Het voorval doet denken aan heksenjacht in voorbije, minder verlichte tijden. Johnny Ball de bekende Britse TV-presentator van wetenschapsprogramma's, die zich kritisch uitliet over de klimaatverandering, is slachtoffer geworden van een campagne van extreme milieuactivisten om zijn naam te bezoedelen.
In de Britse 'Telegraph' schrijft Brendan O'Neill daarover:
Some environmentalists will not tolerate dissent
The fate that has befallen Johnny Ball confirms that there is no greater heresy today than to doubt climate change. Once a demigod amongst thirtysomethings, who remember having their eyes opened to the wonders of science and numbers by this excitable boffin of 1980s TV, Ball is now treated as a sad and pathetic and possibly demented old man. Why? Because he doesnt buy into climate change orthodoxy. He doesnt think the world will come to an end anytime soon as a consequence of humankinds penchant for driving cars and holidaying in Magaluf. He dares to slate the alarmism of the apocalypse-hungry Green movement. All of which means that his presence, never mind his allegedly evil words, can no longer be tolerated in polite society.
Ball says his career is being wrecked by environmentalists. He says the number of invitations he receives to speak at science festivals and the like has plummeted by 90 per cent over the past two years, as extreme greens have publicly ridiculed his views and even set up websites featuring him in photoshopped porno images. And it isnt only misanthropic extremists, for whom tolerance and open debate are utterly alien concepts, who have declared jihad against Johnny so too has the supposedly liberal, open-minded, pro-science, atheistic wing of the chattering classes. In 2009 Ball was booed off stage and subjected to chants of shame, shame, shame at a rationalist comedy shindig in London after he said spiders farts are a greater cause of climate change than mankinds carbon emissions.
Ik schreef het al eerder, de klimaathysterie maakt meer kapot dan je lief is.
Who would seriously quibble with his critique of the idea that in 39 or 40 years time earth will no longer be able to sustain human life, and his concern that teaching such guff in schools is frightening schoolchildren to an alarming degree? After all, a recent study did find that more and more schoolkids are having sleepless nights panicking about carbon-induced doom in the same way my generation wasted hours of our youths fretting about a nuclear holocaust that would leave behind only cockroaches.
Lees verder hier.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100076870/the-persecution-of-johnny-ball-and-how-gross-intolerance-is-crushing-free-debate-on-climate-change/
Afgezien van een enkele internet-stalker, die bij DDS in de spam is gezet, moet ik toch bekennen dat mijn eigen ervaring in Nederland toch een stuk gunstiger is. Zo heeft de milieubeweging mij verschillende keren als spreker uitgenodigd op hun bijeenkomsten. Ik bewaar een goede herinnering aan de aardige mensen die ik daar heb ontmoet en de serieuze discussies die ik daar heb gehad. Kortom, ere wie ere toekomt.