Two years ago I was invited to speak to the Senior Alumni at my host institution, the University of Western Ontario. I spoke on the issue of Global Warming and Other Eco Myths and my talk was enthusiastically received by the audience. It was also extensively, and accurately, covered by the campus newspaper, which made my talk its lead story for its next edition.
Well this is where things got interesting. Another person in my department, heavily involved in the IPCC process, by the name of Gordon McBean, took it upon himself to circulate a petition condemning both my right to speak and castigating the Western News for (a) covering my talk at all, and (b) not editing their coverage with a “corrective” message reciting approved AGW dogma.
I responded to this attempt to suppress my academic freedom with a rebuttal piece which I simultaneously published here on ecomyths.
Fast forward to Fall 2009, and the leaked Climategate emails confirm that such intimidation tactics, expertise politics and bullying were characteristic of a cadre of leading figures within the IPCC sphere. In my own small way, I felt somewhat vindicated and recognized that McBean was my own version of a warmist zealot unable to suppress their zeal for climate conformity with any comprehension of academic good conduct.
So, why this post, why revisit old wounds? Well ahead of my planned talk November 16 to those same Senior Alumni, McBean has not even waited for me to talk, not even bothered to see for himself the text of my presentation but has been “proactive” and took it upon himself to contact the organizers and suggest that my invitation to speak is improper and should be withdrawn.
So now I am elevated into that category of speaker on topics climatic to have their invitation withdrawn. Except that I am not. My invite comes from the Senior Alumni of the University of Western Ontario who do not cower before bullies, are not intimidated by blowhard windbags and do not fear people who indulge in cowardly politics.
And now for the rest of the story, (as Paul Harvey used to intone so memorably) ...what McBean did not know was that when I was invited to speak, I initially declined knowing the Senior Alumni had garnered a degree of controversy from my last talk, at which time I was informed that yes indeed the organizers were fully aware of this and that was an additional reason why their membership most expressly wanted to invite me back: they liked my talk, they liked the views I expressed, wanted to hear more and if that upset the likes of McBean, well that would be just an extra bonus along the way!
I hope you too enjoy the presentation, which is now posted along side my other PowerPoint, here at ecomyths where the truth is our friend and not a political toy for intellectual toddlers.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong. Voltaire
Apologies to anyone trying to download the presentation, I made some changes to correct some typos and did not copy the correct file from mediafire: all is now fixed.
