Wow. Just. Wow.
Forty percent of scientists feel gagged
Forty percent of scientists answering a survey say they have felt gagged because of management policy or concern over losing funding.The Government was considering guidelines to scientists on the difference between speaking about their areas of expertise, and advocacy.
A total of 384 New Zealand scientists answered the Association of Scientists’ survey, half of whom work in Crown research institutes, or CRIs.
Association president Nicola Gaston said of those who had not felt gagged, many said they had witnessed it happening to others.
“There’s an issue around embarrassing the Government, but the funding issue is quite poor so the kinds of commercial funding that come into the CRIs, those contracts are one particular issue.
“But there’s also the idea of Government funding being effected by speaking out, saying the wrong things, perhaps having a point of view which is not that of the expert reviewers on a particular funding proposal.”
This is the 6 year legacy of dirty politics and this Government’s mad ideological purity. One element of Dirty Politics was the manner in which anti-health campaigners used Whaleoil to attack any academic suggesting sugar taxes or anti-smoking programs. The fear of being publicly crucified by Slater has added to the new culture of fear within Science. Add to this the Government’s own rejection of empirical based policy for ideological brain farts instead, and we have an environment where 40% of scientists feel gagged.
I owner how high this number will get after 3 more years of this Government?
Someone had a very good letter in the Herald on Friday about this in response to Tim Hazledine’s suggestion that no one feels threatened. The science from Dunedin had funding cut.
But what does this mean:
I owner how high this number will get after 3 more years of this Government?
He means “I wonder” I guess.
This is indeed a very good example to hold up to those who claim that smear campaigns conducted by Slater/Lusk/National don’t have real-world effects. Given that 40% feel free enough to state that they feel gagged, one has to wonder who many felt too gagged to admit to feeling gagged. The percentage is probably higher.
The effect of this will reporting to government on scientific issues that is more likely to tow the National party line, despite the science for fear of either being pilloried by right-wing blogs or having their funding cut for speaking out against ideologically driven policy initiatives.
The truth is the victim here.
Key is a dictator no question about it.
He stared and glared with an evil look at the Labour benches during debate before the Election and said “if you want dirt I have a whole draw full of dirt on you lot, so bring it on”
He is a dark character that believes threats are paramount to having is way with veiled threats so it is no wonder we are all now living in a threatened environment.
Just remember how fast he is shutting down free speech here on this blog for gods’ sake.
During the election he silenced Planet Key song/video and a slew of other spoofs about him so don’t be surprised we are reaching dictator status.
Bye freedom.
‘Dirty Politics’ influencing elections, even influencing National’s own candidate’s selection, is something NZ does not need. But I have become increasingly concerned, as also described in ‘Dirty Politics’ about the covert muzzling of scientists – that is akin to a ‘crime against humanity’.
These are the facts, and no one whats to state them –
Generally the information coming out of the IPCC is at best 5 years behind the current thinking/facts, plus they are under political pressure not to frighten the masses, so tend to understate most of their predictions.
We are currently at or just above 400 parts per million CO2 (the amount fluctuates over the year), the last time the environment had this much CO2 floating around it the Earth was 5 degrees Celsius above what it is now, and the oceans were about 26 metres above where they are now. The Earth is still catching up with the effect of past emissions.
Needless to say, human habitat can not change, move, or adapt fast enough to accommodate a 5 degree temperature rise, in what will be an extremely short time, approximately 30 – 40 years, which is the time lag that the melting ice and warming deep seas are giving us.
The current global climate instability is due to the CO2 emissions from decades ago.
Then there is methane. The amount of methane – CH4 – and its forcing factor compared to CO2 are rarely taken into account, when in fact methane is way worse than CO2; it is somewhere in the region of 200 – 300 times stronger a greenhouse gas than CO2. And there is something like 10 – 10,000 times more CH4 trapped in the Tundra and under the sea which is below the fast melting Arctic ice than man has injected into the environment as CO2 in the past 200 years. The current amount of methane in the environment is equivalent to about 400 ppm CO2, giving us in excess of 800 parts per million CO2/CO2e, We are on the cusp of something that may not have occurred in more than 3 billion years.
Reducing emissions now will not be noticeable for something like 40 years, way after humans have gone the way of the 200 species we currently send extinct daily.
If we had the ability to remove the equivalent of 150ppm CO2 within a decade, then I would say we had a chance, doing anything less is futile.
The Kapiti Express Way will be our ‘Moi’ – our version of Easter Island statues. If there are any future archaeologists, they will wonder what ‘drove’ us to this kind of insanity, and what amounts to infanticide. Space doesn’t allow me to write much more except I hope to point to this essay:
http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/ which covers the facts way better than I can here.
N.B. CO2 persists in the atmosphere for around 1,000 years.
Letters – Kapiti News August 2014
Is Ruakura gradually being closed down?
They burnt books in Germany during the thirties.
And as for Slater ?
He’s a thug.
You see how Key gets things done, he gets others to attack those who speak out rightfully so, then Key gets to finish them off by saying in effect that they’re wrong. No wonder Nicky Hager wrote his book and titled it dirty politics, the title does justice. Oh but our arrogant and sly leader won’t stop there. He’ll wade his way through all the shit he can throw, then he’ll throw his weight around, (what there is of it), then just to be smart, he’ll do a Muldoon and have the last say with a dirty and snide remark and and a chuckle.
Remember Key, you can’t stay in office forever, and the days are counting down for your departure from politics.
Hooray, hooray, hoo hah!
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