{"id":7941,"date":"2026-06-20T16:52:57","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T13:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=7941"},"modified":"2026-06-20T16:52:57","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T13:52:57","slug":"critical-professor-reveals-how-university-mobbed-him-over-climate-views","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/critical-professor-reveals-how-university-mobbed-him-over-climate-views\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Professor Reveals How University Mobbed Him Over Climate Views"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professor Roger Pielke<\/strong> served on a scientific panel advising the Bush administration on climate change around the turn of the millennium. His research on extreme weather events was extensively cited in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to Nius<\/em>, his insistence on sticking to facts rather than promoting politically convenient narratives through dramatization would ultimately cost him his career.<\/p>\n

During the Obama administration, Pielke found himself targeted by the White House. Rumors were spread that fossil fuel company ExxonMobil had paid him off. None of these allegations proved true. Yet his university did not stand behind him. Instead, it subjected him to what he describes as systematic harassment.<\/p>\n

\"Roger
Photo: nius.de<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From Distinguished Professor to a Broom Closet<\/h2>\n

At one point, Pielke was assigned a windowless room as his workspace. The space was so small he called it a storage closet. As he told Nius<\/em>, it was literally a broom closet for an office, a tiny room without windows. This despite being the most senior professor in his department with what he modestly describes as probably the strongest research and publication record.<\/p>\n

When Pielke left university life at the end of 2024, he could look back on more than two decades of research and teaching at the University of Colorado. He served as professor there from 2001 through late 2024. Before that, he worked from 1993 to 2001 as a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder.<\/p>\n

His studies significantly influenced IPCC reports and supported major thematic sections. According to Pielke, his work was always fully consistent with IPCC findings. How then could he end up in a room without windows?<\/p>\n

The Congressional Testimony That Changed Everything<\/h2>\n

The answer lies in 2013. Pielke testified before the American Congress that year, as he did roughly once annually. The hearing focused on the IPCC report published in 2012. He essentially summarized the current state of climate science from the world climate council: increasing heat waves, increasing heavy precipitation, but little evidence for trends in other forms of extreme weather events.<\/p>\n

It was precisely this commitment to facts and his unwillingness to discuss climate in ways that overdramatize reality for the sake of political narratives that brought him trouble, as Nius<\/em> reports.<\/p>\n

His five-minute opening statement later went viral on YouTube, garnering around 400,000 views in a short period. Several weeks later, John Holdren<\/strong>, President Obama’s science advisor, testified before the same committee. Pielke told Nius<\/em> that Holdren made statements that went far beyond what the IPCC had actually claimed, and came under pressure for it.<\/p>\n

\"Der
Photo: nius.de<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apparently angered by the criticism, Holdren published a six-page document about Pielke on the White House website. This in turn caught the attention of a congressman who accused Pielke of secretly receiving money from Exxon in exchange for his views on extreme weather. His university launched an investigation against him. Naturally there was nothing to find, and consequently nothing was found.<\/p>\n

Pielke is convinced the real goal was to publicly discredit him and damage his reputation in outlets like the New York Times and the journal Science.<\/p>\n

Harassment and Isolation<\/h2>\n

The campaign succeeded with tragic effect. Rather than supporting him, his university began to harass him systematically. The windowless room was just the beginning. Shortly before the coronavirus years, a university employee placed 16 boxes in his already tiny office. Only three months later did Pielke discover they were empty. The boxes made his office unusable, he recalls.<\/p>\n

Eventually he was removed entirely from his department. He was taken out of his department and relocated to an office in the football stadium, a dark office far away from everyone else, Pielke explained. The consequences were severe: he had no more courses to teach, belonged to no department, had no support and no ability to supervise students.<\/p>\n

The irony could hardly be sharper. The man whose research the world climate council cited in its reports and who for decades ranked among the most renowned scientists in his field now sat isolated in an office in a football stadium. The university repeatedly assured him the measures were only temporary. But nothing ultimately ever happened. That made it finally clear to Pielke that his institution had abandoned him.<\/p>\n

His case stands as a stark warning about the treatment of scientists who refuse to bend their findings to political demands, even when their work aligns with mainstream climate science.<\/p>\n

With information from Nius<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental researcher Roger Pielke says he was pushed from his University of Colorado position after refusing to dramatize climate science, ending up in a windowless office despite extensive IPCC contributions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":7940,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[7029,7677,7678,7675,209,7676],"nfg_topic":[135],"class_list":["post-7941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-academic-freedom","tag-climate-science","tag-intergovernmental-panel-climate-change","tag-roger-pielke","tag-united-states","tag-university-harassment","nfg_topic-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7941"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7943,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7941\/revisions\/7943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7941"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=7941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}