Steve Watson
Wants to criminalize questioning of the science on global warming
A professor with Rochester Institute of Technology has called for the incarceration of any American who actively disagrees that climate change is solely caused by human activity.
Lawrence Torcello, a philosophy professor with a Ph.D. from the University at Buffalo, published the comments as part of an essay submitted to the academic website The Conversation.
Torcello argues that malignant individuals, who he does not identify, are collectively organising a “campaign funding misinformation” about climate change. Torcello goes on to suggest that such activity “ought to be considered criminally negligent.”
Adding that “science misinformation” surrounding climate change should be considered a crime, Torcello asks readers to “Consider cases in which science communication is intentionally undermined for political and financial gain.”
He then goes on to cite a case in Italy where six scientists were jailed for failing to “clearly communicate risks to the public” about living in an earthquake zone.
“Imagine if in L’Aquila, scientists themselves had made every effort to communicate the risks of living in an earthquake zone,” Torcello states, asking the reader to consider the consequences if malevolent “financiers” of a “denialist campaign” “funded an organised campaign to discredit the consensus findings of seismology, and for that reason no preparations were made.”
“I submit that this is just what is happening with the current, well documented funding of global warming denialism,” Torcello asserts.
“Climate denial remains a serious deterrent against meaningful political action in the very countries most responsible for the crisis.” the professor adds.
Torcello also addresses the fact that his demands clearly run in opposition to protected free speech under the First Amendment, and as part of other nations’ laws, calling for legal systems to be “updated” by governments.
“We must make the critical distinction between the protected voicing of one’s unpopular beliefs, and the funding of a strategically organised campaign to undermine the public’s ability to develop and voice informed opinions,” he writes.
According to a Gallup poll conducted earlier this month, two thirds of Americans do not believe that the colder temperatures the country has been experiencing is related to human-caused climate change or global warming, (see video above) instead believing that normal seasonal variations are at play.
The “scientific consensus” on the matter says that human activity is a factor in temperature changes, thus under Torcello’s “updated” law, two thirds of Americans would be at risk of being deemed as criminals for expressing these beliefs.
Torcello’s America would also see countless scientists thrown into prison for continually presenting evidence that shows there is no scientific evidence that human activity is causing the planet to warm. The latest to be locked up would be Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore, who testified in front of a Senate committee last month that “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.”
Moore cited the IPCC’s own figures on global warming which show only a 0.57C temperature increase during the 30-year period from 1970 to 2000. Since then there has been no increase, perhaps a slight decrease, in average global temperature.
Furthermore, the latest temperature data from two U.S. government bureaucracies, NASA and NOAA, verifies that the “pause” or “hiatus” in global warming is still ongoing. If professor Torcello had his way, the scientists involved in those studies would presumably also be imprisoned.
