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operation by a zealous group.”
Journalist Douglas Fischer noted in
Scientific American
that “Most of the e-mails appear to be
the work of frustrated individuals, ranting into the ether…. But some appear to be the work of
coordinated campaigns, and many, scientists say, appear to be taking their cue from influential anti-
a close parallel with intimidation campaigns against scientists in other areas where scientific work
potentially threatened corporate special interests: “Researchers working on Atrazine, a widely used
herbicide, bisphenol-a, a common plastic additive, and other environmental pollutants have received
similarly intimidating e-mails and even threats.” In the same article,
Climate Cover-Up
coauthor
Richard Littlemore argued that while “determining whether any given e-mail is part of an organized
campaign is difficult … it's not happenstance.” “[T]he bullying doesn't start serendipitously or from
scratch,” he said. “It starts with a paid campaigner—Morano, …
JunkScience.com/Fox
News
commentator Steve Milloy—and filters out from there…. They're the PR guys and they're in the game
and taking money for what they do. They also wind up recruiting other folks.”
It Gets Personal
A number of the hacked CRU e-mails that climate change deniers promoted most heavily involved
me. Many of the buzzwords and phrases that were circulating (e.g., “trick,” “hide the decline”) were
used to attack me as well, whether or not they even applied to me and my work. As we have seen in
previous chapters, the predators of climate change denial had been stalking me for some time now,
and climategate was an opportunity, they suspected, to go in for the kill.
One front of the attack involved the sending of voluminous e-mail and phone messages
containing thinly veiled threats of harm against me and even my family. “You and your colleagues who
have promoted this scandal ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole
damn families,” read one e-mail. Another read, “you should know the public will come after you,”
and “Six feet under, with the roots is were [sic] you should be doin [sic] your magic, how come know
[sic] one has [edited] you yet, i was hopin [sic] i would see the news and you commited [sic]
suicide.”
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Most of these threats didn't seem credible, and while I did inform the authorities of them, by and
large I brushed them off. One, however, could not be ignored. On August 18, 2010, I had to explain to
colleagues in the Penn State University meteorology department, located in the “happy valley” of
Central Pennsylvania, why there was police tape over the door to my office. The immediate answer
was that the FBI had quarantined the room and sent a letter I'd received that afternoon off to their
nearest testing facility to determine the nature of the white powder contained within it. At a more
basic level, the answer was that this is simply what it means to be a prominent figure in the climate
change debate in the United States today. The tests came back a few days later; luckily, the substance
in the letter was cornstarch. The sender had nonetheless committed a felony crime.
There was also a second front of attack, one aimed at threatening my livelihood. In mid-January
2010, a group known as the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), which receives
perverse premise was that I was somehow pocketing millions of dollars of “Obama” stimulus money
