Canadian geneticist David Suzuki urged Western governments to lock up politicians who question man-made climate change.
Suzuki appeared on “Moyers and Company” earlier this month to express his abject frustration over politicians, in both Canada and the United States, who refuse to accept the “settled science” on man-made global warming:
Our politicians should be thrown in the slammer for willful blindness! If we are in a position of being able to act, and we see something going on and we refuse to acknowledge the threat or act on it, we can be taken to court for willful blindness.”
I think that we are being willfully blind to the consequences to our children and grandchildren. It’s an intergenerational crime.
Moyers, a well-known climate alarmist, didn’t push back a bit — instead gently tabling the idea as impractical:
The problem is, if that should happen — if politicians were to be convicted to willful blindness to the fate of the Earth and future generations — there would have to be mass arrests, and lots more funding for new prisons. We’re not talking about a mere handful of culprits. It’s hard to know where to start.
Willful blindness is a legitimate legal reference in the United States (and, presumably, Canada) used to describe the intentional failure of an individual to become aware of facts pointing to criminal liability.
But arresting politicians for “being willfully blind” to facts on climate change would mean criminalizing not only those industries and individuals that emit carbon, but also anyone who dares take an opinion contrary to the “settled science.”
Perhaps that would fly in Suzuki’s home country, which prosecuted conservative writer Mark Steyn a few years ago for his views on Islam. But the good scientist may want to brush up on the U.S. Constitution before making such claims south of the border.
Suzuki’s “modest proposal,” while admittedly unhinged, is not the first such recommendation by a member of the science community. In April, Rochester Institute of Technology professor Lawrence Torcello argued that those who deny global warming are “criminally negligent” and that “the funding of climate denial” should be an imprisonable offense.
This report, by Brendan Bordelon, was cross-posted by arrangement with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
