Distinguished Professor Harassed by Fulks, Monckton, Wiese et al

Jeffrey Bada

It's come to my attention that the usual suspects have also been harassing Distinguished Professor of Marine Chemistry Jeffrey Bada of the University of California at San Diego, over his views on manmade climate change.

Bada wrote me to say he's had the same problems with this Fulks et al crowd, who hangout at their Google group "global-warming-realists" clubhouse, but he's had it worse.

Bada has had several letters about climate change published in the San Diego Union Tribune, and usually after each of these, he says, he gets "dumped on" by these syncophants and their cohorts, among them Gordon Fulks, Christopher Monckton, Chuck Wiese, Jim Karlock, and Irving Forbing .

It got so bad Bada wrote a commentary about the harassment for the Union Tribune, saying he'd received more than 170 heckling emails, with examples.

One called Bada “woefully ignorant of climate science and even the basics of how science works.”

Bada -- whose long and eminent career includes, among other accomplishments, a reassessment and expansion of the famous Miller-Urey experiments on the chemical origins of life -- suggested a debate via an organization like the National Academy of Science, which seemed to have scared the intimidator off:

The response: the academy could not “be relied upon to provide a neutral setting or neutral format,” and I was asked, “Has science now evolved into the telling of ‘tall tales,’ where logic and evidence are no longer required?” A follow-up email stated, “The climate cult does not want to get it right. Climate science is solo corrupt.”

Like most scientists, Bada first tried to convince them with science. But this gang doesn't go for that kind of thing:

I next sent the announcement of the XIV Roger Revelle Commemorative Lecture at Scripps, “Melting Ice: What ss happening to Arctic sea ice and what does it mean to us,” presented on May 8 by John Walsh from the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. A response: “How can this be considered ‘science’ if (as I assume) no questioning of the paradigm is allowed and patented Democratic Party political language (e.g., “unprecedented”) is used to promote the lecture?”

He also suggested a free, online course,“Climate change in four dimensions: Scientific, policy, international, and social,” sponsored by Scripps and UC San Diego.. But the GW-realist's syndicate already has all the answers it needs:

The emails this time were even more vituperative: “Since we would not agree with those who put this course on, we all would get an ‘F’ unless you would allow your university to teach kids the entire story”; “That reminds me of a religion, not science”; “If you consider any of the above to be evidence supporting your case for CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) then you have my sympathies, and I suggest you start with a freshman course in logic, particularly cause and effect, coincidence”; “Scripps’ total or near total support of climate hysteria is clearly self-serving and amply rewarded”; and “conflicts of interest abound among alarmists, with many tied to a gravy train far more lucrative than the oil companies: the feds.” One email called me a “scientific pretender.”

Once again the method of these thugs is clear: pretend to care about the science, while demonstrating no interest in or respect for it whatsoever. They just want to get their rage on.

Bada says Gordon Fulks has continued to harass him with "nutty" stuff, as does the retired dentist Dr. Irvin Forbing, who employs more than the usual number of denier talking points than the average writer at the Heartland Institute.

Fake-Lord Christopher Monckton writes Bada too, out of the blue, sometimes claiming ocean acidification is fake because the ocean's pH is controlled by deep ocean rocks and sediments (which only applies in geologic time and not on the decadal scale).

Because Chris Monckton obviously knows more about ocean acidification than a distinguished professor of marine chemistry, right? (Snort.)

Bada decided to organize a special seminar at UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, titled "Global Warming Denialism: What science has to say". He was concerned about the GWrealists crowd crashing the seminar, and SIO asked UCSD Police for guidance, and they sent an undercover agent to the first seminar. But no thugs showed up and the seminar went off without a hitch, though Bada had to change rooms twice because so many people attended the seminar.

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Does the global-warming-realists Google group exist as a planning space for these attacks? Is Gordon Fulks their ringleader? He sure does get around, but on who's behalf? If no one's, he sure has a pretty sad retirement going.