Climate Scientist Allegedly Threatens New York Times Reporter with the 'Big Cutoff'

Allegedly, Michael Schlesinger of the University of Illinois recently e-mailed the following message to New York Times science reporter Andy Revkin:

Andy:
Copenhagen prostitutes?
Climate prostitutes?
Shame on you for this gutter reportage.
This is the second time this week I have written you thereon, the first about giving space in your blog to the Pielkes.
The vibe that I am getting from here, there and everywhere is that your reportage is very worrisome to most climate scientists.
Of course, your blog is your blog.
But, I sense that you are about to experience the 'Big Cutoff' from those of us who believe we can no longer trust you, me included.
Copenhagen prostitutes?
Unbelievable and unacceptable.
What are you doing and why?
Michael

This, of course, is bizarre on several levels – the Copenhagen prostitute story is simply a silly story about Copenhagen politics that should not have worried Schlesinger or any serious scientist.

More importantly, this is apparently the second time in one week that Schlesinger tried to tell Mr. Revkin how to do his job as a reporter.

But, the most significant point is the threat to punish Revkin with the “Big Cutoff,” presumably denying him access to “superstars” like Mike Schlesinger.

Except… Mike Schlesinger is no superstar – I’d never even heard of him before this incident (although he does indeed seem to be senior faculty at U. of Illinois).

Being cut off from access to Mike Schlesinger is not exactly a catastrophe for the New York Times!

I’m sorely tempted to believe that this is just some bizarre practical joke… except that it fits in with this leaked e-mail from the CRU Team (note the “p.s.”):

At 17:07 27/10/2009, Michael Mann wrote:

Hi Phil,
Thanks--we know that. The point is simply that if we want to talk about about a meaningful "2009" anomaly, every additional month that is available from which to calculate an annual mean makes the number more credible. We already have this for GISTEMP, but have been awaiting HadCRU tobe able to do a more decisive update of the status of the disingenuous "globe is cooling" contrarian talking point,
mike
p.s. be a bit careful about what information you send to Andy and what emails you copy him in on. He's not as predictable as we'd like [emphasis added]

In fact, Revkin has not been noticeably hostile to the climate fraud folks. Note the complaint: he’s “not as predictable as we'd like.” Exactly what level of predictability did they expect from Mr. Revkin?

I'd planned on writing a post here about the serious issues of scientific method involved in the global-climate fraud and the need to discuss these issues with our kids: the fundamental problem with the global-climate modeling is that real science makes predictions that the scientists accept as make-or-break tests of their models. The global-science-modelers, on the contrary, treat failed predictions as simply an excuse for further tweaking of their models, not as proof that their science is simply and provably wrong.

They are not real scientists.

However, rather than going into the needed details on that issue, I felt compelled to address this current, truly bizarre behavior from Professor Mike Schlesinger.

Mike, let me give you some advice: it is not cool to threaten a reporter from The New York Times with the "Big Cutoff" in an e-mail since, given the current situation, that e-mail is likely to be published all across the Web.

Mike, you're nearly sixty-seven years old. Maybe, it is time to step aside in favor of a younger person who has some understanding of how the modern world works: you know, modern things like e-mail, the Web, The New York Times?

You're only making this whole scandal worse, much, much worse.

And, someone, please tell me that this is really some weird prank, and that senior faculty at the University of Illinois, once one of the country's great public universities, are not really this stupid!

Note added: A few minutes before posting this, I watched Anderson Cooper on CNN discuss the scandal. Representing the climate establishment was Bill Nye the Science Guy! Nye is not a scientist -- he has a Bachelor's in engineering and has been a successful children's entertainer, a younger version of "PeeWee Herman." Nye made a fool of himself. Was CNN really unable to find an actual Ph.D. scientist to represent the climate establishment? The critic of the climate establishment was Pat Michaels, a serious scientist whose book I recommended in a previous post. Perhaps by choosing Nye to represent the establishment view, CNN is trying to send the subtle message that the climate-alarmist view should only be taken seriously by children. The whole story just gets weirder and weirder -- Bonfire of the Vanities meets Waiting for Godot.

(For my earlier comments on Climategate, see here, here and here. Here are my comments a couple months before Climategate became public, in which I pointed out that those of us who are scientifically competent had known for some time that there was something seriously rotten within the media-governmental-scientific global-warming establishment.)