Monday, January 30, 2017

Suzanne Young would like you to shut up

Especially if you don't agree with her on global warming, I mean global cooling, I mean climate disruption, wait a second I'll get it . . . climate change.

Told you I was going to start calling people out by name.

Ms. Young got her letter to the editor published in this Sunday's editorial section of the Tampa Bay Times. She got the preferential highlighted posting in the section. She opens her letter thusly (emphasis mine):
"Climate change is a real threat. It is not a theory, it is not up for debate, it is not an issue that needs further discussion.
Got all that? The science is settled according to Ms. Young so shut the f*ck up and do what she wants.

Apparently Ms. Young works as USF in some capacity, I know not what, but she has written a letter and was able to get one hundred (exactly 100, how about that . . . you never hear of anyone getting 99 or 101 signatures on a letter) of her colleagues to sign on asking the college to make a statement in support of students and employees (why is she using that word instead of faculty?) to study climate change.

Apparently she has received no response.

Ms. Young was spurred to write the Times because Rick Perry and Scott Pruitt both made statements that about the lack of a so-called crisis with the climate. And also because President Trump ordered the EPA and other government agencies to stop issuing tweets and such about climate change and put a hold on research grants. A procedure so benign that members of the EPA weren't upset about it, saying it was business as usual with an incoming administration. But Ms. Young wouldn't know that, she only saw the headline at the Daily Beast or a hashtag trending on twitter and had a meltdown.

In her letter she worries about the "...propagation of misinformation" on climate change. On that we both agree. Problem is, the misinformation comes from climate scientologists like Ms. Young.

Twenty years of steadily increasing planetary CO2 levels and we have a global temperature flat line -- no increase. No increase in the number or severity of storms, floods, tornadoes or any extreme weather event. The arctic is not devoid of ice as Al Gore so famously predicted. Polar Bears and penguins are not extinct. Manhattan and Miami are not under water from rising ocean levels. In fact, ocean levels are rising at the same rate they've been rising at for the last century.

Climate change might be a real threat if it were occurring to some extraordinary extent. It isn't. The climate of this planet has always changed. There is no evidence that anything man is doing is causing that change. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

The only people who are being silenced on this subject are those who point to actual proof and data that show that hysterics like Ms. Young are attempting to push a political agenda through under cover of a so-called climate crisis.

It's a pity that universities, once a place for diverse and challenging thought and study have devolved to the point of being group think echo chambers.

Sorry Ms. Young, this subject needs much more debate, much further discussion and you don't get to decide whose opinions matter.

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