The German government recently attempted to permanently stomp out open debate on the issue of climate science by issuing a 120-page publication declaring the science settled and climate science skeptics as bums not worth listening to. This kind of ugly attitude has been seen before – and with tragic results:
May, 1970, Kent State University: Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd of unarmed protesters (100 meters away) in an attempt to squash open debate about the Vietnam War. These protesters too were marginalized as undesirable “bums” and “radicals” and as a “mob”. Pulitzer Prize-winning photo by John Filo. U.S. Fair Use law.
German government opens fire on climate skeptics
In the publication, Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) singled out, named and pilloried three skeptic journalists, along with American and German climate scientists. A one-sided, witch-hunting publication designed to destroy the reputation of prominent dissenters is not the same as the cold-blooded murder of college students of course, but serves as an illustration of a similar attitude of intolerance and frustration with respect to an unwanted debate. It should warn us of where this is headed.
One of the attacked German journalists, Günter Ederer, has responded at the Achse des Guten. What follows is his commentary in English, translated with permission from Ederer.
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How I got on the “black list” of the German Federal Environment Agency
By Günter Ederer
Either I am stupid, or I am corrupt. In the least, however, I am naïve and unteachable and for that reason I am dangerous. No matter what, the German Environment Agency does not allow any room for doubt in its publication “Und sie erwärmt sich doch” (And indeed it continues to warm) when it comes to the unstoppable increase in global temperature. Here, along with my highly esteemed colleagues Dirk Maxeiner and Michael Miersch, we are the journalists who have been specifically named in the publication as those who deny climate change and spread nonsensical things. Since then, I’ve been torn between a sense of pride for having been taken so seriously, and complete amazement by how recklessly a state authority is prepared to go in defaming freedom of expression.
I have been pilloried because bureaucrats of the “Bundesklimakammer” have identified me as a “climate denier“, that is a partial nut job – a relative of the “Holocaust denier“, i.e. criminal and dangerous. That justifies the “official destruction of reputation by the state“, as written by the Weltwoche of Zurich to describe the behavior of the German Federal Environment Agency. Yet, there is only one thing: I do not deny climate change.
Icy periods and warm periods have been occurring for hundreds of thousands of years, dramatic climate changes that have shaped our Earth. For the last 30 years we have been told of “manmade climate change” and the ongoing dispute of whether and to what extent this is responsible for our current weather. Nigel Calder, former publisher of the New Scientist and science editor of the BBC, wrote in 1997 in the book The Manic Sun that scientists reached the conclusion that our climate was dominated by the sun. During my two-day visit he summarized his findings in one sentence: All parties in Europe, whether left or right, will go along the warming theory because the permission to tax the air we breath will be granted for the first time, and would even be praised because they it will be for rescuing the planet.
Since then I’ve been forced to acknowledge that Calder was right. The rise in CO2, and the danger of the global collapse associated with it, is the brilliant excuse for higher taxes and the expansion of state power. One product of this fear-mongering is the EEG energy feed-in act. Here the state guarantees that an unlimited amount of power is bought from producers at an exorbitant price. This is a pure centrally planned economy – one that would be unimaginable without the threat of a world collapse. How else can one explain the German SPD socialist party allowing its clientele, the “little folks”, to pay billions to the wealthy and owners of vast areas of roofs through their electric bills? How else do we explain that the other parties like the FDP liberal democrats and the conservative CDU, who even today continue to extol the virtues of Ludwig Erhard’s market economy, are calling on consumers to pay for an offshore liability fee – in addition to the feed-in act costs? This fee is nothing less than forcing consumers to pay for the investment risks of large corporations. Should a federal government agency be allowed to warn the public of a journalist because that journalist supports a market economy? Yes, I do become skeptical when I read the comments of Klimaretter claiming democracy must be “developed further” because it is not capable of protecting our planet. The director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber wants to scale back voting rights and award a greater say to scientists who know what is right for the people. Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the IPCC, argues in a similar manner. The suspicion that this is no longer about the climate, but more about the de-democratizing of states is surely justified. Most likely I find myself on the “bad-guys-list” because I have written about these tendencies – so far I have written nothing about the physics of our atmosphere.
In its publication the German Environment Agency insists that the science of global warming by CO2 is conclusively settled. Here the officials rely on the results of the IPCC. My Canadian colleague Donna Laframboise, together with 80 volunteers, made the effort to check all 18,531 scientific papers cited by the IPCC. That effort found that 5587 of these works originated from environmental activists who neither studied climate science nor were experts. She was able to show that the “leading” scientists were often not even students and that the results of studies had been falsified or rewritten. But the climate fear-mongers do not read any of this, neither in the government offices or in editorial rooms.
Even the Deutsche Journalisten Verband (German Association of Journalists) and the Wissenschafts Pressekonferenz e.V (Science Press Conference) and organized journalists requested Federal Minister of Environment Peter Altmaier to stop the UBA publication and to apologize to the pilloried journalists. However, Altmaier sees no reason to act. To me this is the most troubling aspect of the entire affair. Not because a Minister refuses to apologize to us, but because we have a Minister who is so thick-skinned that he believes that it is normal for a government agency to have sole claim to the representation of science and to strip the freedom of expression from journalists who in his eyes are inappropriate. For our country this is more dangerous than a global warming that is currently not even taking place.
Günter Ederer’s essay appeared in the FAZ on 1 July 2013
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Kent State Documentary (note the parallels):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdCpI2qdsd8
PS: The issue here is not whether the Vietnam War was right or wrong, rather it is whether it is justified to use the full might of the state to shoot down dissenting views and stomp out a public debate.
“Yet, there is only one thing: I do not deny climate change.”
The deliberate misrepresentation of the enemy is part of the propaganda rulebook.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
Well put DirkH, as always. Personally, I find the use of the term ‘climate change denier’ infuriating. No climate sceptic I know has ever denied that the climate changes, only that we question the impact of CO2. The use of this term shows how little AGW activists actually understand.
The real climate change deniers are the warmists, who like Michael Mann insist climate was pretty much steady for the last thousand years and changed only when man prospered.
Pierre,
Thanks for the work you do finding and getting such things into English.
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The Hollywood blacklist, instituted by the House Un-American Activities Committee (see McCarthyism), comes to mind as an example of a serious government attempt to silence those it finds objectionable. In contrast, the use of young and ill-trained (for crowd control) National Guard was a poor decision by the Ohio Governor (Rhodes) and other officials with tragic consequences but it seems to me there is a difference. The Federal Minister of Environment Peter Altmaier seems more McCarthy-like than what went on at Kent State:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_National_Guard_Shooting#Legal_action_against_the_guardsmen_and_others
I’m not blaming the National Guard soldiers – but rather the leaders who decided to deploy them, and those who gave the orders to shoot. You are correct: it was stupid and incompetent. The decision to send in the National Guard was in large part designed to intimidate the protesters into silence. How often do we see this behavior in the climate debate – German Ministry of Environment for example? That act of trying to intimidate the opposing side into silence is a plain admission of defeat…clearly the authorities were frustrated by the protesters who refused to go away and clearly had no idea what to do. They just lost it – they freaked…so they desperately stoop to dirty tactics, and hoped it would somehow work out…incompetence in its purest form.
Handling rowdy protests involving vandalism and disorderly conduct, like at Kent State, is a job for the police, and not the military. You arrest the rowdies, and charge them in a court of law for vandalism, disorderly conduct or whatever. The rest you have to engage. But you certainly don’t open fire on an unarmed crowd that’s just milling around 300 feet away, killing completely innocent passerbys to boot (unless you live in a tyranny).
I agree, the Ohio governor in my opinion was a total moron and should have been prosecuted for murder along with the persons who gave the orders to shoot. That no one was punished for this to me is total disgrace and a reason to not ever trust government. Has the government ever officially apologized for Kent State? If mowing down protestors with military assault rifles is the way to handle protest and to run open debate, then us climate skeptics, dissenters, tea party activists, etc. should have lots to worry about. And looking at the latest publication by the German Environment Ministry, I admit that sometimes I do worry.
Next time I hope that the government will think twice about publishing such a work of rubbish, such is the UBA publication.
I got a little carried away in last comment – agree with your view on Peter Altmaier. But big things always start with small steps. Altmaier needs to take great care that his Ministry does not run amok – which obviously it has started to do.
I agree with you. Your post is well meant and well done.
I was not at Kent State. I was in sight of early troubles in Cincinnati, so called urban riots of the mid-’60s. When Kent State happened I was in Iowa City – lots of protests but not much violence. There was a small explosion in a trash can but no injuries and not much damage compared to the bombings one hears about today. I was in Washington, D.C. the day before M.L.King’s “dream” speech and in Atlanta the day he was shot. Then back in Iowa when the 1968 DNC convention related violence happened. I was a spectator (not always TV) to these things rather than having been involved.
Our family’s first TV was in 1954, the year of the follow-on hearings (called the Army-McCarthy hearings) to the original McCarthy anti-Communist crusade that began in 1950.
Having witnessed much, I too am appalled at the distasteful things governements and NGOs do in the name of global warming.
“For our country this is more dangerous than a global warming that is currently not even taking place.”
Yes. I have decided long ago that I’m willing to stand a substantial degree of global warming rather than be ruled by some of these anti-democratic doomsayers. True heroes all over the world have fought off censorship as well as prison, torture and hardship for the sake of freedom. Vaclav Havel’s point is a strong one.
I’m a Brit and, true to form, I love my cup of tea.
I totally understand the importance of tea to the cycle of life and fully appreciate why a tax on this staple brought about the very existence of the USA.
The law of unintended consequences is as true today as it was in the time of Washington, Jefferson et al, and given that CO2 is, nearly, as important to life as Tea then I must pose a question.
When and where will our Revolution begin.
It won’t be Boston this time but it may be Berlin, Birmingham or, with luck, Brussels!
John F. Hultquist: “In contrast, the use of young and ill-trained (for crowd control) National Guard was a poor decision by the Ohio Governor (Rhodes) and other officials with tragic consequences but it seems to me there is a difference.”
I agree. Whatever one may think of the decisions made that day, it’s far from clear that that in the minds of the actors they were based on an attempt to suppress free speech rather than to protect lives or property from lawlessness. Like Mr. Hultquist, I, too am grateful for Mr. Gosselin’s efforts over the past few years. But I think that in this case he’s jumped the shark.
You did notice that a free German journalist, Günter Ederer, has written the text, and Pierre only translated it?
My impression was (and still is) that the Kent State reference was Mr. Gosselin’s. If not, I apologize for the error.
I brought in Kent State as an example to warn of what intolerance combined with frustration can lead to. I don’t think I’m jumping the shark. History is chock full of lessons.
no, he didn´t.
Well,… Yes, he did. The photo does not appear in the original (German) article. But it is used as a warning of the next steps that might be encouraged by the powers that be. The future will tell us if Pierre “jumped the shark” or if his and Günter’s warning was sufficient.
Ed – precisely. I’m using Kent State as a warning. I’ve mentioned that in the post. Ironically, the protesters of 1970 are today among those who want to shut down the open debate they fought and spilled blood for.
First they try to ignore you, then they try to ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win- Mahatma Gandhi.
[…] https://notrickszone.com/2013/07/20/why-germanys-national-environmental-guard-opened-fire-on-climate-… […]
There’s no evidence Gandhi ever said that, but there’s an older quote from a union guy in the USA:
“And, my friends, in this story you have a history of this entire movement. First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you. And that, is what is going to happen to the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.” General Executive Board Report and Proceedings [of The] Biennial Convention, Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, 1914, Nicholas Klein.
Dirk H, thanks. much appreciated.
Dr Goebbels’ heirs appear alive and kicking with their AGW Gleichschaltung practices (and not only in Germany). Definitions, illustrations at http://t.co/vZKx895Hty , and a comment.