Were Climate Scientists Pressured to Sign Petition?

There’s an article posted on the Times Online, Top Scientists Rally to Defence of Met Office , ( gotta’ wonder about a headline where they can’t even spell defense ), explaining how 1,700 scientists jumped on the bandwagon to support the “consensus” known as global warming science.

““One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. “The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing and working with those who subscribe to their views on man-made global warming,” he said.”

“Professor Slingo (Met’s chief scientist) denied that the Met Office had put anyone under pressure. “The response has been absolutely spontaneous. As a scientist you sign things you agree with, not because you are worried about what the Met Office might think of you,” she said.”

You could go read the rest of the article; but those two paragraphs sum up how things work in the real world; the folks who write and sign your pay check have considerable influence on how you speak out in public.

Quite some time back when working as a police officer I was handed a petition to sign. It was the end of my shift and back near where officers turned in their hand held radios, far from the supervisor’s offices. The petition was aimed at getting one of our supervisors listed as “Supervisor of the Year”; a half hearted attempt to save this same supervisor from some rather awkward complaints which had recently cropped up.

Without going into details, something which would be unfair to all involved, let me just say that I started laughing at the thought, handing back their clip board without signing, “You’re joking right? This is the same guy who…”, like I said, no details, no names; protecting the guilty as well as the innocent was part of the old black and white cop show, “My names Friday, my partner and I work in the city…”

I should also explain as I broke out in laughter, an honest gut reaction to such a ridiculous ploy to save the butt of a worthless excuse of a supervisor, having handed the petition back without my signature; you guessed it, that very same supervisor had been standing around the corner taking note of who signed and who didn’t. You could say that it was “awkward”; but that would be too kind; I still had to work a couple of years to complete the requirements for retirement.

Getting back to the global warming petition which the Met generated and asked its employees to sign; if you believe there was no pressure on those scientists to sign, to keep their jobs; I’ll let you bid on some ocean front property up for sale in West Texas. The fellow who signed the Magna Charta , ole' what's his name, wasn’t under pressure either; he just wanted to make the little people happy that day, what a crock!