Today is the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel. Last week, on 12th April, Israel and other parts of the world marked Holocaust Remembrance Day.

One Jewish writer in New York decided an appropriate way to remember was to invent a Twitter hashtag #EnvironmentalEichmann to denigrate and demonise Trump’s head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt.

As you can see from clicking on the link the idea didn’t catch on. But how on earth have we got to this place … ?

Meeting Nir and Hilla

It was a privilege to hear Nir Shaviv, Israeli physicist, present on the Svensmark cosmic-ray hypothesis at the GWPF on 4th April, and to meet his wife and biomedical entrepreneur Hilla afterwards. (Check out http://www.galmedics.com for applied science with far clearer falsification in view compared to anything in climate.) Nobody present was surprised that Piers Corbyn gave – or tried to give – Nir a hard time on the evidence. At dinner afterwards I asked Nir if he was aware of the trouble Piers’ brother was in about antisemitism within the Labour Party. He was aware. He also made clear, both in the meeting and at the dinner, that in Israel there is no problem at all being a sceptic in academia. One or two people pay lip service to the consensus but there’s no antagonism and truly free debate.

A bit of a contrast with the work of Jeffrey Barken in NYC and those he may be influenced by or influence, perhaps including David Buckel. As Geoff quoted:

His family and friends acknowledged that Mr. Buckel had become distraught recently over the national politics of climate change — “all that’s going on with the Trump administration and the rollback by Pruitt at the Environmental Protection Agency,” Mr. Kaelber said, referring to agency’s embattled administrator, Scott Pruitt.

The demonisation can be costly.

Any comments in any direction welcome.