Sunday, May 31, 2009

Academic Dishonesty?

In a gesture of public spiritedness, seven academics who include three lead authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a former director of the World Climate Research Program wrote to Australian power generating companies on April 29 instructing them to cease and desist creating electricity from coal....

“The warming of the atmosphere, driven by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases, is already causing unacceptable damage and suffering around the world.”

No evidence is provided for this statement and no signatory to this letter has published anything to support this claim. These university staff are unctuously understanding about the plight of those who face employment extinction in the smokestack towns of Australia. Worse, they are using their positions to assert a moral authority and a right to command which they do not appear to posess.

They write: “We understand that this will require significant social and economic transition that will need to be managed carefully to care for coal sector workers and coal-dependent communities.”. This love for fellow workers brings tears to the eyes.

The electricity generating companies should reply by cutting off the power to academics’ homes and host institutions, forcing our ideologues to lead by example.

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