We Are All Nobel Laureates Now--Dumbing Down the Nobel Prize

Steven Running is a University of Montana Forestry professor, who was one of the many authors of a recent IPCC climate report. Running's association with the IPCC as a "co-author" of this report made Running a "co-recipient" of Al Gore's 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Interesting, perhaps, but what is truly fascinating is what Professor Running is doing with his miniscule chunk of the prize--he is leveraging his "distinguished Nobel status" into a local public speaking guruship. Behold, the distinguished Nobelist, coming to our hometown--just imagine!

But some Montanans are apparently better informed than the typical easily impressed Missoulan. Some Montanans actually expect a scientist to have EARNED his Nobel prize.

...when some residents complained that his presentation here would be one-sided because no opposing view would be offered, the superintendent of Choteau School District No. 1, Kevin St. John, canceled it....Mr. St. John said that numerous residents had complained to school board members and that they in turn had suggested that the program be called off. NYT

The forestry professor models his talk rather pretentiously, after Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's "Five Stages of Grief" to dying. Except in the professor's talk, it is the "Five Stages of Grief" to climate change. Clever? Not so much. In fact, Running's public lecture is apparently a miniaturized version of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" slideshow.

Last spring, University of Montana ecologist and forestry professor Steve Running presented an abbreviated version of his increasingly popular lecture, “The Inconvenient Truth for Montana,” to a room full of environmental journalists.

Near the end of his keynote, Running outlined what he called his “Five Stages of Climate Grief.” Running’s adaptation of Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ groundbreaking “Five Stages of Grief” starts with stage one: denial that global warming exists.

Missoula Independent

Reading the NY Times account would lead the typical member of the public to assume that the Montanans who demanded a balancing viewpoint to Running's "catastrophic climate change cant" are typical flat earthers, science deniers. But in truth, it requires far more scientific sophistication to understand how the lock-step climate change industry is slanting the data, than it does to go along with the flock--the flock that swallows the mainstream media sensationalism and catastrophism.

It is a shame that the public concept of "Nobel laureate" has to be dumbed down by quasi-impostors such as Running. It is a huge shame that the NYTimes and most of the rest of the mainstream media abets in that process.
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