Bishop Hill The strange case of the gun licence that wasn't
May 11, 2012 Climate: Sceptics In recent days, the Australian National University has released the emails at the centre of the death threats controversy. The details are discussed in this useful article at Quadrant. Here's the critical message
ANU Climate Change Institute.
Sent: Wednesday, June 02, 2010.
URGENT AND CONFIDENTIAL.Dear All,
Looks like we've had our first serious threat of physical violence. It has come from a participant in [the] deliberative democracy project last weekend. One of the participants left early after he took exception to my talk about climate science...[Deleted’s] exact words were:
"Moreover, before he left, he came to the Fri dinner and showed other participants his gun licence and explained to them how good a sniper he is. Because he didn't attend day 2 he will not be allowed to attend the final day. I will be notifying security to be on hand in case he turns up and causes a problem."
I think the final day is this weekend but I am not sure. Anyway, I've asked XXX to brief the VC [vice-chancellor] and the head of security ASAP. The latter will determine whether this should go to the AFP [Australian Federal Police] or not. [It didn’t]. But in the meantime, we should be careful about anyone we don't know who approaches our offices.
There are some real oddities in the timing, with this alleged incident taking place a full year before the story hit the media. But there is also this comment posted on a thread at Catallaxy Files blog.
John Coochey
11 May 12 at 7:07 am
I feel I can throw some light on this matter as I am undoubtedly the person who is alleged to have shown my gun licence to people at the dinner. That is not accurate. At the mediocre dinner on the first day I was approached by Dr Maxine Cooper, then the Commissioner for the environment, who recognized me as someone involved in the kangaroo culling program in the ACT which occurs each winter. After politely asking if she could sit next to me she asked me how I had gone in the recent licence test which is challenging. I told her I had topped it with a perfect score and showed her my current culling licence, not gun licence, to prove it. The conversation around the table then drifted around the benefits of eating game meat v the poor fare on offer.
Reader Comments (74)
Prof Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, said his "David Kelly moment" (...) came as death threats poured in from around the world.
I think it would be interesting to see even just one or two of the death threats that poured in.
The treehouse just keeps giving. From "The folly of debating science sceptics" (now deadlink @ www.campusreview.com.au):
We don't like that shoddy journalism do we Professor.
Quite so, Shub.
Painting themselves as the 'victims' forces anyone who would call them out into the role of 'oppressors'. As you say, a time-honoured tactic to close down opposition to their CAGW agenda.
I am astonished that this "experiment" in persuasion passed any panel reviewing research with human subjects. It makes the infamous Stanley Milgram experiments look like storytime with the kiddies. Perhaps an Aussie lawyer could look into this.
Booo!
Hiss!
Dalek!
Traffic Warden!
Parkie!
Just wanted to terrify any climatologits reading this........
Seriously chaps, this isn't a death threat.
I know you find it difficult to distinguish between a car back firing and a nuclear holocaust or between a warmish summer and the Thermageddon at the End of Civilisation, but these little abrupt noises should not be taken seriously. They do not signify the time to enter the reinforced bunker where you will be laid siege by the Wellfunded Big Oil Denier Conspiracy whose only desire is to engulf all poor humble climate scientists within their slavering jaws - while you have nothing but the sword of the Hockey Stick and the Shield of the Global Climate Models to protect you against the ravenous hordes of 'Anti-Science'.
But - along with Andrew's much anticipated book on Climategate - I intend to soon launch a new online course...'Death Threats and How To Identify Them 101'. As a service to climatology, I'll offer a 50% subscription discount to anyone who can provide conclusive evidence that they are members of 'The Consensus'. And in act of almost suicidal generosity a further 25% off to anyone who can show that they are a. Australian and b. Have a yellow streak running right up their back.
Happy Threat Assessment. Watch this space (if you can crawl out from behind the sofa long enough....)
Bernie
Yes, I am wondering about any prior review this kind of experiment with human subjects did or did not undergo. In medical and psychological research fields there are usually quite developed protocols and approvals. Did this "experiment" get any adequate scrutiny before applying such manipulative schemes to human subjects??
Ethical and legal standards in the USA have become more specific and detailed for many types of research involving human subjects.
Someone in Oz should perhaps investigate issues of informed consent, deception, manipulation etc. as possibly related to this "experiment" in belief modification!!
There is quite a large literature on the ethics of human experimentation and research with human subjects....
At least the climate community manages to maintain a remarkably consistent record when it comes to integrity and honesty.
@Tim Curtin: Thanks for reposting the email. I’m almost shocked. Australian warmists seem to have discovered a new level of bonkers. Something about the sceptic ‘re-education’ exercise described there reminds me of the original Planet of the Apes, where Charlton Heston’s character has been captured and the apes are busy dismissing the likelihood of intelligence in a human being. For now, Australia seem to be at the vanguard of CAGW hysteria. I wonder if the rest of the world is due to follow in its footsteps or if their warmist establishment will become an increasingly lone, if not vitriolic voice?
@Josh, I wish I could say ‘whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it’. For now I’ll have to hit your tip jar at www.cartoonsbyjosh.com as your cartoons are brilliant. Would love to see a ‘don’t shoot me, I’m a climate scientist’ kangaroo cartoon :).
In a way it’s easy to forgive academic establishments of advanced nations for getting involved in this sort of propaganda exercise (sceptic 're-education'). For a start, it appeals to the kind of watered down utopian Marxism nurtured in a rarified, generally left-leaning environment unencumbered by the pressures of real life. More importantly, for years, governments and the press have only paid attention to ‘head turning‘ or fear-inducing science that can show confident results, sell papers, provide easy copy and win votes. Increasingly as post-normal has become the norm, science has become the tool of ideologues and PR ringmasters rather than a means of investigation. From the point of view of scientists gaining funding or seductive fame, the ‘head turning’ factor in research has become more important than the objectivity of their results. Confirmation bias or presentation of speculation given a sheen of credibility by computer simulation or careful cherry picking of data is not only accepted, but encouraged, and the floodgates of junk science have been blown open. Now we’re at the point where press releases and abstracts of published papers bear little relation to their content, especially where they have ‘climate change’ tacked on. Where papers that support ‘the cause‘ (of further funding) will always, without fail, get an easy ride through peer review.
This is all transparent to the interested layperson thanks to the tireless work of sceptical bloggers and a few stubborn ‘contrarian’ academics. Academia has always been a balloon of intellectual BS - not always a bad thing. However, now this balloon has been inflated to vast proportions and risen into the sky, it is an easy and vulnerable target for critics and gun license-wielding sceptics. Hence the need to enforce, or find ways to enforce conformism at all costs; the need to fabricate and appeal to an authority in circularity in order to deflect the shots, and the need to dip toes in the tried, tested (but mostly failed) brainwashing techniques of authoritarian tyrannies and cults. I can’t help feeling that in getting addicted to government ‘cash for climate science’, academics are becoming aware of an impending crash. Like an inexperienced joyrider hurtling down the motorway in a stolen BMW, it’s too late to turn back and they don’t know how to stop, so they close their eyes and plough on into the intellectual and moral abyss. The manufactured ‘death threats’ controversy might be a telling manifestation of their own deep rooted psychological fear of being found out; of the gravy train coming to an end. It brings to mind the climategate email: “What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation? They’ll kill us probably”
J Burns.
What do you reckon Nick Stokes?
It is interesting to explore what this "Deliberative Forum" was all about. I formed the view that it was a pilot exercise for the planned Citizen's Assembly on Climate Change which was a key plank of Julia Gillard's approach to climate change at the 2010 General Election. The policy at the time was to select 150 citizens, "randomly selected", that Julia Gillard hoped would find a consensus for Climate Change.
The Citizen's Assembly attracted much negative comment at the time, and was dropped by Labour in October 2010. The Deliberative Forum was in May 2010, and it was evident that the exercise was being managed by some very experienced senior civil servants. I wondered at the time why so much effort was being put into the exercise. It now seems to me that the Forum was designed as a way to deal with inconvenient sceptics that might show up (after all, a small portion of the Australian public are informed sceptics) and so that the outcome of the Citizen's Assembly would support the Government policy that we must take urgent action on Climate Change.
A report in The Australian on 7th October 2010 states: "Julia Gillard has scrapped her much-maligned citizens' assembly on climate change.
The Prime Minister went to the election promising to bring together an assembly of 150 citizens to discuss ways to tackle climate change.
But a short time ago, Ms Gillard emerged from the first meeting of a new multi-party climate change committee to reveal that the assembly would not go ahead.
'The committee concluded that in view of the creation of this committee and its intended outreach work that the proposal of a citizens' assembly should not be implemented and that there will be other ways of harnessing public dialogue engagement in the science of climate change and engagement in questions of pricing carbon,' she said."
And "Ms Gillard said the proposed citizens' assembly, launched during the election campaign, aimed to work through climate change issues with the community and develop consensus on how to respond.
She said there was a debate on the government's climate change legislation during the last session of parliament with consensus shattered when the opposition withdrew support.
“I thought it was important that we harness community members to rebuild a broad general public consensus on how to tackle climate change, how to price carbon,” she said.
“There is not one way of doing that. There is not one way of harnessing and involving community members. Obviously the multi-party climate change committee today is looking at going to work through ways of doing that.”
Ms Gillard said the climate change Commission would be staffed by experts available to speak on the science. 'Many people hear very confusing claims about the science and they want to understand them at a level of detail,' she said."
Mondo early in its term this government went through a kind of citizen engagement phase where they wanted citizens directly involved in all sorts of policy development. Eventually the howls of "do the bloody job YOU were elected to do" got too loud and they moved on.
Have there been any claims made by AGW fanatics that have held up under scrutiny?
So in summarize: Australian academics spend time and money attempting to convert an unsuspecting skeptic to their cause, said skeptic mentioned that he possessed a culling license while discussing a meal they shared during the session with the academics, and then said skeptic became, in academic email amplification echos, a potential death threat to the academics. Right? This supposed death threat was then reported far and wide?
I'm new to this one - but presumably Gavin will have posting explaining all in due course(?)
OT, but I love a little bureaucratic hypocrisy. When I were a lad in country WA is wasn't that hard to get a gun licence (not culling for human consumption.) You were allowed to destroy kangaroos in-situ because they are vermin in the wheatbelt, but you were not allowed to transport them. If the wallopers stopped you with a dead roo in the car you were in trouble. Believe it or not officially you were supposed to leave them were they fell. We would process in the field and then smuggle that delicious gamey, lean, mmm, urgghh...(sorry got distracted,) meat home secreted about the car and our persons like illicit drugs. Its probably different now. I live in the city, pay $18/kilo for mean little roo steaks because my wife won't let guns in the house. Perhaps she's afraid I will start attending AGW conferences.
May 11, 2012 at 11:52 AM | GrantB
The climate debate in Australia is "viscous"? I know some Aussies are thick, but really...
A "deliberative democracy project" dinner, not a bar brawl? Which one would I prefer?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/legal-affairs/media-watch-eyes-climate-scientist-death-threat-claims/story-e6frg97x-1226353396751
ABC are under investigation by Media Watch
By way of a bit of local background - John Coochey is quite well known around town as a gadfly libertarian who delights in using research to get up the collective nose of the politically correct. He's not some redneck idiot, much to the chagrin of his opponents.
I must say that whoever selected him for the mind control exercise was expecting the triumph of hope over experience. It is like inviting the Pope to a 3 day Protestant conversion seminar and hoping for a result.
Also, while a valiant rearguard action by warmists is being fought, the Government is universally agreed to be on a hiding to nothing at the next election - the only question is how big the margin of defeat will be. And, the centrepiece of the Opposition's policy is abolition of the carbon dioxide tax.
Episodes like this are just another nail in the Government's coffin.
Curt (-:) Perhaps I should have said inviscid. A turbulent debate. Reynolds Number >>1
"the only question is how big the margin of defeat will be"
Can we get a Queensland Part 2? Wouldn't that be sweet.
I have read some of the above comments with interest and skimmed others. I am just about to have some other shooters male and female over for dinner, roast venison with povrade sauce with side dishes of mushrooms bacon and scalded apples with chestnut butter sauce better that the rubbish I got at the ANU. I never had any follow up from the police at all and only realised I was the alleged death threat when the emails were released a couple of days ago. In Canberra you can have your firearm licence removed without a criminal conviction of the police view you as an unsuitable person. Thus if you are a firearm owner you do not threaten anyone and certainly not publicly, in any case you would be leaving a perfect paper trail if climate warmists were suddenly found dead from head shots (please note I did not say brain shots- enough said). I have never described myself as a sniper that would disrespect the military who have skills I do not, as I have which they do not. Got to go to finish dinner
John Coochey
Thanks for telling us that. I can't think of a more stark demolishing of the key "threat" claim. Now I feel hungry!
If you were the litigious type, John, you could probably win a defamation suit - assuming that at least some of the people who circulated emails mentioning threats of violence knew who was being referred to.
I really enjoy reading 99% of the posts on here and at WUWT and a few other "evil denier" sites.
I frequently find myself shaking my head and thinking "you just couldn't make this stuff up".
"This stuff" being the latest escapade of the thermageddonist bedwetters.
This posting and the comments have scaled new heights.
Brilliant!