"We've created a monster"

In a new article in The Weekly Standard Stephen Hayward and Kenneth Green of the American Enterprise Institute respond to false allegations that AEI, a policy think tank, tried to "bribe" scientists to comment on climate change. The Weekly Standard article also comments on the growing backlash against what Hayward and Green term "the Climate Inquisition," quoting one of the leading global-warming proponents:

"[I]n December, Kevin Vranes of the University of Colorado, by no means a climate skeptic, commented on a widely read science blog about the mood of the most recent meeting of the American Geophysical Union, where Al Gore had made his standard climate presentation. "To sum up the state of the [climate science] world in one word, as I see it right now, it is this: tension," Vranes wrote. "What I am starting to hear is internal backlash. . . . None of this is to say that the risk of climate change is being questioned or downplayed by our community; it's not. It is to say that I think some people feel that we've created a monster by limiting the ability of people in our community to question results that say 'climate change is right here!'""

Dr. Vranes was rather delicate in his phrasing, but President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, always a blunt-spoken man, stated it more plainly in a recent interview. President Klaus expresses his frustration a bit strongly, but at least he's shown the courage to give voice to the sentiment others feel, but have been afraid to state: That we should treat the debate about global warming as just another scientific question to be settled with reason and evidence, not political calculation and social ostracism. Let's hope other thinking people in the public eye find their courage soon.