I am all for including climate change in school curriculum. However, I think that students should be given some perspective on how information on this and many other political issues can be spun and manipulated to serve political, economic, or other goals.
I remember in my younger years that we were so very concerned about global cooling so I looked up in Wikipedia to refresh my memory on what that was all about. I was surprised to read in Wikipedia that global cooling worries were simply a result of a series of mistakes by press and other unscientific sources that led to the global cooling theory.
In other words there was really no science behind the theory. Then I dug a little deeper and found that a certain William M. Connolly edits climate change related information on Wikipedia and influences other sources of public information on this subject. I pasted some information about Connolley below. Makes one wonder if we are hearing only one side of scientific argument..... I wonder if my post will be mysteriously deleted.
William M. Connolley is a British
Wikipedia editor known for his fanaticism in promoting the theory of anthropogenic
global warming (AGW) and in censoring the views of critics and skeptics. He is the ringleader of the infamous
global warming cabal at Wikipedia, a powerful pro-AGW group that has an iron grip on global warming-related articles. Any editors that attempt to introduce factual information that is against their point of view are ceaselessly harassed until they are forced to quit or are banned. Connolley--a Wikipedia editor since 2003--and the group enjoy tacit support from the Wikipedia hierarchy, who often turn a blind eye to the group's misdeeds.
Lawrence Solomon said that "Next to
Al Gore, William Connolley may be the world's most influential person in the global warming debate".
[1] Born on 12 April 1964, Connolley previously worked as a climate modeller and lives in Coton, Cambridgeshire
[2] with his wife and children.
Connolley is well known for slandering
global warming skeptics--whom he calls "septics"--on Wikipedia, frequently introducing inaccurate or biased information in their articles. His position on Wikipedia allows him to "tear down scientists of great accomplishment".
[3] For example, "Under Connolley's supervision,
[Fred] Singer is relentlessly smeared, and has been for years, as a kook who believes in Martians and a hack in the pay of the oil industry. When a smear is inadequate, or when a fair-minded Wikipedian tries to correct a smear, Connolley and his cohorts are there to widen the smear or remove the correction, often rebuking the Wikipedian in the process".
[4] Because of his violations of the policy regarding living people, Connolley has since been banned from editing the Fred Singer article.
[5] In contrast to his attitudes towards skeptics, Connolley frequently removes damaging information in the articles of supporters of the AGW theory; for example, he removed all mention of the
Climategate scandal from the article of
Michael Mann, a friend and fellow proponent of the GW theory.
[6][7]
Connolley's editing on Wikipedia is widely acknowledged to be a conflict of interest
[8] given his involvement in real life in many of the articles he is editing.
[9] For example, he added information criticising on a book by Christopher Booker that was itself critical of Connolley.
[10] When an editor contacted him to ask why, Connolley did not reply and simply deleted the question from his userpage.
[11][12] Connolley is known to censor facts regarding the
Medieval warm period.
[13] Due to his prolific editing and his role in propogating the "scientific consensus", many believe Connolley receives funding for his editing, i.e., he is a paid editor.
[14]
Connolley was formerly an administrator but was desysopped in September 2009 when Wikipedia's Arbitration Committee found that he had misused his administrator privileges to further his point of view in a content dispute.
[15] In one dispute, he reverted to his preferred version of an article whilst the article was protected, stating "Lets wind everyone up".
[16] Connolley became an admin on 14 January 2006 until his rights were revoked.
[17] He is currently involved in an arbitration case relating to climate change, in which many editors brought to light Connolley's long history of misdeeds.
[18][19] However, he is unlikely to receive a topic ban on global warming articles, a sanction that many editors have long sought, due to his favorable standing amongst the Wikipedia hierarchy. Connolley's current sanctions are that: he provide an explanation for any revert he does on a global warming-related article on the talk page of that article; he is prohibited from making any edits to the Fred Singer article or its talk page until 26 August 2010;
[20] he is prohibited from interacting with the editor Abd in any way.
Information from
William M. Connolley - Conservapedia
