My pal Steven Hayward (of the American Enterprise Institute) has a funny—and telling—blog entry over at The Corner. Apparently Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois, one of the big global warming scientists, is mad at a NY Times reporter for reporting that Copenhagen prostitutes were going to offer their services for free to attendees of the coming confab. Schlesinger bristled based upon, I think, the presumption that MSM reporters are in the tank—which is a good assumption most of the time, and then threated to cut off information. From Hayward’s post, starting with the email in question (which did not come from hacking, all emphasis is Hayward’s, and ending with part of his commentary):
Andy:Copenhagen prostitutes? Climate prostitutes? Shame on you for this gutter reportage. [Emphasis added.] This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes. The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists. Of course, your blog is your blog. But, I sense that you are about to experience the ‘Big Cutoff’ from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included. [Emphasis added.] Copenhagen prostitutes? Unbelievable and unacceptable. What are you doing and why? MichaelSo what so annoyed Schlesinger? Here’s Revkin’s offending blog post, which among other things passes along the amusing story of Copenhagen prostitutes offering free sex to climate campaigners...along with some other news items that the climate campaigners don’t want reported. Judge for yourself if this constitutes “gutter reportage” and deserves censure from the climate science community. I’ll add that one of the CRU e-mails I read mentioned that Revkin is not always reliable from their point of view; I can’t now find it, but recall it vividly for the presumption that reporters are supposed to serve as mere transcribers for the climate campaign.
This raises another small but perhaps significant point that I didn’t have room to comment on in my Weekly Standard article [about Climategate]: How is it possible for a group of smart people to write over 1,000 e-mails over the course of a decade without a single shred of wit or humor in any of them? There isn’t the tiniest hint anywhere that any of these guys ever grin. It jives with my experience of environmentalists for 20 years now that they are the single most humorless slice of humanity on the planet.
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