Environment

Okay folks, here comes a new e-mail from the climate community yesterday that I did not hack (I was copied on it), and it is a case study in not getting it. Back story: Ever since Chris Horner and I were at a conference together with warmenist Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois a couple years ago, Chris and I have been included on Prof. Schesingler's e-mail distribution list, which usually consist of flagging climate news stories. Yesterday we got copied on this message Schlesinger sent to science reporter Andy Revkin:

Andy:

Copenhagen prostitutes?

Climate prostitutes?

Shame on you for this gutter reportage. [Emphasis added.]

This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.

The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists.

Of course, your blog is your blog.

But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included. [Emphasis added.]

Copenhagen prostitutes?

Unbelievable and unacceptable.

What are you doing and why?

Michael

So what so annoyed Schlesinger? Here's Revkin's offending blog post, which among other things passes along the amusing story of Copenhagen prostitutes offering free sex to climate campaigners (I'll leave to Mark Steyn the suitable lip gloss on this story), along with some other news items that the climate campaigners don't want reported. Judge for yourself if this constitutes "gutter reportage" and deserves censure from the climate science community. I'll add that one of the CRU e-mails I read mentioned that Revkin is not always reliable from their point of view; I can't now find it, but recall it vividly for the presumption that reporters are supposed to serve as mere transcribers for the climate campaign.

This raises another small but perhaps significant point that I didn't have room to comment on in my Weekly Standard article: How is it possible for a group of smart people to write over 1,000 e-mails over the course of a decade without a single shred of wit or humor in any of them? There isn't the tiniest hint anywhere that any of these guys ever grin. It jives with my experience of environmentalists for 20 years now that they are the single most humorless slice of humanity on the planet. (My favorite: I had a top greenie lawyer for the Audubon Society once say at a conference that "I regard the National Association of Home Builders to be every bit as evil as the National Rifle Association." My comeback was: "I can understand why you'd think that about the home builders, but what's your problem with the NRA?" The guy didn't even crack a smile.) And here we see Andy Revkin threatened with a "cutoff" because he writes--on a blog--something mildly amusing about Copenhagen.