Filed under: Energy, Environment, Junk Science | Tags: Correcting Wikipedia, Restraining a Propagandist, Spinning Green
Wikipedia is the most widely used reference source on the internet, and therefore in the world. In theory, Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopedia” written and edited by the people who read it. So on particularly controversial subjects, one might expect a broad range of opinion.
But not on the subject of global warming. On global warming, for years, we have consensus — Al Gore style consensus — created by censorship, intimidation and deceit. But the leading global warming propagandist has now been slapped down.
William Connolley, a man you have probably never heard of, has been the world’s most influential global warming alarmist after Al Gore, He was influential, not through his research or the force of his arguments, but simply through his administrative position at Wikipedia. Lawrence Solomon, author of the bestselling The Deniers, and important Canadian writer on matters environmental, has long written about the problems at Wikipedia, and it is with some satisfaction that he announces the verdict on Connolley:
His career as a global warming propagandist has now been stopped, following a unanimous verdict that came down today through an arbitration proceeding conducted by Wikipedia. In the decision, a slap-down for the once-powerful Connolley by his peers, he has been barred from participating in any article, discussion or forum dealing with global warming. In addition, because he rewrote biographies of scientists and other he disagreed with, to either belittle their accomplishments or make them appear to be frauds, Wikipedia barred him — again unanimously — from editing biographies of those in the climate change field.
Connolley routinely used his editorial clout to discredit scientists of great accomplishment, by smearing their work and their achievements, such as Fred Singer, the first director of the U.S. National Weather Satellite Service and recipient of many honors, who in Wikipedia’s pages under Connolley’s supervision became a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. Many important environmentalists have been similarly edited out of respectable dissent and demeaned by Connolley. Many scientists have attempted to correct information that appeared on Wikipedia only to have it vanish almost as fast as it was posted.
Wikipedia has ideological biases, and stands fairly firmly on the left, but the end of the work of this propagandist will make its articles a little more objective. It is sad when some attempt to win an argument by silencing and distorting the work of those with whom they disagree. Solomon explains in an earlier article for Energy Probe this history of Wikipedia and global warming.
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
American Elephants 
This could be a sacrificial lamb so they can say, “we aren’t biased, we got rid of this guy.”
LikeLike
Comment by fleeceme October 17, 2010 @ 2:25 pm