
civil lawsuits against those in the private or public sector who work with the
fossil fuel industry to “undermine climate science.”
Last week, 20 climate scientists sent a letter to President Obama, Attorney
General Loretta Lynch and the head of the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy “strongly” supporting a RICO investigation similar to the way
tobacco companies were summoned before Congress from 1999-2006.
Update 10:50 a.m. EDT: The link to the letter has been taken down. However, the
letter can be seen here, thanks to webarchive.org.
“It is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that
America and the world can get on with the critically important business of
finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth’s climate, before even more
lasting damage is done,” the letter said.
“Since I was one of the scientists called out in (Grijalva’s) witch hunts, I can
only infer that I am one of the scientists you are seeking to silence,” Curry
wrote on her Climate Etc. blog of the 20 scientists who signed the letter.
The letter does not mention going after colleagues in the scientific community
but does call for racketeering investigations into “corporations and other
organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks
of climate change.”
Are Curry and other climate scientists who differ with the letter’s writers
being called out?
Watchdog.org tried to speak to Jagadish Shukla, the lead signatory on the letter
from 20 climate scientists and director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere
Studies at George Mason University, but an email to his media contact at George
Mason went unreturned.
RELATED: Climate scientists accuse Democrat of McCarthyism
The letter has caused the latest feud in the climate science community, with the
20 scientists receiving praise from some and opprobrium from others, such as
hurricane expert Peter Webster, who told Curry he wrote one of the signatories
saying, “you have signed the death warrant for science.”
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 “There is scientific disagreement and there’s political
disagreement,” Curry told Watchdog.org in a telephone interview.
“Scientific disagreement is what moves the science forward. It’s
very important. It’s how we test our ideas. That’s what scientists
are supposed to do.
“In terms of the politics, the left, the sustainability movement,
the green movement tends to dominate that, but there are (other)
perfectly legitimate perspectives. (There are) people who think a
top priority should be getting energy to Africans or to try to
reduce the vulnerability to extreme weather in South Asia. There are
people who think these are higher priorities than trying to reduce
carbon emissions. That’s a perfectly legitimate position and the
kind of political debate we need to have.”
One of the 20 signatories is Barry A. Klinger, a research
scientist at the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, who went
online to insist that using RICO would not infringe on the free
speech rights of scientists such as Curry.
“A RICO suit like the one we propose would be very narrowly focused
on whether companies were engaged in fraud in order to continue
selling a product which threatens to do harm,” Klinger wrote. “I’m
not a legal expert, but I think that anyone not selling a product or
service can not be punished for fraud, so the vast majority of
people opining on climate are not even theoretically threatened by
such a case.”
Another of the signers is Alan Betts, owner and operator of
Atmospheric Research in Pittsford, Vermont, who said the letter
needed to be sent because he believes there is an organized attempt
from the oil and gas industry to recruit researchers to sow doubt.
“Bring them to court and make them face up,” Betts told Vermont
Watchdog. “Somebody downstream is going to have to pay the
staggering costs of all the delays in taking action on climate
change. The fossil fuel companies are now deeply culpable because of
their deliberate deceptive strategies.”
Asked if RICO could be used to squelch dissent, Betts said, “I don’t
think so. Everyone has a right to discuss.” He also dismissed
concerns that RICO investigations might violate the right to free
speech, saying, “I have no idea how it affects the First Amendment.”
But Curry called the letter a combination of “colossal naivete” on
one hand and “gall and hubris” on the other.
“They understand nothing about the policy process, the legal
aspects, the political situation, they don’t really understand RICO
or the history of how it’s been used,” Curry said. “Of course it’s
going to involve scientists.”
The letter is the third major controversy this year in climate
science, joining the Grivalva affair — in which none of the seven
scientists were found to have engaged in any wrongdoing — and a New
York Times story accusing Willie Soon of the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics of failing to disclose potential conflicts
of interest with the fossil fuel industry.
Soon, whose work contends that most global warming is caused by
solar variation rather than by human activity, called the
allegations “a shameless attempt to silence my scientific research.”
Shukla has his own questions to answer. Just days after the letter
from 20 scientists was made public, University of Colorado
environmental studies professor Roger Pielke Jr. sent out a series
of tweets with links indicating Shukla may be double-dipping to the
tune of millions of dollars.
The infighting makes Curry wonder whatever happened to the
relatively quiet field of academia she entered some three decades
ago.
“I like to think that mine is a common sense, realist position but
some people call me a denier,” Curry said. “It’s just become a crazy
situation.”
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