CLIMATE SCIENCE? – AT 11:06 A.M. ET:  I must tell you that I've noticed a growing backlash against political correctness recently.  The steps may only be tentative, they may fade away as the thug left reorganizes, as it always does.  But there may also be a "fed up" point that is being reached. 

We note that, even in the "climate change" community there is now discussion of intimidation, of academic threats.  From Spiegel of Germany: 

After joining a controversial lobby group critical of climate change, meteorologist Lennart Bengtsson claims he was shunned by colleagues, leading him to quit. Some scientists complain pressure to conform to consensus opinion has become a serious hindrance in the field.

News that Lennart Bengtsson, the respected former director of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, had joined the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), sent shockwaves through the climate research community. GWPF is most notable for its skepticism about climate change and its efforts to undermine the position of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The tremors his decision sent through the scientific community shocked Bengtsson.

The scientist said colleagues placed so much pressure on him after joining GWPF that he withdrew from the group out of fear for his own health. Bengtsson added that his treatment had been reminiscent of the persecution of suspected Communists in the United States during the era of McCarthyism in the 1950s.

COMMENT:  Most "McCarthyism" today comes from the left, and especially from the leftist establishment in the academic world.  We recently saw the McCarthyist thugs successfully intimidate commencement speakers and those who invited them. 

But maybe people are starting to notice.  At Haverford College in Pennsylvania, one of the most liberal schools in the country, a commencement speaker was shouted away, but his replacement came and denounced the students and faculty who'd committed the thuggery.  He got a standing ovation from graduates.  When I see that I think change may be coming.

Change often is generational.  The sixties generation of radicals is fading on college campuses, and it's been reported that the new generation is, while not in any way conservative, far less radical.  I hope so.  I have to see more proof.  Democracies move slowly, but, when they move, they move decisively.  Right now the left is fighting more viciously than ever, possibly a sign of desperation.  Let us hope.

May 24,  2014