A group of Google Science Communication Fellows have written to their benefactor explaining that the company should not be supporting Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe because of his views on climate change.
...in the face of urgent threats like climate change, there are times where companies like Google must display moral leadership and carefully evaluate their political bedfellows. Google’s support of Senator James Inhofe’s re-election campaign is one of those moments.
The thrust of the fellows' argument is that Inhofe is trying to prevent them getting their way on the climate change issue. However, their presentation of the issue as a moral one seems to rely on an argument that Inhofe is a bad man. And why is he a bad man? Well, because he is trying to prevent them getting their way on the climate change issue.
So what it boils down to is that the fellows want Google to stop funding people who disagree with them. This behaviour suggests that they are unsure of their intellectual ground, but also bears a close resemblance to that of the Climategate authors, plotting to unseat journal editors and have dissenting scientists fired. This is the modus operandi of the activist and not the scientist.
So in the wake of Tamsin's article on trust, I wonder who on earth is going to believe a word of the academic output of any of these people?