The Weinstein of Climate Science

In previous articles I (Dr. Duane Thresher) have hinted at sexual victimization in climate science. For example, in Bridenstine, Climate Scientists Are Not Noble, Stop Paying Them:

“But for now let’s just say a lot of men climate scientists who missed out on dating as graduate students and are determined to make up for it when they become senior scientists.”

And in Follow The Money II:

“Senior climate scientists prefer recruiting foreigners because they are more easily taken advantage of …”

Here we look at another field where men use their power to sexually victimize women. So let’s look at the Weinstein of climate science.

Climate science has the same system of powerful men who can get away with sexually victimizing women as Hollywood does: graduate student (and postdoc) advisors (senior scientists). As any scientist will tell you, advisors hold your career in their hands. Usually part of the bio of a scientist is who his or her advisor was.

There is an old grad student joke fable with rabbits, foxes, wolves, and lions about the importance of your advisor. It’s too long to tell here (this is one version) but the punch line is:

“The moral of the story: The title of your dissertation doesn’t matter. The subject doesn’t matter. The research doesn’t matter. All that matters is who your advisor is.”

I know of one climate scientist who has to be considered the equivalent of Weinstein.

I am not talking about a senior climate scientist who just hires a lot of women grad students and then ends up marrying one of them. The part of that that bothers me the most is taxpayer money being used to pay for grad student programs as a dating service, often resulting in the unqualified becoming climate scientists.

No, I am talking about a full-blown have-sex-or-else Weinstein senior climate scientist.

One of this Weinstein climate scientist’s graduate student/postdoc research groups was mostly women, the two men in them having gender-ambiguous names and having been taken sight unseen.

Knowledge of this Weinstein climate scientist’s sex crimes was widespread through at least two climate research institutions. I talked with at least three of his victims, as well as others less directly involved.

One of these women said that it was just well-known that a women should never, ever, under any circumstances, be alone with this Weinstein climate scientist.

One of these women said that this Weinstein climate scientist continued to demand sex even after he knew she was married and after she had strongly refused several times. I had a lot of respect for this woman. She was an intelligent climate scientist. She was a global warming skeptic too. We used to joke about how every article had to start with how it related to global warming — no matter how absurd — in order to get published, particularly in Science or Nature, the worst offenders for publication bias. (It’s not funny now, it’s tragic.)

But for the same reason she would not admit she was a global warming skeptic — fear for her career — she would not make a complaint against this Weinstein climate scientist.

She and I knew another of these women who actually made a complaint to one of the institutions against him. He seemed to suffer no real consequences and the woman had to continue to be in his group! To transfer she would have needed a recommendation from him.

Climate research and funding institutions, even those led by women, perhaps particularly those led by women, tolerate/accomodate this Weinstein climate scientist, like a bad priest.

For now I am not going to name this Weinstein climate scientist. Why not? Because as much as I think George Clooney, Quentin Tarantino, etc. are the scum of the earth (the closest they will ever get to earth science), they do have a point. If they had publically accused Weinstein of sexually victimizing women and none of these women then came forward, as they probably would not have, they would have been left holding the bag and been easily sued, as well as having their careers ruined.

For that same reason and because I have written a lot about them, I state clearly here that I am NOT talking about Gavin Schmidt or James Hansen. They have other offenses to answer for, like violations of the Federal Records Act and the Hatch Act.

For now all I will do is implore those women who have been sexually victimized by this Weinstein climate scientist — or any other for that matter — to make a public complaint against him. This is part of scientific integrity. If you won’t do this then it must be logically assumed you would lie about the climate science under the same pressure. Scientific consensus is meaningless under these conditions.

From No, I’m Not Sorry, Allison Wing:

“Just how long do you treat young scientists, particularly women, like overprotected children? That only produces scientists who can’t do anything hard, like not being part of the scientific consensus when you know the consensus is wrong or maintaining scientific integrity when those around you succeed because of the lack of it.”

(No, the Weinstein climate scientist is not Wing’s advisor Kerry Emanuel, although being the advisor of a “climate scientist” like Wing who would make a global warming/hurricane increase statement as stupid as that mentioned in Hurricane Harvey Proves Global Warming Increases Lifespans is condemnation enough.)

If the Weinstein climate scientist thinks I have in writing about him essentially identified him, go ahead and sue me. I would love to have some subpoena power behind my accusations. Conversely, if any of his victims come forward I would be more than willing to give corroborating testimony for them.

This is the part where crooked climate change warriors try to make me out to be Ben Affleck, guilty of what I am denouncing. However, as they themselves claim, I was an unsuccessful climate scientist and so never in a position of power. When I met my climate scientist wife (Dr. Claudia Kubatzki) at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, neither of us were graduate students and we were at worst equal colleagues. Our relationship had the above in it only in that our mutual boss, Gerrit Lohmann, was a climate research group leader and advisor abusing his power to victimize people (not sexually to my knowledge but in other equally-destructive ways). Moreover, if you make any false accusations against me, I will sue you and your employer and …

Read more at columbia-phd.org

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