Enforcing "correct science"
Let's say you're a state governor and you're unhappy because the head of the state climate office does not fully agree with your views on global warming. Said climatologist agrees that global warming is going on, but questions how large humanity's role has been in causing it.
Well, if you're Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, you try to have the legislature create a new office of State Climatologist that will allow you to put your own appointee in that role, someone who will hew to all the correct views on climate change. The new appointee will rid you, the governor of the grand state of Oregon, of the terrible embarrassment of a tenured academic (George Taylor of Oregon State University) at a state office questioning one of the tenets of what you consider to be "official state policy" on this scientific question. And the governor's scheme will probably succeed, because many in the legislature are just as outraged as the governor -- they find such deviation from correct belief by a state employee to be an unacceptable blemish on Oregon's green sheen.
As Gov. Kulongoski put it, "I never appointed him. I think I would know. He's not my weatherman."
But no matter what happens, it's clear that the academic Taylor, who has headed the state climate office at OSU since it was created by the legislature in 1991, is now learning how brutal can be the ways of eco-correctness attack politics. An article from the Portland Independent Media Center charged that Taylor "stumps for big polluting businesses," vilified Taylor as "especially dangerous," and quoted the head of Oregon PIRG accusing Taylor of "fiddling while Rome burns." The same article suggests Taylor might be a stooge for Big Oil or Big Nuke and even wonders if the problem is his religious beliefs. Other media pieces have publicly ridiculed him and even called him crazy.
Taylor has tried to defend himself, but his is one voice against a lot of media firepower, and it's virtually certain that Gov. Kulongoski will not only get "his" weatherman, but Taylor's personal and professional reputation will be shredded beyond recovery -- just one more bloody casualty caught in the crossfire of climate politics.
It's getting hot out there.
Well, if you're Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon, you try to have the legislature create a new office of State Climatologist that will allow you to put your own appointee in that role, someone who will hew to all the correct views on climate change. The new appointee will rid you, the governor of the grand state of Oregon, of the terrible embarrassment of a tenured academic (George Taylor of Oregon State University) at a state office questioning one of the tenets of what you consider to be "official state policy" on this scientific question. And the governor's scheme will probably succeed, because many in the legislature are just as outraged as the governor -- they find such deviation from correct belief by a state employee to be an unacceptable blemish on Oregon's green sheen.
As Gov. Kulongoski put it, "I never appointed him. I think I would know. He's not my weatherman."
But no matter what happens, it's clear that the academic Taylor, who has headed the state climate office at OSU since it was created by the legislature in 1991, is now learning how brutal can be the ways of eco-correctness attack politics. An article from the Portland Independent Media Center charged that Taylor "stumps for big polluting businesses," vilified Taylor as "especially dangerous," and quoted the head of Oregon PIRG accusing Taylor of "fiddling while Rome burns." The same article suggests Taylor might be a stooge for Big Oil or Big Nuke and even wonders if the problem is his religious beliefs. Other media pieces have publicly ridiculed him and even called him crazy.
Taylor has tried to defend himself, but his is one voice against a lot of media firepower, and it's virtually certain that Gov. Kulongoski will not only get "his" weatherman, but Taylor's personal and professional reputation will be shredded beyond recovery -- just one more bloody casualty caught in the crossfire of climate politics.
It's getting hot out there.
1 Comments:
Perhaps Kulongoski could confer with someone who should truly know what's what about celestial matters...an Australian cardinal:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=d5d6b9e4-802a-23ad-4bba-38996d72c888
By Timberly, at 7:12 PM
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