Global Warming Thought Crimes and Double Standards

NASA’s James Hansen, Al Gore’s shrill advisor, is advocating the prosecution of people in the energy industry who disagree with him about the scope, cause, or existence of global warming.  He says they should be “should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”  It would be much less silly for him to advocate the prosecution of Al Gore, whose support for ethanol subsidies has caused environmental devastation, hunger, and food riots across the world (fueling Islamic extremism in the process).

It’s odd that Hansen’s threats are drawing so little criticism, given his evident desire to silence people who disagree with him.  Maybe there is an ideological double standard.  Liberal activists subjected to far less have been allowed to bring First Amendment lawsuits.  For example, in Little v. City of North Miami, 805 F.2d 962 (11th Cir. 1987), a federal appeals court allowed a liberal law professor to sue a city merely for passing a censure resolution against him for bringing environmental lawsuits against it.