"To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing,
if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained?"
-- Chief Justice John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, 1803

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Harley tipped me to this yesterday.

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress - in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming - to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

In an interview with the Guardian he said: “When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that’s a crime.”

The thing about a religion is that the going to church and doing good works half pales in comparison to the fun of burning the heretics. In embracing the latter, Hansen has officially crossed the line from scientist to fanatic.  It’s only a matter of time before anyone who even differs from Hansen’s vision is also branded as a heretic.  The color coding will be:

Hansen and Co. == Catholic Church (medieval edition)

Oil companies == Satan

Republicans == Witches

Scientists Who Accept Global Warming But Deny Catastrophic Scenarios == Lutherans

Bjorn Lonborg == William Tyndale

and so on.