Crimes Against Humanity?

I received an email recently from one of my grad school buddies (who shall remain nameless) asking the following question:

• "When are you going to write about the article on Drudge about the NASA chief calling for oil company executives to be charged with crimes against humanity? This has so many great angles, government employees calling for citizens to be charged in an international court, a scientist who would rather imprison a voice of dissent rather than argue the scientific merits of his position, the whole tie in with former NASA employees who had a different opinion."

Well, my first response was that this had to be a joke that he was playing on me to get me to post something silly. So, I did a little research on the matter. While it wasn't the "NASA chief" making these claims, it was James Hanson, the head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Father of AGW Science Scare Tactics. Most people leave off the "Scare Tactics" portion of his title, but I like to be thorough and complete in my writing. Hanson is also the guy that will tell you that he was "censored" by the Bush administration for having to put his NASA related (i.e., government funded) public presentations through the standard review and approval process required for ALL government releases of information. If you read this Guardian article, he doesn't sound at all censored to me. He sounds like a stark raving lunatic.

The email question says it best. A government scientist is calling for trials of the oil company executives for funding research in an area that just MIGHT affect the bottom line of their companies. Are these international trials going to be held in Salem, Massachusetts? Will I (and thousands of other scientists that don't believe that AGW is a big deal) be "invited" to attend these trials or will we just be dragged there and put in the stockade while the world "experts" selected and funded by Hanson's agency determine our fate?

Let's back up a second: High crimes against humanity? I think he is placing these executives and scientists in the same category as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, Joseph Stalin, Josef Mengele, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, and the list goes on. Failure to believe in JUNK SCIENCE that tells us that a trace gas will cause all sorts of havoc if we don't sacrifice to the AGW gods is now morally equivalent to genocide in the mind of Hanson (and some others). Someone please tell me that "Dr." Hanson will be back on his meds soon. If not, please tell me that he will be relieved of his duties at NASA before the Bush administration leaves office next January (it should happen TODAY).

Well, Cable (I mean, "nameless"), that is all the energy I have on the subject for now. Perhaps, I will get to write on this again before the United Nations-Tribunal for Deniers of the Significance of Anthropogenic Global Warming (UN-TDSAGW*) assembles in Salem. If not, writing MPU has been a fun ride.

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*Perhaps this acronym will become as common and recognizable as UNICEF, but I sincerely hope not.