Threatening climate debate skeptics isway out of line

Climate alarmists have reached a new and troubling low. They’re calling for those who audaciously question the hardly “settled science” of global warming to be prosecuted as racketeers.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, suggests that the federal government treat climate skeptics as it did Big Tobacco — by filing civil litigation under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. And four gaggles of self-anointed leading climate squawkers signed a Sept. 1 letter to President Obama to that end.

But it’s “the global warming proponents who are guilty of the tobacco tactics,” says the Climate Depot website. The websites Gawker and Talking Points Memo urge that skeptics be jailed. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman accuses anti-cap-and-trade lawmakers of “treason against the planet.” And a 2007 Senate report documents threats against and intimidation of skeptics.

The efforts to silence debate are Orwellian and selfserving. Climate Depot says the lead signer of that Sept. 1 letter and his wife received $1.5 million in government grants from 2012 to 2014. With that kind of money at stake — and abundant evidence supporting skeptics — it’s no wonder that warming theologians demonize opponents.

After all, it’s a classic tactic of those who can’t defend an argument on its merits.

“The efforts to silence debate areOrwellian and selfserving.”