Upstream | January 11, 2012 | 18 comments

Canadian climate scientist finds fame, hate mail in the U.S.

source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadian-climate-scientist-finds-fame-hate-mail-in...

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JanforGore
She once was a science-minded undergrad who spent her nights minding the telescopes on the top floors of the University of Toronto’s McLennan building.

Katharine Hayhoe is now a figure of some fame and controversy in the United States, for her sin is that she is an evangelical Christian who is also a climate scientist trying to convince skeptics that climate change is for real.

Dr. Hayhoe made headlines after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich came under pressure and dropped plans to have her write an opening chapter on climate change for his upcoming book.

Now, her teaching duties at Texas Tech University have resumed and the sting from the Gingrich snub is fading. But the hate mail is still pouring in, dozens of insulting e-mails every morning.

“It’d be a lot easier to stay home. It’s not easy having people standing up and screaming at you. It’s not easy opening your mail in the morning and seeing a hundred e-mails, each one more hateful than the last,” Dr. Hayhoe said Monday, in her first interview with a Canadian news outlet.

“That’s not easy. And it’s not the science that motivates me. It’s what comes from the heart.”

That introduction to the sharp-elbowed world of politics was the latest blow for the 39-year-old, who already had a taste of hostile audiences from public speaking at Christian schools, seniors homes, farmers’ group and book clubs.

She was prepared to deal with emotional, unfriendly reactions. But she wasn’t expecting what came with the name recognition, she said.

“There’s a well-organized campaign, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, including Canada and Australia, of bloggers, of people in the media, of basically professional climate deniers whose main goal is to abuse, to harass and to threaten anybody who stands up and says climate change is real – especially anybody who’s trying to take that message to audiences that are more traditionally skeptical of this issue.”

It was even more shocking because she didn’t see herself as a “Godless, tree-hugging activist” but a scientist who also happened to be a member of an evangelical Bible church. She is also married to a pastor.

“The attacks’ virulence, the hatred and the nastiness of the text have escalated exponentially. I’ve gotten so many hate mail in the last few weeks I can’t even count them.”

snip


Dr. Hayhoe says she had never met people who didn’t believe in climate change until she moved to the U.S. and began her public work.

Because she framed her concerns with optimism rather than doom, she was approached four years ago by Terry Maple, who was co-editing Mr. Gingrich’s book, to pen an opening chapter.

Mr. Gingrich, however, has struggled with some core Republicans who accuse him of harbouring environmental sympathies.

And thus, in mid-December, Marc Morano, a conservative activist, derided the planned book co-operation with Dr. Hayhoe, saying that it proved Mr. Gingrich was a “committed greenie” and a “warmist.”

Mr. Morano is a former Fox News contributor and his item was picked up by radio host Rush Limbaugh.

On Dec. 28, Mr. Gingrich was approached by a female supporter at an Iowa campaign stop. A video posted by the weekly The National Journal shows the woman telling Mr. Gingrich she wanted to talk about “Rush” and the global-warming book chapter.

Mr. Gingrich stopped her in mid-sentence. “It’s not going to be in the book. We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it.”

“Good, that’s all I needed to know,” the woman said.

Afterward, Mr. Gingrich signalled to an aide. “Remind me when we’re back in the bus: ‘Rush’ and ‘global warming’,” he told the aide.

Dr. Hayhoe’s learned of the decision from the media.

“Nice to hear that Gingrich is tossing my #climate chapter in the trash. 100+ unpaid hrs I [could have] spent playing w my baby,” she wrote on Twitter.

She says that she now feels no grudge against Mr. Gingrich and that the incident is just proof of the acute polarization that has affected what should be a scientific debate.

“Attacking me and my colleagues and trying to intimidate us and trying to smear us is not going to change the facts of the situation.”

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18 comments // Canadian climate scientist finds fame, hate mail in the U.S.

  • jubal
    • 0
      jubal  

    • Why can't we just rid the world once and for all of religious fundamentalism....we need a Jihad against religion. If only aliens could come and use their energy weapons to destroy all the active religious sites in the world at one time, then whisk them away so they can be "caught up in the heavans" where they can finally meet their makers. The world would be better for this.

    • 5 months ago
  • CaduceusVino
    • 0
      CaduceusVino  

    • AHHH!! Someone believes something different than me! I'm going to let that make me angry even though it is ridiculous to let another person's beliefs affect my attitude! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE

    • 5 months ago
  • PeteLeS33
    • 0
      PeteLeS33  

    • I think Dr. Hayhoe is learning the hard way that you cannot be a woman of fact and fiction at the same time. The evidence of her research is pointing to the reality of climate change, but her evangical superstition is telling her that her skydaddy will make everything better. Cant have it both ways Dr.

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • PeteLeS33:

      How do you know how her faith is served? Why should religion or politics be a litmus test for caring about the planet? I have no problem with that as she seems to not be like the RW wackos shoving it down our throats. Isn't it intolerant to hate on all people who have faith just based on that? I have faith, so would that disqualify me from being a scientist? No. There is no excuse for what is being done to her.

    • 5 months ago
  • PeteLeS33
    • 0
      PeteLeS33  
    • JanforGore:

      Jan, Jan, Jan, sorry for the late post but religion should be a litmus test. A persons superstitions should be a factor in that persons judgment.When the rediculous happpens to you then and only THEN can you judge. I am a nurse by trade and I cannot tell you how many positions I was denied because I didn't believe in the skydaddy. Either the Dr. needs to grow up or embrace her superstition.

    • 5 months ago
  • rerushg
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  

    • “There’s a well-organized campaign, primarily in the United States but also in other countries, including Canada and Australia, of bloggers, of people in the media, of basically professional climate deniers whose main goal is to abuse, to harass and to threaten anybody who stands up and says climate change is real – especially anybody who’s trying to take that message to audiences that are more traditionally skeptical of this issue.”

      Ain't that the truth.

    • 5 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • -1
      coolplanet  
    • JanforGore:

      She must be a member of that fundamentalist Green Brigade.....
      The deniers are really panicking now that they've been totally disproven on so many levels!
      The Kock Brothers are in a tizzy over how to spend their billions at this point.

    • 5 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • Image
    • coolplanet:

      http://current.com/shows/upstream/93599464_100-unpaid-hours-i-could-ve-spent-pla...

      Newt Gingrich Kills Climate Science Chapter To Appease Limbaugh Listeners

      With the Iowa caucus looming, Newt Gingrich told a Rush Limbaugh listener he has killed a chapter by a conservative climate scientist that recognizes the reality of global warming. The book, being edited by Gingrich’s Contract with the Earth co-author Terry Maple, was to have an essay by climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe. She was asked in 2007 by Maple to provide “a good opening chapter that lays out the facts on global climate change,” and submitted her chapter in 2009. After the Los Angeles Times broke the story that Gingrich had a climate science book on tap, Limbaugh skewered Gingrich and the “babe named Hayhoe.”

      Confronted by a Limbaugh listener, Gingrich blamed an anonymous third party for requesting the chapter, and said “we told them to kill it,” CBS News reports:

      “The climate-change issue arose Thursday night at a Gingrich campaign stop in Carroll, when a woman expressed concern to Gingrich about the chapter. She said she had heard about it on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program. As she began to tell Gingrich who the author of the piece would be, Gingrich interrupted. “That’s not going to be in the book,” he told her. “We didn’t know that they were doing that and we told them to kill it.”

      “Good,” the climate denier responded. “That sounds a good idea because why would you want to have somebody like that in there?”

      Gingrich and his co-author Terry Maple never told Hayhoe — a professor at Texas Tech University, mother, and evangelical Christian — that her chapter would be junked. Hayhoe was dismayed by the “ungracious” way she found out that her work was being discarded.

      “Nice to hear that Gingrich is tossing my #climate chapter in the trash,” Hayhoe tweeted in response to the news. “100+ unpaid hours I could’ve spent playing w my baby.”

    • 5 months ago
  • rerushg
    • +1
      rerushg  
    • coolplanet:

      "We didn't know they were doing that and told them to kill it."

      Interesting that Gingrich would blatantly admit that he does not write his books. We expect ghosting for celebrity bio's, but not from folks claiming to be "historians" and "cultural thinkers".

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • coolplanet:

      Well they also know that peak oil is afoot and they will have no choice but to either change or be left in the dust. Circumstances will overtake their greed and they are shaking... so of course they try to discredit people like her and those who post on Internet groups, etc. It really is all about using Al Gore as the whipping boy too which shows it isn't about science really to them... just look at the garbage posted by certain people. You think my name here doesn't have anything to do with attacks and following around? I say_em. As Dr, Kayhoe stated: “Attacking me and my colleagues and trying to intimidate us and trying to smear us is not going to change the facts of the situation.”

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +2
      JanforGore  
    • rerushg:

      This just illustrates that Gingrich (who sat on a couch with Pelosi to do an ad for Al Gore's Climate Project a few years ago) and all of them know what this is and what this is bringing and willl bring. Yet they ignore it to put politics first. They are all accomplices in crimes against humanity. I really hope we get to a time when such behavior regarding this that kills people, species and our biodiversity will be considered criminal.

      It also illustrates why these candidates need to be hard hit on this in debates and talks by media, particularly outlets like CURRENT. I really find it hard to believe that the coverage of these debates and primaries by Current has been so milquetoast regarding climate change. If I were there you bet I'd be talking about it and making it known that they ALL know the truth about it but are deliberately ignoring it to put their own ambitions first... let them answer the charge and prove it wrong.

    • 5 months ago
  • rerushg
    • +1
      rerushg  
    • JanforGore:

      I find Gingrich to be very dangerous; the kind of man who would not be constrained by a political system, laws, Constitution, ......nothing. Messianic.
      As for climate, I think it was too easy to paint Gore's efforts as purely political, or dramatized for commercialism. Perhaps he's just tired of being the target. And for all he might be, Don Quixote he ain't.
      I think the real problem, though, is that Gore would have to push against official US policy, one of the few that isn't contested politically. It's one thing for a Dem to push with GOP in power. It's an obvious problem now with Dem POTUS.
      All we can do personally is manage our frustration. You're on the correct side of this issue. Mother Earth is always the correct side.

    • 5 months ago
  • jimstoner
    • 0
      jimstoner  
    • JanforGore:

      An article in the Christian Science Monitor, October 21, 2011 (Pete Spotts) states that"Climate study funded in part by conservative groups confirms climate change". It goes on to say "The rather irrational doubt, and claims of a hoax, simply don't make sense, and this work might help restart the discussion about what is next". Ironically enough, one of the groups funding this research was the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation. I would think the Koch brothers funded this study in the hopes it would disprove climate change. Alas it did exactly the opposite.

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • rerushg:

      "It's one thing for a Dem to push with GOP in power. It's an obvious problem now with Dem POTUS."

      And therein lies the problem. People are dying and we still have to worry about the politics of this. American politics far and away is so behind on this compared to most of the world. It is truly embarrassing. And Al Gore indeed has done his part and has also stated he feels he has failed. So in a way I can understand his not wanting to be the target anymore, but this is just so damned important. Again, a sad statement on this country as a whole.

    • 5 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • 0
      JanforGore  
    • JanforGore:

      Have to add here that on the Daily Caller I did find a video of Mr. Gore talking about climate change as a campaign issue during NH coverage here. WHY it wasn't posted on this site I don't know, since not all of us get Current. So thank you Mr. Gore for mentioning it.

    • 5 months ago
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