BDN censors letter critical of UMaine censorship

 
BANGOR – The Bangor Daily News published a July 5 letter to the editor that criticized an environmentalist non-profit for cancelling a lecture by climate expert David Dilley, but not before removing allegations that University of Maine officials were involved in the decision.

Written by Dilley’s wife, a retired teacher and Hiram resident, the letter recounts how the Steuben-based Eagle Hill Institute made a last-minute decision to cancel a lecture by Mr Dilley, CEO of Global Weather Oscillations Inc.

Dilley, who has 40 years of meteorological and climatological experience, researches natural, non-anthropogenic causes of climate change. According to the letter, Dilley was scheduled several weeks in advance to participate in Eagle Hill Institute’s community lecture series.

However, just four days before the event, the non-profit informed him that his lecture was cancelled because some board members “may be uncomfortable hearing about Earth’s Natural Cycles”.

In other words, the lecture was cancelled because Eagle Hill Institute’s board was not interested in hearing about scientific research that contradicts the theory of anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming.

While BDN printed the bulk of the letter, the editors omitted a key paragraph, which raised the question of whether the University’s Climate Change Institute may have played a hand in cancelling Dilley’s talk.

In the printed version of the letter, BDN editors removed the following paragraph: “Although Eagle Hill Institute in Steuben is a nonprofit organization, it has close ties with the University of Maine.  A day before the cancellation, Mr. Dilley’s web site was visited by several people from the University.  Could this be government interference into ‘freedom of expression and speech because it does not agree with your message’?”

Why would BDN choose not to publish this paragraph? Its letter policy states that submissions may be edited for “clarity, taste, libel and space,” and, to be fair, the letter was seven words over their 250-word limit.

Regardless of the motives behind BDN’s curious editing, Dilley’s censored claims about the University turn out to be true.

“The day before the cancellation three people signed into my website who very likely were affiliated with the University. One came directly from an UMaine computer,” said Dilley. “They probably took a look at my e-book and became uncomfortable,” he said.

A woman who works with the Institute confirmed that it had reached out to UMaine in order to vet Dilley and that professors with UMaine’s Climate Change Institute advised against allowing his lecture to go forward. The woman, who declined to speak on the record, said that Dilley’s lecture was cancelled because the Institute did not want to be seen as supporting dubious scientific work.

But Dilley is unhappy with their last minute decision to ditch his presentation — a presentation he has delivered countless times at conferences and universities across the country.

“It shows a very big lack of integrity,” said Dilley. In response to the Institute’s claims that his work rests on dubious, non-peer reviewed science, Dilley said that much of his research – including climate forecast models – remains private because he is running a business, not an academic journal.

For Dilley, the decision of UMaine officials and the Institute’s board to cancel his presentation is part of a broader, nationwide effort to suppress scientific research that runs counter to the mainstream narrative. One thing he talks about in his lecture is the manipulation of the federal grant process which over the past 10 to 15 year period has discriminated against research that calls theories of man-made global warming into question.

As a result of this biased grant process, said Dilley, the vast majority of scientific articles take the Al Gore perspective and give short shrift to natural causes of climate change.

“The University is tied into the green energy industry,” he said. “They don’t want people to know about natural cycles. They know which side their bread is buttered on. They don’t want to jeopardize their grants.”

“They don’t want people asking, why are we spending all this money on wind power?”