Per Iain’s observation below about marginalizing critics as oil-industry shills, it seems a coincidence that this tactic is used by so many on the Left. In fact, it is no coincidence at all, but the product of a well-organized “training” campaign of academics, journalists, and activists by Gore’s The Climate Project. (Never mind the absurdity of the charge. By the money-buys-opinion standard, all news folk are auto-industry stooges, since 70 percent of newspaper revenue comes from car-dealer ads.)
In fact, the Goracle himself has personally trained hundreds of climate missionaries to spread the gospel. For example, in my backyard, Michigan State University School of Journalism Professor Bonnie Bucqueroux was personally trained by Gore in Nashville last spring. The training includes how to give his Inconvenient Truth slide show on global warming.
As a self-proclained “ambassa-Gore to middle America,” Bucqueroux told Lansing’s City Pulse that she’s determined to indoctrinate her students, including a semester-long freshman seminar on Gore’s slide show at MSU.
“You have to be honest enough to talk about how real the threat is, and in some ways to scare the hell out of people,” the journalism professor told the paper.
In fact, academia is crawling with disciples in Gore’s climate crusade. While listed by the UN’s IPCC climate panel as “scientists,” many are in fact movement greenies, trained by Gore and carrying his bible.
At another major state university — U-Michigan — the top two climate “scientists” are Gore acolytes. Rosina Bierbaum was Veep Gore’s chief environmental advisor in the White House and is now dean of U-M’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. She has led four U.S. delegations to the IPCC.
And Prof. Henry Pollack, U-M professor of geological sciences, is a Gore propaganda trainer — of missionaries just like Bucqueroux. Incredibly, this scientist was also a contributing author on the IPCC reports.
In other words, many “consensus” experts look more like members of a club – or graduates of a cult – upon closer inspection. This would be an interesting line of inquiry – if journalism itself wasn’t so deep in the Gore tank.