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better and grow the “team of crushers” then we could address all the anti-science much
more effectively.'
The author of that comment was one Rob Honeycutt. (If the name sounds vaguely
familiar, just remind yourself who led the assault on Pielke's article at
FiveThirtyEight
).
What he's advocating here is a technique known in the trade as 'astroturfing', where a
relatively small number of committed activists are able to punch above their weight by
giving the impression of being an extensive, grassroots movement.
Anyonewhohaseverspokenuppubliclyfortheclimatescepticcausewillbepainfully
familiar with these dirty trick tactics—not just astroturfing, but much uglier stuff like
identify theft and false accusations, bullying and attempts at professional assassination.
Some—such as the distinguished Swedish meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson—find the
experience so dispiriting they never do dare so again.
In May 2014, Professor Bengtsson announced that he was to join the advisory board
of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a sceptical think tank founded by former
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Lord Lawson. It was a brave and principled move
for Bengtsson who had spent most of his long career, specialising in climate modelling, in
the warmist camp. What changed his mind was the evidence: recognising the increasing
divergence between the alarmists' climate models and the real world data, he realised that
the 'consensus' was flawed and that he could no longer support it.
Just three weeks after taking the position, however, Bengtsson was forced to resign.
He had been so badly bullied by his former colleagues— he wrote in his resignation
letter—that his health was suffering and he was unable to work. 'It is a situation that
reminds me about the time of McCarthy. I would never have expected anything similar in
such an original peaceful community as meteorology.'
5
There is something rather charming about the innocence of that last statement. And it's
aview,nodoubt,thatmanypeoplewillfondlyshare—thisideathatmeteorologists, indeed
scientists generally, are a breed apart from the rest of humanity. Unlike, say, bankers or
internationalfootballersorbusinessmen,theyaremotivatednotbyvulgarconcernssuchas
money or power but purely by their disinterested quest for knowledge.
One of the people responsible for this popular notion of scientists as a breed apart was
the man I quoted at the beginning, C.P. Snow. Since his influential 1959 lecture that myth
has grown and grown, assiduously promoted by organisations like the BBC, which rarely
lets a day go by without some new paean to the brilliance of the elect white-lab-coated
ones with their magical PhDs and their insights into the mysteries of the world which mere
mortals cannot ken. Think how many newspaper articles begin with the phrase 'Scientists
say …'—the implicit assumption being that whatever these guys say must be true because,
well, they're
scientists
.
