Bullied?

[Todd Lemery]

i have no idea if any of this is true. I just thought I would share since I couldn’t be out chasing the last couple of days
http://www.cfact.org/2018/05/02/meteorologist-allegedly-assaulted-by-nws-director-uccellini/

 

[joel ewing]

i have no idea if any of this is true. I just thought I would share since I couldn’t be out chasing the last couple of days
http://www.cfact.org/2018/05/02/meteorologist-allegedly-assaulted-by-nws-director-uccellini/

Thanks Todd, for making this available. I printed it, and it's going to a life-long buddy who needs to read it.

 

[Mark Blue]

Those are terrible conditions to work under. I wish there was something we could do to push back, but I suppose it’s best left to those who work directly with this tough guy. One of these days the boss will meet his match in the bathroom and his reign of intimidation and fear will land him on the deck wondering what just happened.

It’s really hard to imagine scientists working in such an environment. This just isn’t supposed to happen...

 

[Jason Harris]

Does CFACT have much credibility? Until there's evidence beyond a random website--such as a legal record--think that skepticism is advised:
__
“This alleged incident never happened,” NWS spokeswoman Susan Buchanan told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Dr. Uccellini encourages open discussion on all science issues and perspectives, and he has never had a physical altercation with anyone in his 40-year career.”

Buchanan responded to a report published by Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) alleging Uccellini “put his hand on the meteorologist’s chest as a warning, and pushed the employee against the wall,” according to an NWS meteorologist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/02/national-weather-service-head-accused-assault/

Huh, CFACT looks pretty dubious:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-knows-not-to-bet-against-global-warming-data

 

[Alex Elmore]

As someone who works part time in a NWS office and works on a regular basis with NWS personnel from across the country, I have never heard or experienced such an environment. From what I have experienced and know, the offices work to provide support for people of all beliefs (scientific, religious, cultural, etc.) through providing helpful resources and proper work environment. I feel that in general, employees have positive attitudes and are comfortable. I'm sure experiences will vary slightly from office to office, situation to situation, and individual to individual.

The fact that this is being "reported" by a source that obviously has an anti-climate change agenda should be a huge red flag. Also, the fact that it happened 4 years ago and is just now being brought up is questionable. The article makes it sound like this meteorologist and their colleague are still employed by the NWS. If the work environment is so terrible, then why not find another job? If they're good at what they do, it shouldn't be a problem.

The last part of the article is also questionable. What credit does this meteorologist have to say that funds and data are being mismanaged? I'm fairly certain NWS forecasters do not have access to that information. And that's not because of secrecy, but because they simply don't need to have access to that information for their job. And if they did, where are the numbers? Where is the proof? Anyone can say anything, but you better be able to back it up. Could anything this article claims to have happened actually occurred? Sure, I suppose there's a chance. But this whole article just seems like a conspiracy theory to me.

 

[Mark Blue]

Does CFACT have much credibility? Until there's evidence beyond a random website--such as a legal record--think that skepticism is advised:

I checked the board of directors http://www.cfact.org/about/cfact-board-of-advisors/ on their website and I see one name jump out at me right away. Robert C Balling Jr, Ph.D., who was one of the best and brightest professors I had while at UNL completing my degree. He used a text book for the class I took under him authored by another well-known Climatologist named Glenn Trewartha, from the University of Wisconsin Madison. I was so struck by Glenn Trewartha’s knowledge that I spent an entire semester researching and documenting what I could find in a final report. Got an A in that class but that’s neither here nor there.

My only point is Bob Balling was a class act following another class act before him and my faith in their website was just bolstered by discovering that small piece of information.

 

[rdale]

Anyone who has looked at the other stories on this website can quickly pick up that it's a #FakeNews site. Giving this crap any attention is no different than a Twitter-war with Russian bots...

 

[Dan Robinson]

The state of trustworthiness of even mainstream news sources is really bad these days, even more so for some of these smaller sites. Unfortunately it is very hard to determine what is true, especially early on in the news cycle. The problem is that the current online economy favors sensationalist and partisan articles. Journalists can't survive financially being objective and balanced, so we see all types of things like this. The truth tends to emerge in time, but until then everything should definitely be taken with a grain of salt.

 

[Mark Blue]

Anyone who has looked at the other stories on this website can quickly pick up that it's a #FakeNews site. Giving this crap any attention is no different than a Twitter-war with Russian bots...

It looks more like a student movement if anything to me. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it Fake News though just because they aren’t as big and polished as say, Fox News for example.

 

[rdale]

I'm sure there may be some real content in there My point is that it's clearly not a reputable fact-based source.

 

[Marc R. O'Leary]

Somebody got fired from X job (likely because they sucked at it)...and in these times of everything is offensive or assault, might as well try to make a buck or get some social media attention.

I miss the 80's.

 

[Mark Blue]

If something similar to this happened to me I'd go to HR and ask about my options within a couple of days. That way it could be dealt with as swiftly as possible versus some 4-5 years later. I recall taking training about whistleblower policies when I worked for the Federal Government and the jist of it was anybody who came forth with potentially inflammatory information against management would be protected under the policy and couldn't be fired for simply coming forward.

At this rate the story will never gain much traction because it isn't salacious enough to attract the attention of the mainstream media. Not that it even should, if it's untrue to begin with.

 

[Billy Faletti]

A quick google search of the organization yields the following info from Wikipedia:

"The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow is a Washington, D.C.-based 501 nonprofit organization founded in 1985 that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues, but has increasingly turned to climate change denial."

I don't want to get into a political debate, but that raises a red flag to me that there's a definite political agenda at hand. Also just the fact that it's a seemingly random, obscure website would lead me to believe it has a much lower chance of being credible than well-known sources. Plus the whole "mismanaging the data" spiel just sounds like a conspiracy theory.

 

[Jake Orosi]

Somebody got fired from X job (likely because they sucked at it)...and in these times of everything is offensive or assault, might as well try to make a buck or get some social media attention.

I miss the 80's.

Well, but so does Bill Cosby I bet.

 

[Jeff Duda]

This passage stuck out to me:

“Computer modeling or climate modeling is fanciful stuff because we already know that basic weather forecasting models can’t really forecast beyond two to three weeks what the weather is going to be,” explained the NWS employee. “None of the climate models that they are running have ever been tested successfully in forecasting observed temperatures and precipitation since the 1970s to the present.”

because combined with this later statement:

“I mainly do weather forecasting..."

which seems to reduce the impact of the first statement (it sounds like he/she is backing off on what they said just before), the whole thing sounds exactly like the typical (and ignorant) response a climate denier gives to pro-climate-change issues. Also, I'm pretty sure there are dozens (and that's being conservative) of peer-reviewed articles documenting accurate climate model simulations that pretty readily match the temperature trend over the past 30-50 years, so that statement is likely false. It is rendered even more dubious by this later statement:

I'll also the comment by Jason that questions the credibility of this article. I understand that anonymity may be preferred if the victim truly feels threatened by the alleged assailant. However, it does not appear that the victim has come forward to law enforcement and offered any sort of statement on-the-record, because this would be a pretty big deal if the law got involved, and it would certainly make the news. As an employee at a NOAA lab, I have not heard even one inkling of anything like this going on. Sure, people can scream cover-up, but you can only cover something like this for so long before it eventually comes out. Secondly, this seems to be a single-source narrative, and no corroboration seems to have been offered of this account nor of anything else the meteorologist featured in the article claims. A 'coworker' is mentioned, but no names are given and I haven't seen a statement from this coworker at all.

In general the statement just seemed to be riddled with throwing accusations at walls and hoping something sticks. A lot of claims were made with no source material to backup anything. I'm not saying absolutely nothing happened, but anyone properly scrutinizing this account would have to admit there are a lot of questions to doubt the certainty or validity of any of it.