Michael T. Eckhart: Environmentalist Threatens Global Warming Skeptic

Via the Washington Times Inside the Beltway.

Michael T. Eckhart is president of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE). As such, he ought to be a fairly responsible person. When when faced with a highly reputable scientist who disagreed with him about “global warming,” he turned into a thug.

He sent a threatening e-mail to Marlo Lewis. Lewis is a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who wrote an article for the American Spectator skeptical of some bills now before Congress.

Eckhart wrote:

“Marlo, you are so full of crap. . . . You have been proven wrong. The entire world has proven you wrong. You are the last guy on Earth to get it.

“Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.”

When one side in a debate is reduced to intimidation, it becomes pretty obvious that they doubt their ability to win in the marketplace of ideas.

We think it is relevant here that liberals have a strong tendency to be secular, and that scientists among liberals have an even stronger tendency to reject religion.

But if one decides that there is no God, the craving for personal righteousness does not go away.

The desire to see ideas that are Good and True expressed, and conversely to silence what one considers evil heresy does not disappear.

Thus it is no surprise to find, among environmentalists, the sort of fanaticism that has marked religion at its worst. Admittedly, a lot of environmentalists (like most religious believers) are benign enough people. But a hard core of the ultra-orthodox exists, and is willing to war against the heretics.

Marlo Lewis, welcome to the new Inquisition.