Michael E. Mann the 46 year old US physicist and climatologist director of the Earth System Science Centre has discussed with Suzanne Goldenberg the vast conspiracy by the fossil fuel industry to harass scientists and befuddle the public. “They see scientists like me who are trying to communicate the potential dangers of continued fossil fuel burning to the public as a threat. That means we are subject to attacks, some of them quite personal, some of them dishonest… It is now part of the job description if you are going to be a scientist working in a socially relevant area like human-caused climate change… Literally a day doesn’t go by where I don’t have to deal with some of the nastiness that comes out of a campaign that tries to discredit me, and thereby in the view of our detractors to discredit the entire science of climate change… It took the scientific community some time I think to realize that the scientific community is in a street fight with climate change deniers and they are not playing by the rules of engagement of science. The scientific community needed some time to wake up to that…Those of us who have had to go through this are battle-hardened and hopefully the better for it, I think you are now going to see the scientific community almost uniformly fighting back against this assault on science. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future but I do know that my fellow scientists and I are very ready to engage in this battle.”

 

Inspired by Suzanne Goldenberg http://ow.ly/9v7RH image source Greg Grieco http://ow.ly/9v7Fg