In a big win for academic freedom over the forces of creeping authoritarianism, the Virginia Supreme Court today sided with the University of Virginia in its fight against Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's investigation of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann.
Mann, who now works at Penn State, has been a target of climate change deniers for his famed "Hockey Stick" graph that shows the world's temperatures have risen sharply over the last 50 years.
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The court upheld an Albemarle Circuit Court ruling that set aside Cuccinelli's demands for Mann's emails and other documents related to grants Mann received to study climate change while at UVA.
Cuccinell had sought the information under the state's "Fraud Against Taxpayers Act," alleging that Mann might have committed a fraud against the taxpayers while at UVA by using what Cuccinelli claimed might have been manipulated climate change data in order to get federal grants. Cuccinelli has said he believes that climate change is a hoax, and has said academic freedom should not shield scientists from investigations into whether they might have broken a law.
But Cuccinelli's investigation was without a reasonable probable cause, and so amounted to a political witch hunt. Albemarle County Circuit Judge Paul Peatross ruled in August 2010 that Cuccinelli had failed to adequately state what Mann might have done wrong, and further that he lacked authority to investigate federal grants. Cuccinelli appealed to the state supreme court.
Cuccinelli had sought a broad application of the law's language, seeking to extend it to state agencies like UVA. But the supreme court disagreed with Cuccinelli's claim that the university can be considered a "person" subject to subpoena under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act. "In sum, neither by express language nor by necessary implication does FATA provide the Attorney General with authority to issue CIDs to commonwealth agencies," wrote Supreme Court justice Leroy F. Millette Jr., in the decision.
"The university should be commended for its courage in standing up to the attorney general to ensure Virginia will remain a safe place for scientific research, even when elected officials don't like the results," said Michael Halpern of the Union of Concerned Scientists Scientific Integrity Program. "Academic institutions have the responsibility to protect their faculty's ability to discover new things about our world without fearing harassment or political reprisals. Officials at research universities around the country should scrutinize this case and make sure they are prepared to respond appropriately to similar attacks."
Halpern said that various courts in Virginia have found in favor of the university on both substantive and procedural grounds. "From the beginning, the attorney general had no case, and has wasted the state's time and attention for nearly two years on this boondoggle."
Numerous other investigations, including ones by the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences, have reaffirmed Mann's work, further increasing confidence in the "Hockey Stick" graph.
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Michael E. Mann: Ken Cuccinelli's Cloudy Judgment
The Green's have shown their painful lack of intellectual flexibility by their continuing opposition to Nuclear in order to replace the much greater dangers from the burning of fossil fuels.
If coal can be phased out, without using Nuclear, that is good. Otherwise Nuclear must be used. Anyone interested in evidence, and not brainwashed by ideology, realises that is just comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils. In the case of nuclear vs. coal, it is the massively lesser of two evils.
Who'd a thunk it?
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251&page=2
And here's one showing 13 reconstructions:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig6-10b.png
And here's another:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/fig610.html
Guess what, guys? YEP.
They're all HOCKEY STICKS.
In fact, since Michael Mann's famous original hockey stick graph back in 1998, more than two dozen hockey sticks have been found by other research teams.
So, the deniers really need to get back on their broom sticks and try to sweep them all away because EVERY YEAR, they keep coming, just like you'd figure they would, if they resembled reality fairly well.
Links to most of them starting at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/maxwells/a-bipartisan-understandin_b_1310782_138512521.html
Oh, and by the way, that so-called "climategate" flap?
Guess what?
So far, there've been 11 separate formal investigations - ALL EXONERATIONS.
The only fraud they could find was the obvious one perpetrated by the illegal hackers, cherry picking out-of-context quotes and trying to smear honest scientists - just like some smearers down below and (soon to be) above keep trying to perpetuate.
Want links to each of the investigations to verify what I say? Then click this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/maxwells/a-bipartisan-understandin_b_1310782_138511978.html
You'd love it.
Say, here's a question for you: Why didn't you refute even one of his points rather than making yet another content-free comment?
by Dec2011: 11 independent formal reviews, all exonerations; at least two dozen more “hockey sticks”, all resembling Michael Mann's original hockey stick-like temperature graph.
1.Feb2010,RA-10 Inquiry Report:
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/Findings_Mann_Inquiry.pdf
2.March2010,House of Commons Science and Technology Committee
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/387/387i.pdf
3.April2010,Lord Oxburgh Scientific Assessment Panel
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm79/7934/7934.pdf
4.May2010,Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency:
http://www.pbl.nl/sites/default/files/cms/publicaties/500216002.pdf
5.June2010 RA-10 Final Investigation Report
http://live.psu.edu/pdf/Final_Investigation_Report.pdf
6.July2010,Sir Muir Russell/Independent Climate Change Emails Review
http://www.cce-review.org/pdf/FINAL%20REPORT.pdf
How I hope this is only the beginning.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions.html
8.Sept2010,Deutsche Bank Report:
http://www.dbcca.com/dbcca/EN/investment-research/investment_research_2355.jsp
9.Sept2010,U.K. Government Response to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm79/7934/7934.pdf
10.Feb2011,U.S.Dept. of Commerce Inspector General's Review:
http://www.oig.doc.gov/Pages/OIGSearchResults.aspx?k=Michael%20Mann&cs=This%20Site&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oig.doc.gov
11.Aug2011,National Science Foundation, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations
http://www.nsf.gov/oig/search/A09120086.pdf
Since Michael Mann's 1998 “hockey stick graph” was published, it's been been verified by
at least two dozen more "hockey sticks".
1. T. J. Crowley, Causes of Climate Change over the Past 1000 Years, science, 289, 270 (2000)
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/tcrowley/crowley_science2000.pdf
2. C. Bertrand, et al., Climate of the last millennium: a sensitivity study, Tellus, 54,3,2210244, May 2002
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.2002.00287.x/full
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/295/5563/2250.abstract
4. “Climate of the last millennium: a sensitivity study”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1034/j.1600-0870.2002.00287.x/full
5. T. M. Cronin et al., MWP, LIA, and 20th centuray temperature variability from Chesapeake BayGlobal Planetary Change, 36, 2003, 17-29
http://holocene.meteo.psu.edu/shared/articles/Croninetal-GlobPlanChng03.pdf
6. H. N. Pollack, J. E. Smerdon, Borehole climate reconstructions: Spatial structure and hemispheric averages, J. Geophys. Res., 109, D11106, 9pp, 2004
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/pub/smerdon/Pollack_and_Smerdon_Journal.pdf
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2004/2003JD004163.shtml
7. A. Moberg et al. Northern Hemisphere 2,000 year Temperature Reconstruction using low and high-res proxy data
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
8. S. Rutherford, et al., “Proxy-Based Northern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstructions”, J.Clim,18, 2308-2329,2005
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/JCLI3351.1
9.R. Wilson, et al., "Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low/high-resolution proxy data", Nature,433,7026,613-617,Feb2005
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/wilson2007/wilson2007.html
10.BASC Summary, "NRC.Surface temperature reconstructions for the last 2,000 years".National Academies Press,113–115, 2006
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309102251&page=2
Yet, whatever minor errors I might make in casual presentations here on Huffington Post don't really alter the overall scientific picture at all.
The fact remains that Mann and his colleagues have been exonerated of any willful wrong-doing and his conclusions have been confirmed IN SPADES by MANY later studies.
This is how science is supposed to work and it did, despite the AGW denial machine's attempts to subvert it by conducting a series of malicious witch hunts.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2005JD006352.shtml
12. T. J. Osborn, et al., "The Spatial Extent of 20th-Century Warmth in the Context of the Past 1200 Years".Science311(5762):841–844,2006
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/311/5762/841.abstract
13. E. Jansen, et al., "Extracting a Climate Signal from 169 Glacier Records",Science308,5722,675-677,Apr2005 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/ipcc2007/ipcc2007.html
14.A. Moberg, et al., Ch6:Palaeoclimate,IPCC 4th Assessment Report, 2007
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/moberg2005/moberg2005.html
15.R. Wilson, et al., "A matter of divergence:Tracking recent warming at hemispheric scales using tree ring data", J.Geophys.Res.,112,D17103,Sept2007
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006JD008318.shtml
16.J. Jouzel, et al., "Orbital and Millennial Antarctic Climate Variability over the Past 800,000 Years",Science, 317,5839,793-797,Aug2007.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/jouzel2007/jouzel2007.html
17. M. Ammann and E. Wahl, Climatic Change, 85, 1-2 , 71-88, 2007
http://www.springerlink.com/content/c668835m747q4823/
18. Wilson et al. N. Hemisphere Tree-Ring-Based Temperature Reconstruction 1750-2005, J. Geophys. Res., 112, D17103, 11 Sept. 2007,
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/wilson2007/wilson2007.html
19. H. von Storch, Zorita, Gonzalez-Rouco, Assessment of three Temperature Reconstruction Methods in the Virtual Reality of a Climate Simulation, Int. J. Earth Sci. , 98, 1, 2009
http://www.springerlink.com/content/9v542032566345k2/
20.M.P. Tingley, P. Huybers, "A Bayesian Algorithm for Reconstructing Climate Anomalies in Space and Time. Part I: Development and Applications to Paleoclimate Reconstruction Problems"; Part II: Comparison with the Regularized Expectation–Maximization Algorithm". J.Clim.23(10):2759–2800,2010
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI3015.1
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/2009JCLI3016.1
21. J. Martin-Chivelet, et al., Land surface temperature changes in Northern Iberia since 4000yrBP, based on δ13C of speleothems, Global and Planetary Change, 77,1-2, pp 1-12, 2011
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818111000191
22. R. F. Spielhagen, et al., Enhanced Modern Heat Transfer to the Arctic by Warm Atlantic Water, Science, 331, 6016, pp. 450-453, 2011
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6016/450.short
23. J. Oerlemans, Jan2011,Science Express Index "2500 Years of European Climate Variability and Human Susceptibility"
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/oerlemans2005/oerlemans2005.html
24. F. C. Ljungqvist. et al., Northern Hemisphere temperature patterns in the last 12 centuries, Clim. Past, 8, 227-240, 2012
http://www.clim-past.net/8/227/2012/cp-8-227-2012.pdf
Seems the Kochs funded BEST because it was led by Muller and Judith Curry, who were both openly skeptical of all prior temperature studies.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/22/hiding-the-decline/
Result?
Muller to the Congressional House Science and Technology Committee,
“We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.” “Global warming is real.”
From:
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Muller_Testimony_31_March_2011.pdf
Two page BEST summary:
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Summary_20_Oct.pdf
First four papers from BEST:
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Averaging_Process.pdf
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_UHI.pdf
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Station_Quality.pdf
http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Decadal_Vaiations.pdf
And what says Curry NOW?
"I had a 90 minute meeting with Richard Muller this evening. I have to say that there isn’t much that we disagree on." "So all in all, I am ok with what is going on in the BEST project."
http://judithcurry.com/2011/10/30/discussion-with-rich-muller/
Inconsistency, thy name is conservative.
You have the same problem as Cuccinelli, there is no evidence of wrong-doing. If you lack information it isn't because Dr. Mann, but your own ignorance and preconceived conclusions.
Better yet, find any three old farmers from wherever you are and ask them if overall, the weather is more severe and weird lately. These are people who live by the rewards and punishments of weather.
Wendell Berry said it best - “Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.”
And his view on sustainable living - “We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”