Sunday, March 16, 2014

Great Moments in Liberal Civility, Part Too Many to Count

From William Teach at Pirate's Cove: Professor of Philosophy advocates jailing those who dissent from Global Warming Climate Change
I know, you’re shocked. And Warmists would agree that anyone who fails to believe what they believe should be jailed. Because Leftists are so tolerant of others. Here’s Lawrence Tortello, assistant professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology:
We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend to all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus.
Criminal negligence is normally understood to result from failures to avoid reasonably foreseeable harms, or the threat of harms to public safety, consequent of certain activities. Those funding climate denial campaigns can reasonably predict the public’s diminished ability to respond to climate change as a result of their behaviour. Indeed, public uncertainty regarding climate science, and the resulting failure to respond to climate change, is the intentional aim of politically and financially motivated denialists.
My argument probably raises an understandable, if misguided, concern regarding free speech. 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. Protecting the latter as a form of free speech stretches the definition of free speech to a degree that undermines the very concept.
I would just note that his degree in Philosophy confers him absolutely no credibility as an advocate of climate science.  It's not to say that he couldn't know something, but his education would suggest he specialized elsewhere.

Another watermelon environmentalist.  Green on the outside, red on the inside.

No comments:

Post a Comment