McCarthyism Not Dead

By Paul Homewood

Others have covered Roger Pielke Jnr’s run in with US Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) who is the ranking member of the House of Representatives Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. Anyone who has not seen it, Roger has it on his blog here.

But just to bring home Stalinist nature of the “investigation”, I copy below the actual letter sent by Grijalva to the president of Pielke’s university.

http://democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/sites/democrats.naturalresources.house.gov/files/Roger%20Pielke%2C%20Colorado.pdf

The threat is clear. If you dare to disagree with any part of Obama’s strategy, we will come after you.

As Roger concludes:

The incessant attacks and smears are effective, no doubt, I have already shifted all of my academic work away from climate issues. I am simply not initiating any new research or papers on the topic and I have ring-fenced my slowly diminishing blogging on the subject. I am a full professor with tenure, so no one need worry about me — I’ll be just fine as there are plenty of interesting, research-able policy issues to occupy my time. But I can’t imagine the message being sent to younger scientists. Actually, I can: “when people are producing work in line with the scientific consensus there’s no reason to go on a witch hunt.”

When “witch hunts” are deemed legitimate in the context of popular causes, we will have fully turned science into just another arena for the exercise of power politics. The result is a big loss for both science and politics.

Let’s hope the University of Colorado tell the Ranking Member exactly where he can shove his letter.