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Ball, Tim

seems to have dropped out of sight, possibly b/c of legal problems backfired?

back in bs book

o'sullivan child m#lester: http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/34430.html

sued by Mashey, ref'd defended by Petwr Wood NAS

singers should i sue oreskes (his answer wd be interesting)

===

619 mojo no lnx docs

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/06/a-scientist-took-climate-change-deniers-to-court-and-wrested-an-apology-from-them/

ENVIRONMENT

JUNE 16, 2019

A Scientist Took Climate Change Deniers to Court and Wrested an Apology From Them

In the fight against climate disinformation, experts like him are turning to new arenas.

EMMA MCINTOSH

Scientist Michael Mann attends the New York screening of the HBO documentary, "How To Let Go Of The World And All The Things Climate Can't Change" in New York City.Slaven Vlasic/Getty/HBO

This story was originally published by National Observer and is shared here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

In 2011, renowned scientist Michael E. Mann sued a Canadian think tank that published an interview suggesting his work on climate change was fraud.

Eight years later, the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy—which often promotes climate change denial—apologized Friday and wiped the inflammatory interview from its website.

“(The apology) gives me faith in our legal system that truth can still win out, even in an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts,'” Mann said in an email to National Observer.

In the fight against climate disinformation, experts like Mann, an atmospheric scientist at Pennsylvania State University, are turning to new arenas.

Mann is best known as the lead researcher on a landmark 1998 paper on climate change. He and three colleagues reconstructed global temperatures going back about 500 years, producing a now-infamous sideways-hockey-stick-like graph of global temperatures that showed a sharp upswing beginning in the 1900s.

Mann has spent the two decades since the paper’s publication defending it and his reputation against climate change deniers—sometimes in court. He settled with the Frontier Centre on Friday, but a related case in British Columbia and a similar one in the United States are ongoing.

In a message posted to its website, the Frontier Centre apologized for publishing “untrue and disparaging” comments about Mann.

“Although the Frontier Centre for Public Policy still does not see eye to eye with Mr. Mann on the subject of global warming and climate change, we now accept that it was wrong to publish allegations by others that Mr. Mann did not comply with ethical standards…” the think tank wrote in part.

@MichaelEMann

I've settled my claims in BC Supreme Court against The Frontier Centre for Public Policy Inc. on a basis which includes the following retraction & apology.I have not settled my claims against Tim Ball, who remains a defendant in that lawsuit: https://fcpp.org/retraction-and-apology-to-michael-mann/ …

1,173

12:29 PM - Jun 7, 2019

==

https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/14/climate-denier-tim-ball-trump-approved-not-credible-enough-stand-accountable-libel-0

It was gratifying, today, to see a senior justice of the Supreme Court of British Columbia denounce the professional “climate change sceptic” Dr. Tim Ball as incompetent, inattentive and, perhaps, indifferent to the truth.

But it was an outrage to see the same judge let Ball so casually off the hook, by dismissing a libel action that had been brought by University of Victoria climate scientist and B.C. Green Party leader Dr. Andrew Weaver.

Related: Judge Dismisses Libel Claim, Tim Ball Not Credible Enough To Be Taken Seriously

Weaver sued Ball in 2011 for one in a series of rabid diatribes that Ball had written for the website Canada Free Press (“Corruption of Climate Science Has Created 30 Lost Years,” Jan 10, 2011 — no longer available since CFP took it down and apologized for its defamatory content).

Ball, a long-retired geographer who is more famous for overstating his own credentials than for anything accomplished during his academic career, had accused Weaver (then a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) of bias and scientific incompetence — casting him as part of a politicized campaign to fleece Canadian taxpayers of grant money while overselling the dangers of climate change.

The resulting libel action ground through the courts until it finally went to trial last fall, with 7.5 days of evidence heard over a period of more than three weeks — a brutal and expensive waste of time that would be a significant deterrent for almost anyone hoping to defend a reputation against the climate denial assault.

But Weaver had become a target and stepped up to the task. And with this judgment, he was vindicated, entirely.

Justice Skolrood found that “… despite Dr. Ball’s history as an academic and a scientist, the Article is rife with errors and inaccuracies, which suggests a lack of attention to detail on Dr. Ball’s part, if not an indifference to the truth.” The judge further accepted that Ball was committed to damaging Weaver’s reputation. Justice Skolrood wrote: “These allegations are directed at Dr. Weaver’s professional competence and are clearly derogatory of him. Indeed, it is quite apparent that this was Dr. Ball’s intent.”

But with the strangest get-out-of-jail-free card ever delivered in a Canadian libel trial, the judge concluded that Ball’s writing was too apparently idiotic to be taken seriously.

Again, from Justice Skolrood’s Reasons for Judgment: “The Article is poorly written and does not advance credible arguments in favour of Dr. Ball’s theory about the corruption of climate science. Simply put, a reasonably thoughtful and informed person who reads the Article is unlikely to place any stock in Dr. Ball’s views, including his views of Dr. Weaver as a supporter of conventional climate science.”

But where in the Canadian or American climate conversation (or in either country’s governments) does Justice Skolrood think we might find the kind of “reasonably thoughtful and informed person” who would be immune to Ball’s low standard of science or accuracy?

Clearly, in a time of Donald Trump’s presidency, scientific, administrative and personal incompetence — not to mention indifference to truth — are no longer barriers to being taken seriously.

Tim Ball, himself, was invited to Washington to participate in a briefing with the Trump transition team.

In the Canadian libel tradition, if a plaintiff demonstrates that he or she has been defamed, the case is won. And you would expect, if the plaintiff was famous and credible and the defendant quite obviously a dunce, that damages would be minimal. But there would still BE damages.

That is, unless the defamer can argue one of a narrow range of defences. “Fair comment,” for example, would require an affirmative answer to the question: “could anyone honestly express that opinion on the proved facts?” In this case, Justice Skolrood said, no.

“While Dr. Ball presents his central thesis that climate science has been corrupted by politics, the Article offers little in the way of support for that thesis, apart from vague references to missing or falsified data and political manipulation, unsubstantiated and erroneous references ….”

So, unable to claim conventional defences, Ball’s lawyer, Michael Scherr, went for something novel. Having admitted that his client was guilty of defamation, Scherr demanded that Weaver should have to prove that the defamatory comments actually caused damage. In the judge’s words, Scherr was seeking “a threshold of seriousness,” and arguing, in effect, that his client’s work didn’t meet that threshold.

The notion arose from a case in another Canadian province (Vellacott v. Saskatoon Star Phoenix Group Inc. et al,Saskatchewan, 2012). In that case, the court found that certain published comments were not defamatory because they were so ludicrous and outrageous as to be unbelievable and therefore incapable of lowering the reputation of the plaintiff in the minds of right-thinking persons. Against that standard, Justice Skolrood wrote, “the impugned words here are not as hyperbolic as the words in Vellacott, (but) they similarly lack a sufficient air of credibility to make them believable and therefore potentially defamatory.”

The woeful truth, now, is that climate change denial has suffered from a similar “lack (of) a sufficient air of credibility” for decades, and Tim Ball has spent that period on the lecture circuit saying blithely incredible things, dissembling about climate science and defaming climate scientists — without ever facing an impartial judge or being censured for the damage that he’s done.

Now, finally, he is brought before — and broadly derided by — the court, but nevertheless allowed to walk away without so much as a requirement that he cease and desist.

Ball’s supporters (who obviously have no illusions about the quality of his work) are cheering this decision as, “A great victory for free speech.” But, one hopes, the celebrations will end with an ultimate comeuppance. Weaver’s lawyer, Roger McConchie, is already preparing the appeal. Beyond being castigated as inept and lacking integrity, Ball may yet be called to account.

“The only real finding in the judgment is that it didn’t defame Dr. Weaver and it’s a little puzzling because the defendants themselves admitted in their defence that they did defame him,” McConchie told the Times Colonist.

TAGS:

tim ball

andrew weaver

climate lawsuit

libel suit

==

[Amy Ridenour, friend of big tobacco, big oil and the big Jack Abramoff, and proprietor of the National Centre for Public Policy Research, recently held a Deniers' Luncheon with Tim Ball as the guest of honour. Amy has even provided a photo on her blogsite in which you can see Dr. Ball showing the gap between what he says about climate change and what honest-to-goodness climatologists hold to be accurate science.

If you strain, you can also see Amy (to Ball's left) and, (continuing to the left) the handsome Mr. (David) Ridenour (I think), S. Fred Singer and Pat Michaels.] desmog

==

exxon $

Kenneth Green held the positions of Chief Scientist and Director of Centre for Studies in Risk, Regulation, and Environment at the Fraser Institute from 2002 to 2005. While at the Institute, Kenneth Green published many anti-Kyoto and climate change skeptical articles, notably the "Science Isn't Settled: The limitations of climate change models", together with Tim Ball and Steven Schroeder.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/science-isnt-settled.pdf

As reported in the Vancouver Sun [6]: "The Fraser Institute received $120,000 US from ExxonMobil in 2003-'04, according to the company's annual report. [Fraser Institute President Michael] Walker said the funding paid for the work of researcher Ken Green."

The Fraser Institute published a so-called Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM) on Feb. 5, 2007, just after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policy Makers (part of the Fourth Assesment Report on Climate Change). Economist and Fraser Institute Senior Fellow Ross McKitrick served as co-ordinator of the ISPM [7]. Desmogblog leaked a late draft of the Fraser Institute ISPM in the runup to the IPCC official release [8].

end of s isn't set

Tim Ball Dr. Tim Ball, one of the first Canadians to hold a Ph.D. in climatology, wrote his doctoral thesis at the University of London (England) using the remarkable records of the Hudson’s Bay Company to reconstruct climate change from 74 to 952. He has published numerous articles on climate change and its impact on the human condition. Dr Ball has served on numerous committees at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels on climate, water resources, and environmental issues. He was a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years. He has written a regular column on weather in the agricultural magazine, Country Guide, for 4 years. He is currently working as an environmental consultant and public speaker based in Victoria and has written, with Dr Stuart Houston, 8th Century Naturalists on Hudson Bay, a book on the science and climate of the fur trade (McGill-Queens University Press, 2003).

Kenneth Green Dr. Kenneth Green is Chief Scientist and Director of the Fraser Institute Risk and Environment Centre. He has written numerous articles, monographs, encyclopedia chapters, and textbooks on the science and policy of climate change, and served as an expert reviewer for the landmark report of the 200 United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as well as for a special IPCC report on aviation and climate change. Dr Green is the author of Global Warming, Understanding the Debate, a textbook that was recommended by the US National Science Teachers Association. He holds a doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Steven Schroeder Dr Steven Schroeder is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. He is currently researching global climatic changes in the upper air over the last few decades, focusing on identifying and correcting for changes in instrument types to determine correct trends of water vapour in the atmosphere. Dr Schroeder has a doctoral degree in meteorology from Texas A&M University and a master’s degree in operations research from the United States Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Chip Knappenberger of New Hope Environmental s?

===

greg l l 2/22/14

About Tim Ball Associate John O’Sullivan

This is the latest on an interesting and complex legal battle related to climate science denialism.

Affidavits filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court libel litigation brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against climate science denier Timothy Ball reveal that Ball’s collaborator and self-styled “legal advisor” has misrepresented his credentials and endured some significant legal embarrassments of his own.

The affidavits also reveal that Tim Ball was “aware of the charges against John O’Sullivan almost from the start” and has tried to distance himself from his erstwhile advisor and writing partner.

The affidavits [1, 2] come from research of science and medical writer Andrew Skolnick, who documents O’Sullivan’s misrepresentations, backtracking and questionable behavior.

Tim Ball and John O’Sullivan had a close working relationship, even before Mann sued Ball for libel in March 2011. For example, they co-authored the climate science denial book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, which was published in 2010.

Skolnick’s evidence shows that O’Sullivan made a series of false claims, including:

Read the rest of it here, in a post by Brendan DeMelle and Richard Littlemore.

aSkolnick

New York

February 23, 2014

As I expected, there’s not a mote of truth in John O’Sullivan’s grossly defamatory “news report” claiming his and Tim Ball’s victory in court against Dr. Mann. Yesterday, Roger McConchie, who is representing Mann in his libel suit against Ball, issued this reply to the humbug’s shameless attack piece:

“The review of Tim Ball’s new book by Hans Schreuder and John O’Sullivan makes preposterous statements concerning Dr. Michael Mann’s lawsuit in the British Columbia Supreme Court against Tim Ball and other defendants. The Mann lawsuit is currently in the discovery phase, with further examinations for discovery (depositions) of the defendants to be scheduled shortly, following which I will either set the action for trial by jury in the usual manner, or bring a summary trial application on behalf of Dr. Mann for damages and injunctive relief.

“Dr. Ball has not set the matter for trial and there is no motion by Ball currently before the Court. The allegation by Schreuder and O’Sullivan that Dr. Mann has refused to show his metadata and calculations in open court is not true.

“Their assertion that Dr. Mann faces possible bankruptcy is nonsense. Dr. Mann’s lawsuit against Dr. Ball and other defendants is proceeding through the normal stages prescribed by the BC Supreme Court Civil Rules and Dr. Mann looks forward to judicial vindication at the conclusion of this process.

“February 22, 2014

Roger D. McConchie

Barrister and Solicitor

Legal Counsel to Dr. Michael Mann”

O’Sullivan is a former high school art teacher whose career ended in 2003 following his arrest and trial for assaulting and sending dozens of obscene text messages to a 16 year old girl. For the past several years, he has been fraudulently passing himself off as a highly accomplished lawyer and science writer while attempting to make a career as a global warming denier.

==

blog

https://debunkhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/climate-science-the-legal-double-standard/

repost? wwut osull?

« The Mid-20th Century Cooling: A Hidden Decline?

Yale University’s “Knowledge of Climate Change Across Global Warming’s Six Americas” »

Climate Science: The Legal Double Standard

Climate scientist Tim Ball is being sued by climate scientist Michael Mann for alleged defamatory remarks…

Prof Claims Climate-Denier Defamed Him

By DARRYL GREER

VANCOUVER, B.C. (CN) – A Pennsylvania State University professor claims climate-change denier Timothy Ball defamed him in an interview published by the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Winnipeg-based think tank.

Michael Mann,a professor in Penn State’s meteorology department and director of the university’s Earth Systems Science Center, claims that Ball defamed him when he said that Mann “should be in the State Pen, not Penn State,” for his alleged role in the so-called climate gate email tussle.

[…]

**LINK**

Maybe Dr. Ball ought to sue the author of the article for calling him a “climate-change denier.” Tim Ball is not a “climate-change denier;” he is a climate scientist who disagrees with the so-called scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. The phrase “climate-change denier” is a pejorative designed to harm the reputation of the target.

Well… Just a few years ago, NASA’s top climate “scientist”, James Hansen called for the imprisonment of people like me – oil industry scientists who disagree with him…

Put oil firm chiefs on trial, says leading climate change scientist

Ed Pilkington in New York

TheGuardian, Monday 23 June 2008

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

[…]

**LINK**

If Mann prevails in his suit, maybe I should sue Hansen… ;)

And maybe Dr. Pat Michaelsshould sue Mann…

LETTERS DECEMBER 31, 2009

Science Journals Must Be Unpolluted by Politics

In his Dec. 18 op-ed “How to Manufacture a Climate Consensus,” Patrick J. Michaels of the Cato Institute falsely claims that work by him (and other fossil-fuel-funded climate change contrarians) has been unfairly blocked by me and others from appearing in mainstream science journals because the peer review process is supposedly biased against climate science deniers.

[…]

Michael E. Mann

Professor, Meteorology Department

Penn State University

Director, Penn State Earth System Science Center

University Park, Pa.

Editor’s note: Several weeks ago, we invited Mr. Mann to write a feature explaining his email exchanges that were revealed as part of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit’s document disclosure. He declined.

**WSJ**

Dr. Michaels is not a “climate science denier;” he is a climate scientist who disagrees with the so-called scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic global warming. The phrase “climate science denier” is a pejorative designed to harm the reputation of the target.

When the sort of methods employed by Dr. Mann in the construction of his “hockey stick,” like “Mike’s Nature Trick,” are used in the mining and oil & gas industries, people get sued, get investigated by the SEC and sometimes go to prison.

It’s outrageous enough that academic and gov’t scientists can legally engage in activities that would be called fraud in the private sector… But it is totally unacceptable when those academic and gov’t scientists call for legal action against private sector scientists who try to alert the public about the essentially fraudulent activity.

Read more here…

Top Climate Skeptic Seeks Help in Double-barrel Courtroom Shootout

By John O. Sullivan

Esteemed climate scientist, Tim Ball faces two costly courtroom libel battles. Here he reveals his concerns and appeals for help with his legal fees.

Dr. Tim Ball is widely recognized as one of Canada’s first qualified climate scientists and has long been one of the most prominent skeptics taking a stand on corruption and unethical practices. Two exponents of the global warming scare Ball has targeted, professors Michael Mann and Andrew Weaver, are now suing him for libel.

Many suspect the David Suzuki Foundation is funding Vancouver libel specialist, Roger D. McConchie who is representing both Weaver and Mann against Ball. Suzuki is reported as wanting skeptics like Ball “put in prison.”

[…]

**WUWT**

Contributions to Dr. Ball’s legal defense can be made through his website… **LINK**

In the interest of full disclosure, I was approached my John O’Sullivan, on behalf of Dr. Ball, back in December, about participating in their next book project.

commentshad debate on credentials, and why previous suits ended:

...

Eight year Geography Prof Tim Ball seems to be a slow learner.

Ball does not seem to have benefited from his own epic fail attempt to sue Dr. Dan Johnson and 4 Calgary Herald editors several years ago.

That should have taught him that in a libel suit the party with facts on it’s side wins, and the side that made things up loses. Ball made up claims about his university career and had to run away when Dan Johnson and the Calgary Herald produced documentation showing that Ball’s career was much less impressive than had been claimed.

Odd that Ball’s debacle trying to sue for Accurate, Factual comments about Ball left Ball with a false impression he could libel Weaver and Mann and never be held accountable.

Roger D. McConchie (and David A. Potts) literally wrote the book on “Canadian Libel and Slander Actions”

http://www.irwinlaw.com/store/product/85/canadian-libel-and-slander-actions

McConchie law corporation prepared the statement of defense for Dr. Dan Johnson when 8-year Geography professor Tim Ball sued Dr. Johnson and four Calgary Herald editors for $325,000, alleging defamation.

McConchie also represents Dr. Andrew Weaver.

The responses from McConchie, and from the Calgary Herald’s advocates, were so effective, and so devastating, that former Geography Professor Ball gave up...

Kelly Manning Says:

June 17, 2011 at 00:08 | Reply

Ball was only a Geography Prof for 8 years. His only work in climatology was in Historical Climatology, analyzing journals kept by Hudson Bay Company traders and factors. Ball does not have a degree or background in Atmospheric Physics or any Physical Science.

Thermometers were uncommon when the HBC Ship Nonsuch sailed into Hudson Bay in the late 1600s, but the records show a record of First Snow days, Snow Off days, river, lake and ocean freeze up and spring break up that shows how much colder and longer Arctic winters used to be.

Like many other individuals, enterprises and governments the HBC tried to find a sea route through the arctic ice for centuries, without success until the early 1900s. HBC has lost ships to the Ice, even in the last century.

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) even wrote a story about the folly of attempts to find a “Northwest Passage” in the 1800s. Now we have the Chief USA Navy Oceanographer Admiral David Titley appearing in Uniform, identifying himself by name, rank and assignment, and discussing USA Navy plans for bulk transports sailing directly over the North Pole for 3 months every year, and the USA Navy planning for 1 to 2 meter rise in Sea Level affecting Navy shore installations, shipyards, and coastal oil refineries in this century.

The “Nature Trick” consisted of adding another line, of measured temperatures, to the charts, to show that tree ring data does not correlate with actual measured temperatures in the same regions in recent years.

How deceitful! -)

By the way, have you heard that measured temperature data since 1995 now gives a 95% confidence level for Global Warming?

Last year it was at the 93% Confidence level for data since 1995. More years, more warmth, more confidence that Global Warming is a real, measured, fact.

2010 tied 2005 for being the warmest year on record.

The most difficult hurdle “critics” have is that despite year to year variations the average keeps increasing.

---

vanity:

Dr. Tim Ball exposes the malicious misuse of climate science as it was distorted by dishonest brokers to advance the political aspirations of the progressive left. 4.5 stars

https://www.amazon.com/**Deliberate-Corruption-Climate-Science**/dp/0988877740/

 Stairway Press(January 21, 2014)

--

The October, 2014 email was leaked to journalists before the documentary was released. “Can I sue for damages?” Singer asked in the email. “Can we get an injunction against the documentary?”

InsideClimate News reports in their article “Leaked Email Reveals Who's Who List of Climate Denialists,” how “Many of those copied on the email thread, such as Singer and communications specialist Steven Milloy, have financial ties to the tobacco, chemical, and oil and gas industries and have worked to defend them since the 1990s.”[11]

InsideClimate News also documented all those who were cc'd on the email, including the following skeptics and groups:

DeSmogBlog covered the emails here: “Merchants of Doubt Film Debuts, Textbook Denial Attack Campaign Led By Fred Singer Ensues” and DeSmogBlog also archived a full copy of the Singer email thread (PDF).

==

ajpromo conects to ball how? also cda is he a spkr for them?

John O'Sullivan is also editor-at-large of National Review where he served as editor-in-chief for almost a decade until 1998. He has been a regular center-page columnist for the (London) Daily Telegraph, the (London) Times, the (London) Independent, the Toronto Sun, the (Canadian) National Post, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and The Australian. O'Sullivan is also the former Executive Editor of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague and a Vice-President of the RFERL Corporation.

Author/Broadcaster

melissa@ajpromos.com?

===

bs blog

5) The BBC Is Scared Of Nigel Lawson – And It’s Right To Be

The Spectator, 12 July 2014

It is only a matter of time before Nigel Lawson — if he is allowed on the BBC at all — has to have his words spoken by an actor in the manner of Gerry Adams at the height of the IRA’s bombing campaign during the 1980s. In the case of Mr Adams, whose voice was banned from the airwaves by the government, the BBC stood up for free speech. But it is quite a different story with Lord Lawson.

The BBC has effectively banned the former chancellor (and former editor of this magazine) from appearing on its programmes to debate climate change, unless he is introduced with a statement discrediting his views.

The BBC’s Editorial Complaints Department this week ruled that the Todayprogramme broke BBC guidelines in February by inviting Lord Lawson to a debate with Sir Brian Hoskins, chairman of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change. It bizarrely claimed that his views are ‘not supported by the evidence’ — though he had pointed out, correctly, that the planet has not been warming for the past 17 years. Nevertheless, the BBC politburo warned, listeners should have been warned that Lord Lawson is in a minority and, therefore, his words ‘should not be regarded as carrying equal weight to those of experts such as Sir Brian Hoskins’.

Lord Lawson is, of course, not a scientist. But a great many people speak on the BBC on subjects in which they do not have any formal qualifications: Al Gore, for example. Or Rajendra Pachauri, a railway engineer by training, who now runs the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Neither does the BBC seem to be worried about non-scientists addressing scientific issues when it comes to such things as fracking or GM crops, on which any green activists are welcome to speak, however bizarre their scaremongering theories.

What Lord Lawson is, however, is chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a think-tank that has no quarrel with the idea of global warming. Its aim is to appeal to reason, and to engage in mature argument rather than hysteria. Lord Lawson is advised by scientists who until recently included LennartBengtsson, a research fellow at the University of Reading. Professor Bengtsson was hounded off the GWPF board by his fellow scientists.

When people try to close down debate rather than engage with it, there is a pretty clear conclusion to be drawn: they lack confidence in their own case. The suppression of debate was shown again this week when Vladimir Semonov, a climate scientist at the Geomar Institute in Kiel, Germany, revealed that a paper he wrote in 2009 questioning the accuracy of climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was effectively censored by the scientist to whom it was sent for review. Their reasons for demanding passages be removed seems rather less than scientifically rigorous: one wrote that the offending material would ‘lead to unnecessary confusion in the climate science community’ and another said that ‘this entire discussion has to disappear’.

The process of peer review used in the scientific press is often held up as a mark of quality, which enables poorly conducted scientific research to be weeded out before it reaches the eyes of readers less qualified to judge the rigour of the work. This may to some extent be true, even if peer review failed to spot weaknesses in the now discredited Fleischmann-Pons cold fusion experiments of 1989 or stop the MMR scare.

But the peer review process is also open to abuse. Just as the social sciences became infected by political correctness 20 years ago, climate science has become governed by climatic correctness. To question the consensus that the world is facing fire and tempest as a result of anthropogenic global warming is, in the eyes of some working in the field, simply not allowable. That is something which was revealed in the Climategate scandal of 2009 when leaked emails from the University of East Anglia caught out scientists who had been withholding data, trying to keep rivals’ papers out of journals and in one case threatening violence against a sceptical scientist.

The BBC at first declined to go into the content of the emails, preferring to treat the story as a case of data theft. The fact that the emails contained material of extreme public interest seemed to count for nothing. The unknown individuals who leaked the emails can only dream of the hero worship afforded to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange; attitudes on the left towards release of information seem to swing dramatically depending on what information is being released.

The same is true of the BBC’s attitude towards balanced debate — something which is supposed to be guaranteed by its charter. The BBC has decided that it is allowable to debate such issues as whether benefit cuts are causing distress or whether sports-women are being discriminated against by male-dominated bastions — something the Todayprogramme does virtually every morning. But dare to question whether it is wise for the country to embark on the economic experiment of abandoning fossil fuel on the back of some far-from-robust scientific models, and you will have to find another media outlet.

6) Climate Extremism & The Chilling Effect On Free Speech

:{Spiked,:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{ 6 October 2006:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:

Brendan O’Neill

Whoever thought that serious commentators would want it made illegal to have a row about the weather? One Australian columnist has proposed outlawing ‘climate change denial’. ‘David Irving is under arrest in Austria for Holocaust denial’, she wrote. ‘Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.’ (1) Others have suggested that climate change deniers should be put on trial in the future, Nuremberg-style, and made to account for their attempts to cover up the ‘global warming…Holocaust’ (2).

The message is clear: climate change deniers are scum. Their words are so wicked and dangerous that they must be silenced, or criminalised, or forced beyond the pale alongside those other crackpots who claim there was no Nazi Holocaust against the Jews. Perhaps climate change deniers should even be killed off, hanged like those evil men who were tried Nuremberg-style the first time around.

Whatever the truth about our warming planet, it is clear there is a tidal wave of intolerance in the debate about climate change which is eroding free speech and melting rational debate. There has been no decree from on high or piece of legislation outlawing climate change denial, and indeed there is no need to criminalise it, as the Australian columnist suggests. Because in recent months it has been turned into a taboo, chased out of polite society by a wink and a nod, letters of complaint, newspaper articles continually comparing climate change denial to Holocaust denial.

An attitude of ‘You can’t say that!’ now surrounds debates about climate change, which in many ways is more powerful and pernicious than an outright ban. I am not a scientist or an expert on climate change, but I know what I don’t like – and this demonisation of certain words and ideas is an affront to freedom of speech and open, rational debate.

The loaded term itself – ‘climate change denier’ – is used to mark out certain people as immoral, untrustworthy. According to Richard D North, author most recently of Rich is Beautiful: A Very Personal Defence of Mass Affluence: ‘It is deeply pejorative to call someone a “climate change denier”…it is a phrase designedly reminiscent of the idea of Holocaust denial – the label applied to those misguided or wicked people who believe, or claim to believe, the Nazis did not annihilate the Jews, and others, in very great numbers.’ (3)

People of various views and hues tend to get lumped together under the umbrella put-down ‘climate change denier’ – from those who argue the planet is getting hotter but we will be able to deal with it, to those who claim the planet is unlikely to get much hotter at all (4). On Google there are now over 80,000 search returns, and counting, for the phrase climate change denial.

Others take the tactic of openly labelling climate change deniers as cranks, possibly even people who might need their heads checked. In a speech last month, in which he said people ‘should be scared’ about global warming,UK environment secretary David Miliband said ‘those who deny [climate change] are the flat-earthers of the twenty-first century’ (5). Taking a similar tack, former US vice president-turned-green-warrior Al Gore recently declared: ‘Fifteen per cent of the population believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona and somewhat fewer still believe the Earth is flat. I think they all get together with the global warming deniers on a Saturday night and party.’ (6)

It is not only environmentalist activists and green-leaning writers who are seeking to silence climate change deniers/sceptics/critics/whatever you prefer. Last month the Royal Society – Britain’s premier scientific academy founded in 1660, whose members have included some of the greatest scientists – wrote a letter to ExxonMobil demanding that the oil giant cut off its funding to groups that have ‘misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence’.

It was the first time the Royal Society had ever written to a company complaining about its activities. The letter had something of a hectoring, intolerant tone: ‘At our meeting in July…you indicated that ExxonMobil would not be providing any further funding to these organisations. I would be grateful if you could let me know when ExxonMobil plans to carry out this pledge.’ (7)

One could be forgiven for asking what business it is of the Royal Society to tell ExxonMobil whom it can and cannot support – just as we might balk if ExxonMobil tried to tell the Royal Society what to do. The Society claims it is merely defending a ‘scientific consensus…the evidence’ against ExxonMobil’s duplicitous attempts to play down global warming for its own oily self-interest. Yet some scientists have attacked the idea that there can ever be untouchable cast-iron scientific facts, which should be immune from debate or protected from oil-moneyed think-tanks.

An open letter to the Society – signed by Tim Ball, a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg, and others – argues that ‘scientific inquiry is unique because it requires falsifiability’: ‘The beauty of science is that no issue is ever “settled”, that no question is beyond being more fully understood, that no conclusion is immune to further experimentation. And yet for the first time in history, the Royal Society is shamelessly using the media to say emphatically: “case closed” on all issues related to climate change.’

Or as Charles Jones, an emeritus English professor at the University of Edinburgh, put it in a letter to a publication that recently lambasted climate change deniers, ‘[W]e are left with the feeling that [climate change] is a scientific model which is unfalsifiable and which has not been – and indeed cannot be – the subject of any theoretical counter-proposals whatsoever. As such, it must surely be unique in the history of science. Even a powerful model such as Relativity Theory has been the object of scientific debate and emendation.’ (8)

For all the talk of simply preserving the facts against climate change deniers, there is increasingly a pernicious moralism and authoritarianism in the attempts to silence certain individuals and groups. This is clear from the use of the term ‘climate change denier’, which, as Charles Jones argued, is an attempt to assign any ‘doubters’ with ‘the same moral repugnance one associates with Holocaust denial’ (9).

The Guardian columnist George Monbiot recently celebrated the ‘recanting’ of both the tabloid Sun and the business bible The Economist on the issue of global warming. (‘Recant’ – an interesting choice of word. According to my OED it means ‘To withdraw, retract or renounce a statement, opinion or belief as erroneous, andesp. with formal or public confession of error in matters of religion.’ Recanting is often what those accused before the Spanish Inquisition did to save their hides.) Pleased by the Sun and The Economist’s turnaround, Monbiot wrote: ‘Almost everywhere, climate change denial now looks as stupid and as unacceptable as Holocaust denial.’ (10)

Earlier this year, when a correspondent for the American current affairs show 60 Minutes was asked why his various feature programmes on global warming did not include the views of global warming sceptics, he replied: ‘If I do an interview with Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?’ Here, climate change deniers are explicitly painted as the bad guys. He also argued that, ‘This isn’t about politics…this is about sound science’, and went so far as to claim that it would be problematic even to air the views of climate change sceptics: ‘There comes a point in journalism where striving for balance becomes irresponsible.’

Some take the moral equivalence between climate change denial and Holocaust denial to its logical conclusion. They argue that climate change deniers are actually complicit in a future Holocaust – the global warming Holocaust – and thus will have to be brought to trial in the future. Green author and columnist Mark Lynas writes: ‘I wonder what sentences judges might hand down at future international criminal tribunals on those who will be partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths from starvation, famine and disease in decades ahead. I put [their climate change denial] in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial – except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.’ (11)

Full essay

==

==

bs OMFG

Written by Hans Schreuder & John O'Sullivan on 17 Feb 2014

In this mind-blowing book 'The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science;' one of the world’s leading sceptic climatologists,Tim Ball,presents us with the evidence as to why the UN IPCC is nothing more and nothing less than a politically contrived organisation. This is the book Ball has been eager to publish the moment he was free of the censorious legal shackles imposed upon him three years ago when Penn. State University’s Michael Mann (‘hockey stick’ graph fraud) filed a libel suit against him in Canada..[mann won?]

Here, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the supposed world authority on matters of climate, is demonstrated to be a tight-knit and politicized advocacy group –a “cabal” as Ball calls them, that has cost the world multi-billions of dollars for no result whatsoever. Today we may see for ourselves why Ball correctly adjudged that Mann (and others) should be in “the state pen, not Penn. State.”

The book leaves no stone unturned when it comes to identifying the serious damage to climate science – and government-funded science in general - that the University of East Anglia's Climate Change Unit (CRU) has brought upon the entire issue of so-called man-made climate change. The damage the UN’s 30-year “green agenda” has done to modern industrial progress cannot be underestimated, says Ball. Much of the science is fudged, if not outright faked.

In an interview with Radio America’s Greg Corombos about the new book, Dr Balltells his audience that today’s anti-industrialists are the latest incarnation of a misguided cause that goes back to the 19th century writings of Thomas Malthus. Malthus argued that the human population was fast outgrowing nature’s capacity to sustain it. Malthus therefore advocated population control to ward off mass disease and starvation.

“If you can shut off the flow of fossil fuels, that will stop the engine of those industrialized nations, but people would scream immediately if that happened,” explains the mild-mannered expert. “But if you could show that the by-product of the combustion of that fossil fuel, carbon dioxide, was causing runaway global warming and climate change, then you could use that for a vehicle to introduce legislation to shut down those industrialized nations.”

Concisely and eruditely set out, this impressive volume details why policy makers should immediately stop funding the UN’s IPCC and disband all climate -related institutions that rely on a trove of “secret science” that forms the backbone of UN IPCC alarmism.

Tim Ball explains all the steps that have led to the situation we still find ourselves in today, despite all the abject failings of all predictions and/or scenarios concocted by doom saying errant computer models. Shadowy figures behind the scenes such as billionaire Maurice Strong, are openly identified in the book and one can only hope that for their misdeeds the fraudsters will be called to account.

The undertone throughout is that sceptic scientists have long been rebuffed by the presiding UN climate cabal that refuses to enter into public debate. And it is no surprise the doomsayers are shy of open debate -  much of their supposed evidence for global warming is either kept hidden or premised on the failed predictions (or, as the IPCC lamely calls them, "projections") of junk models. In fact, Dr Ball demonstrates there is no openly verifiable proof showing human-made carbon dioxide measurably altering climate, let alone ”catastrophically,” as is all too often claimed.

The courage and forthrightness Tim Ball has shown with this book, and in the British Columbia Supreme Court defending himself against the now failed libel suit of Michael Mann, is about to be vindicated by the judiciary. As the scientific community awaits Ball’s impeding legal triumph, we may edify ourselves not just with the black and white evidence presented in this extraordinary publication, but in the certain knowledge that Mann and his co-conspirators have spectacularly failed in their bid to silence dissent against their fraudulent science.

Mann’s abortive attempt to sue Ball in the British Columbia Supreme Court ultimately back-fired because Mann refused to show his metadata, his calculations for his junk science, in open court. Now Mann faces possible bankruptcy on top of professional suicide, as the price for his misdeeds.

Reviewing in detail the Climategate scandal with reference to the leaked emails, Mann and his fellow scammers are now shown in Ball’s book to have conspired to build the lie that therelatively miniscule human emissions of a trace and beneficial gas, carbon dioxide, will catastrophically alter the world's climate.

Ball was the underdog made into the accidental hero of the climate wars story.He helped pave the way towards a new open platform for principled scientists on the Internet so that independent, unpaid researchers debunking the so-called 'greenhouse gas theory', the cornerstone of the pseudo-science of all global warming alarmism are finally being heard. Today, more scientists are coming to the realisation that the only effect that atmospheric carbon dioxide can have is one of increased cooling - never any warming- and, at laat, the journey back to empiricism is under way.

For his efforts Dr Ball will be regarded as the climatologist who was at the forefront of the paradigm shift away from the post-normalism that poisoned much government science in recent generations.Ball stood beside those who championed the traditional scientific method out to prove thatan innocent - and life-giving – gas (carbon dioxide) cannot precipitate a “man-made” climate disaster. This important new book needs to be compulsory reading for all policymakers so as to bring an end to the ongoing waste of government funds tackling a non-existent threat.

==

iccc2

Tim Ball

Day Job: Author,The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science, and public speaker. A former geography professor at the University of Winnipeg, he calls himself a former climatology professor.

Industry Ties: Heartland Institute; Frontier Centre for Public Policy; Friends of Science (FoS).

Fox News guest: Was featured on "Exposed: The Climate of Fear," a special Glenn Beck Program in 2007.

Climate Expertise: Has published a total of four papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and on the historical climate in Canada. He has repeatedly misstated his credentials.

He said it: "What's wrong with global warming? There are lots of positive benefits to global warming."

==

Affidavits filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court libel litigation brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against climate science denier Timothy Ball reveal that Ball's collaborator and self-styled “legal advisor” has misrepresented his credentials and endured some significant legal embarrassments of his own. 

The affidavits also reveal that Tim Ball was “aware of the charges against John O'Sullivan almost from the start” and has tried to distance himself from his erstwhile advisor and writing partner.

:{The affidavits :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[1:{, }:2:{] come from research of science and medical writer Andrew Skolnick, who documents O'Sullivan's misrepresentations, backtracking and questionable behavior.}:

:{

Tim Ball and John O'Sullivan had a close working relationship, even before Mann sued Ballfor libel in March 2011. For example, they co-authored the climate science denial book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, which was published in 2010.}:

Skolnick's evidence shows that O'Sullivan made a series of false claims, including:

Read more: Affidavits in Michael Mann Libel Suit Reveal Astonishing Facts About Tim Ball Associate John O'Sullivan

===

repeatedly sued succesfully for slander?

===

http://www.:{desmogblog.:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:com/timothy-f-ball-tim-ball

Source: [1]

 Background

Tin Ball was a professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg from 1988 to 1996.He is a prolific speaker and writer in the skeptical science community.

He has been Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the now-defunct Natural Resources Stewardship Project (:{NRSP:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:), “scientific advisor” to the Exxon-funded :{Friends of Science (FoS:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{):(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:, and is associated with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (:{FCPP:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:) as well as numerous other think tanks and right-wing organizations.

The NRSP's list of “scientific advisors” includes Tim Patterson, Tad Murty and Sallie Baliunas, all of which are also listed as advisors to the FOS. 

DeSmog uncovered that two of the three directors on the board of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project were at one time senior executives of the High Park Advocacy Group, a Toronto-based lobby firm that specializes in “energy, environment and ethics.”

Stance on Climate Change

“What's wrong with global warming? There are lots of positive benefits to global warming.” [2]

Key Quotes

“CFC's were never a problem… . it's only because the sun is changing.” [2]

Key Deeds

Ongoing

Ball and the organizations he is affiliated with have repeatedly made the claim that he is the “first Canadian PhD in climatology.” Ball himself claimed he was “one of the first climatology PhD's in the world.” [3], [4]

Many have pointed out that there have been numerous PhD's in the field prior to Ball.[5]

Ball was a former professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg from 1988 to 1996. The University of Winnipeg never had an office of Climatology. His degree was in historical geography and not climatology.

June 30 - July 1, 2011

Ball was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's 6th International Conference on Climate Change. [6]

March 25, 2011

Dr. Michael Mann sued Tim Ball and the Frontier Center For Public Policy for libel. The lawsuit arose from an interview with Ball that was posted on the Frontier Center website.

In the interview, Ball responds to an anonymous questioner regarding the “Climategate” scandal by saying “Michael Mann at Penn State should be in the State Pen, not Penn State.”

Feb 2, 2011

Andrew Weaver, a University of Victoria Professor and Canada Research Chair in Climate Modeling and Analysis, filed suit for libel against Tim Ball.

The suit arose from an article Ball wrote for Canada Free Press which accused Weaver of being uninformed about climate and unqualified to teach.

October, 2009

Ball :{appeared as a “climatologist” in a documentary produced by :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Alex Jones:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}: titled The Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack H. Obama.[7]

March, 2008

Ball was a speaker at the Heartland Institute's First International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC1). [8]

March 8, 2007

Tim Ball made a prominent appearance on the Great Global Warming Swindle, appearing as an “eminent scientist.” [9]

Nov 10, 2007

In a 2007 :{FCPP:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}: special report, Tim Ball and Tom Harris criticized The Fifth Estate's broadcast of The Denial Machine, describing it as “docu-ganda.”  Ball claimed that he was filmed without his consent.

Ball also asserted that The Denial Machine violated CBC's “Journalistic Standards and Practices.” He further accused the CBC of misrepresenting the credentials of skeptical scientists. [10]

He goes on to criticize James Hoggan, and more specifically CBC, for not disclosing Hoggan's connection to the David Suzuki Foundation (something Mr. Hoggan has made no attempt to hide). 

Sept 1, 2006

On September 1st, Ball launched a libel suit against Dr. Dan Johnson and theCalgary Herald over a letter the paper ran on April 23, 2006. Johnson is a Professor of Environmental Science at the University of Lethbridge.

Ball had written an article that attacked the qualifications of renowned climate change author Tim Flannery, in which the Heralddescribed Ball as “the first climatology PhD in Canada and … a professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg for 28 years.”

Johnson's letter to the editor challenged those details, noting that when Ball received his PhD (in Geography) in 1983, “Canada already had PhDs in climatology and it is important to recognize them and their research.” Johnson also pointed out that Ball had been a professor for a much shorter time (Ball later admitted eight years), during which Ball did “not show any evidence of research regarding climate and atmosphere.”

The *Calgary Herald*'s Statement of Defence, filed with the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, dismissed Ball’s credibility saying that “The Plantiff (Dr. Ball) is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.”

Ball subsequently dropped his lawsuit.

 Affiliations

 Publications

A search of 22,000 academic journals shows that over the course of his career Ball published four pieces of original research in peer-reviewed journals on the subject of climate change.

According to Google Scholar, his most recent peer-reviewed article on climate change was published in 1986, titled “Historical evidence and climatic implications of a shift in the boreal forest tundra transition in central Canada.”

Other Publications:

Journal Background: In a 1995 article written by Paul Thacker, Energy and Environmentwas described as being a journal skeptics can go to when they are rejected by the mainstream peer-reviewed science publications.

Tim Ball is a prolific writer of newspaper articles, opinion pieces, and letters to the editor questioning the existence of climate change. 

Ball is also the lead author of *Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory*, a book slated for publication in 2011. Slaying the Sky Dragon is described as a “comprehensive refutation of the greenhouse gas theory (GHG).”

 Resources

  1. “:{Frontier :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}::{Research Fellows:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:,” Frontier Center for Public Policy. Accessed November 20, 2011.
  2. “Climate of controversy,” Ottawa Citizen, May 18, 2006.

Archived with WebCite, February 29, 2012.

  1. “About Us: Scientific Advisory Board,” Friends of Science. Archived July 7, 2008.
  2. “Dear Mr. Martin,” Letter from Tim Ball to M.P. Paul Martin. Retrieved February, 2012, from John-Daly.com. Archived February 29, 2012, with WebCite.
  3. Tim Lambert. “Dear Tim Ball: sue me,”Deltoid, June 23, 2006.
  4. “Timothy Ball: 6th International Conference on Climate Change,” the Heartland Institute.
  5. *Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack H. Obama*, Alex Jones Productions, October 21, 2009. Archived video at the Internet Archive.
  6. “Timothy Ball: 6th International Conference on Climate Change,” the Heartland Institute.
  7. Judi McLeod. “Climatologist Tim Ball's star on the rise,” Canada Free Press, March 6, 2007.
  8. Tim Ball and Tom Harris. “CBC’s continuing denial of the climate science debate” (:{PDF:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:), Frontier Center for Public Policy, November 10, 2007.
  9. “About Us: Scientific Advisory Board,” Friends of Science. Archived July 7, 2008.
  10. “Natural Resources Stewardship Project,” SourceWatch.
  11. “New Canadian Astroturf Group,” Deltoid, October 13, 2006.
  12. “Tim Ball” SourceWatch profile.
  13. “Heartland Experts: Timothy Ball,” The Heartland Institute.
  14. “Who We Are,” International Climate Science Coalition. Accessed November 20, 2011.
  15. “Dr. Tim Ball,” Tech Central Station. Archived April 11, 2005.
  16. “:{NRSP:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px"):}:: Not Really Science People,” DeSmogBlog, October 17, 2006.
  17. :{ExxonSecrets:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}::{ Factsheet: Tim Ball, PhD:(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:.

==

http://www.:{sourcewatch:(style="background-color:#ffff66;"):}:.org/index.php/Tim_Ball

Dr. Timothy Ball is Chairman and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP).[1]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-NRSP_Ball-0) Two of the three directors of the NRSP - Timothy Egan and Julio Lagos - are executives with the PR and lobbying company, the High Park Group (HPG).[2]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-1) Both HPG and Egan and Lagos work for energy industry clients and companies on energy policy.[3]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-2)

Ball is a Canadian climate change skeptic and was previously a "scientific advisor" to the oil industry-backed organization, Friends of Science.[4]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-3) Ball is a member of the Board of Research Advisors of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a Canadian free-market think tank which is predominantly funded by foundations and corporations.[5]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-FCCP-4)

Ball is also a writer for Tech Central Station.[6]

Contents

Profiles

NRSP

"Dr. Ball is a renowned environmental consultant and former [retired] professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg. Dr. Ball has served on many local and national committees and as Chair of Provincial boards on water management, environmental issues and sustainable development. Dr. Ball has given over 600 public talks over the last decade on science and the environment. He is the co-author of the book Eighteenth Century Naturalists of Hudson Bay (2004 - McGill/Queens University Press) with Dr. Stuart Houston, one of the World's leading authorities on arctic birds," his NRSP biographical note states."[1]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-NRSP_Ball-0)

However, more correctly, Dr. Ball was a former professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg between 1988 to 1996. The University of Winnipeg never had a climatology department.[7]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-6)

Frontier Centre for Public Policy

The following comes from an October 20, 2006, byline profile by the Frontier Centre for Tim Ball[5]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-FCCP-4):

"Tim Ball has an extensive science background in climatology, especially the reconstruction of past climates and the impact of:{climate change:(style="background-color:#fff200"):}: on human historyand the human condition with additional experience in water resources and areas of sustainable development, pollution prevention, environmental regulations, the impact of government policy on business and economics. He is a regular contributing writer for Country Guide Magazine and a researcher/author of numerous papers on climate, long range weather patterns, impacts of climate change on sustainable agriculture, ecosystems, historical climatology, air quality, untapped energy resources, silting and flooding problems. He had a long academic career at the University of Winnipeg until he moved to Victoria in 1996. He has a BA from the University of Winnipeg, an MA from the University of Manitoba and a PH.D (Doctor of Science) from the University of London England."

Climate change

Ball has has even argued that climate change and global warming would be good for us. "A warmer Canada would improve our lives in these and other ways too numerous to list. Global warming? Let's hope so," he wrote in June 2006.[8]

In January 2007 in a column on the Canadian website, Straight.com, Mitchell Anderson wrote of Ball that "Over the past five years, he has published no less than 39 opinion pieces and 32 letters to the editor in 24 Canadian newspapers. Fifty of these pieces ran in papers owned by CanWest MediaWorks. These efforts totalled an incredible 44,500 words."[9]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-Trust_Us-8)

Among his unorthodox views, published as recently as last month in the Calgary Sun:

Lawsuit

In September 2006, Ball filed a lawsuit against The Calgary Herald, a division of CanWest MediaWorks, specifically naming four of its staff, as well as Dr. Dan Johnson, a professor of environmental science at the Department of Geography at the Universityof Lethbridge and the Board of Governors of the University of Lethbridge. Ball's suit is over the publication of a letter to the editor published in April 2006 by Johnson responding to an opinion column by Ball. In his statement of claim, Ball objects to Johnson's letter in which statements about his academic recordwere disputed. Ball's claim seeks $250,000 in damages, special damages for loss of future income and punitive damages of $75,000.[10]

Johnson has filed an 18-page statement of defence denying "each and every allegation of fact and law" made by Ball.[10]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-BallvsJohnson-9)

In the face of this and an even-more strident Statement of Defence by the Calgary HeraldConrad Black?!} (“The Plantiff (Dr. Ball) is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.”), Ball withdrew the suit in June 2007.[[10]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-BallvsJohnson-9)

CFC's

In 2006 Ball has also questioned the science behind CFC's and the Ozone layer. Ball claimed that "CFC's were never a problem.... it's only because the sun is changing".[11]^(http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Tim_Ball#cite_note-10)

Originally published on DeSmogBlog, co-authored by Richard Littlemore.

Affidavits filed in the British Columbia Supreme Court libel litigation brought by climate scientist Michael Mann against climate science denier Timothy Ball reveal that Ball's collaborator and self-styled "legal advisor" has misrepresented his credentials and endured some significant legal embarrassments of his own. 

The affidavits also reveal that Tim Ball was "aware of the charges against John O'Sullivanalmost from the start" and has tried to distance himself from his erstwhile advisor and writing partner.

The affidavits [1, 2] come from research of science and medical writer Andrew Skolnick, who documents O'Sullivan's misrepresentations, backtracking and questionable behavior.

Tim Ball and John O'Sullivan had a close working relationship, even before Mann sued Ballfor libel in March 2011. For example, they co-authored the climate science denial book Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, which was published in 2010.

Skolnick's evidence shows that O'Sullivan made a series of false claims, including:

One affidavit includes an online comment in which O'Sullivan says, "For your information, I am a retired academic and I have litigated personally or assisted others in pro se litigation at every level of court there is in New York State as well as Federal level, for over a decade and never lost." 

Although O'Sullivan admits in this particular comment that he is not, in fact, licensed to practice law, in the U.S. or the U.K., he adds, "I'm just some Brit with a brain who can go live with his American wife in her country and kick ass big time around a courtroom."

Certainly, O'Sullivan was successful in winning an acquittal when he was personally charged in England as a high school teacher accused of sending lewd text messages and assaulting a 16-year-old female. Given the acquittal, it would not generally be appropriate to bring up this sordid and unproven bit of history, except that O'Sullivan himself went on to write an "erotic" "novel" with a startlingly similar storyline: Vanilla Girl: a Fact-Based Crime Story of a Teacher's Struggle to Control His Erotic Obsession with a Schoolgirl.

Although eager to present himself as a science researcher of accomplishment -- certainly Tim Ball's equal -- Skolnick's research found that O'Sullivan is highly prone to error, whether intentional or not.

For example, O'Sullivan provided bogus contact information when registering as an 'associate' with the New York County Lawyers' Association, an organization that apparently does not vet its members' qualifications (and does not, in any case, bestow the right to practic law). While O'Sullivan claimed to be with a firm named "Principia Scientific International," he provided the address of a construction company called Second Nature Construction; the phone number and fax number didn't belong to O'Sullivan or anyone connected to "Principia," either.

Principia certainly exists in some form. According to its website, O'Sullivan is its CEO, and Tim Ball is Chairman. Other members include climate deniers Paul Driessen, Paul Reiter and more. Principia notes that it operates as a "private association rather than a charitable foundation. This is because PSI chooses to operate with the relative freedom of any start up association that has yet to determine whether it may fulfil its long term purpose as either a business with the private profit motive or a charity."

This information emerged, and became relevant to this most recent libel action against Tim Ball, in part because Ball himself, in his Response to Civil Claim, stated that his communications with O'Sullivan were subject to solicitor-client privilege.

Mann then filed a reply, pointing out the facts documented in Skolnick's affidavits. As Mann's lawsuit proceeds, the court will inevitably rule on Ball's claim for "solicitor-client" privilege.

In the meantime, Ball has not submitted any affidavit from O'Sullivan attesting to his qualifications as Ball's legal advisor. If he did, O'Sullivan would be subject to cross-examination by Michael Mann's lawyer.

Paul Reiter

 Credentials

 Background

Paul Reiter is a researcher with a private research foundation called the Institut Pastuer in Paris, France and is the chief of their "Infectious Disease Unit.". [2]

He has worked for the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization and other agencies in investigations of outbreaks of mosquito-borne diseases, as well as of AIDS and Ebola haemorrhagic fever and onchocerciasis. [1]

Reiter's name appears on Senator James Inhofe's List of "prominent scientists" who deny man-made global warming. A website debunking the list describes Reiter as one of 84 "scientists" who have taken industry money.

Stance on Climate Change

"Look at climate change: The public hears again and again that there is scientific consensus, that it's happening now and that we are on the brink of disaster. This is nonsense." [3]

Key Quotes

"I am not a climatologist, nor an expert on sea level or polar ice. But I do know from talking to many scientists in many disciplines that this 'consensus' is a mirage. Every discipline has many critical, unanswered questions and many dangerous distortions." [4]

Key Deeds

March, 2009

Reiter presented at the Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change on "The EDEN Project: Emerging Diseases in a Changing European Environment."  Reiter argued that there will be no correlation between increases in malaria due to global warming, or of other pests and harmful organisms. [5]

See video of his presentation here.

Heartland's conference has been described as "a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory that global warming is a crisis." Sponsors for the 2009 conference received over $47 million from oil companies and right-wing foundations such as Koch Foundations and Scaife Foundations.

March 8, 2007

Reiter appeared in the *Great Global Warming Swindle* documentary.

The program featured numerous prominent climate change skeptics such as Tim Ball,Nir Shaviv, Nigel Lawson,Ian Clark, Piers Corbyn, John Christy, Pilip Stott, Richard Lindzen, Patrick Moore, Patrick Michaels, Nigel Calder, Syun-Ichi Akasofu, Fred Singer, Roy Spencer, and Paul Driessen.

April, 2006

Reiter was a signatory of a 2006 open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper titled "Open Kyoto to Debate" which denied the existence of man-made global warming and encouraged inaction on climate policy.

March, 2005

Reiter has been critical of the IPCC and their Summary for Policymakers. He commentedon the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, pointing to their Working Group II, Chapter 18, Human Population Health, saying that "the treatment of this issue [malaria] by the IPCC was ill-informed, biased, and scientifically unacceptable." [6]

According to Reiter, he was also a contributor to the IPCC's assessment report, but after finding himself "at loggerheads" with other experts, he resigned and asked that his name be removed from the document.

Reiter has described himselfas a "Lead Author of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change."  According to the United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), Reiter was on the "Sector Assessment Team" for the project. [7]

May 3, 2004

Reiter was a speaker at a Cooler Heads Coalition (CHC) Congressional and Media Breifing on "The Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong."

Other speakers included climate change skeptics Nils-Axel Morner, Madhav L. Khandekar, and Patrick Michaels. [8]

 Affiliations

 Publications

According to a search of 22,000 academic journals Reiter has published over 30 pieces of original research in peer-reviewed journals mainly on the subject of infectious disease, with some work on the relationship between disease and climate change.

 Resources

  1. "Bitten by the IPCC," National Post, March 23, 2007.
  2. "Cours Arthropodes Vecteurs et Santé Humaine," Institut Pasteur. Accessed February, 2012.
  3. Paul Reiter. "Dangers of Disinformation," International Herald Tribune, January 11, 2007. Republished by the International Policy Network.
  4. Paul Reiter. "Disinformation is dangerous – and often deadly," International Herald Tribune, January 11, 2007. Republished by Eco-Imperialism.com.
  5. "2009 International Conference on Climate Change," The Heartland Institute, February 1, 2009. Republished by Instituto Liberdade.
  6. "THE IPCC AND TECHNICAL INFORMATION. EXAMPLE: IMPACTS ON HUMAN HEALTH," Memorandum by Professor Paul Reiter, Institut Pasteur; Paris, March 31, 2005. Retrieved from http://www.parliament.uk, February 9, 2012.
  7. Professor Paul Reiter. "Malaria in the debate on climate change and mosquito-borne disease" (PDF), U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, April 25, 2006.
  8. "Impacts of Global Warming: Why the Alarmist View is Wrong," GlobalWarming.org, May 2, 2004. Archived January 1, 2008.
  9. "Science and Economic Advisory Council," The Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy. Archived March 16, 2009.
  10. "Paul Reiter," Profile at Tech Central Station. Archived March 26, 2007.
  11. "Heartland Experts: Paul Reiter," The Heartland Institute. Accessed February, 2012.
  12. "Paul Reiter," Wikipedia Entry.
  13. ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Paul Reiter.
  14. "Deniers:Scientists:Paul Reiter," ExxonSecrets Wiki.

desmog

Sun, 2013-03-10 16:25Graham Readfearn

Graham Readfearn'

Climate Denial Industry Hits Courts And Hollywood As Threats Fly

THE climate science denial industry doesn't like Penn State University's Professor Michael Mann very much.

Mann is the scientist behind the famous “hockey stick” graph that first appeared in the journal Nature [1] in 1998. Mann and two other scientists Professor Raymond Bradley and Professor Malcolm Hughes had reconstructed temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere from the year 1400 to present day using data mainly from tree rings, ice cores and modern temperature readings.

The following year, the same three scientists extended their study to reconstruct 1000 years of temperatures and published this in the journal Geophysical Research Letters [2]. Each time the team plotted their data on graphs and each time the plots showed what is the now famous “hockey stick” shape with a sharp uptick in temperatures towards the end of the century.

What really got the ire of the climate science denial industry and its cheerleaders was that this second study showed that modern day temperatures were likely hotter than they had been in the so-called Medieval Warm Period. This negated a key argument from sceptics - which they continue with today - that it's been warmer in the recent past before the industrial revolution caused the westernised world to fall in love with fossil fuels.

Incidentally, it was never a very convincing argument anyway. Even if it was warmer in the past, it doesn't challenge the multiple lines of evidence which point to burning fossil fuels and deforestation as the main cause of the rapid warming, ocean acidification and sea level rises we see now.

But anyway, enough of the climate science history lesson. Back to Michael Mann.

Soon after his work was published (it also appeared as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report) he started to come under attack. He was accused of being fraudulent and of carrying out dodgy science. When a bunch of his emails were found among files hacked from the UK's Climate Research Research Unit, his words like those of other scientists were cherry-picked and taken out of context in a further attempt to discredit.

In 2011, the US National Science Foundation conducted an inquiry into the many allegations against Mann and found no wrongdoing [3] and praised him as one of the most respected scientists in his field. Several inquiries into the leaked “climategate” emails also cleared the scientists, including Mann, of wrongdoing. Despite the exonerations, the attacks continued.

For many years, Mann - who recounts his experiences in a book “Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars [4]” - chose to defend himself in the court of public opinion but has now started to fight in the courts of law too.

In March 2011, Mann launched a defamation action [5] against climate sceptic Dr Tim Ball,who had answered a question about whether  scientists had committed “fraud” by saying that Mann should be in a jail. The writ includes the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, which published the comments on its website. Mann is also suing over a separate story [STEYN and CEI guy bailled?] which claimed he had committed scientific fraud and compared him to a child molester (read the full complaint here [6]). Mann has also been pursued himself through the courts.  

In a case dragged out over two years [7], Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccineli tried to force the release of Mann's emails from his time at the University of Virginia. Cuccineli is regarded by some as one of the United State's highest profile climate science deniers [8]. The case was thrown out.

The American Tradition Institute[9] has also pursued Mann's University of Virginia inbox and files [10] through court action. An investigation into the roots of the ATI [11] found it was “largely bankrolled” by individuals or businesses with an interest in fossil fuels.

This whole affair brings us to Australia and Lord Christopher Monckton, the British hereditary peer and climate science denier currently on a country-wide tour. Monckton also features as one of the “bastards [12]” in Greedy Lying Bastards [13] - a new documentary about the climate science denial industry which has just premiered in Hollywood. Michael Mann is one of the documentary's “heroes [14]”, alongside DeSmogBlog founder Jim Hoggan.

Lord Monckton claimed on March 1 that Mann “gave up the case [15]” against Ball, neglecting to check with Mann or his lawyer first. Mann's lawyer in the case is Roger McConchie, who it turns out was busy on March 1. Doing what, I wonder? He told me via email:

I conducted an examination for discovery (deposition) of Tim Ball under oath before a Court Reporter in Victoria on Friday, March 1, 2013.  I will continue that deposition of Ball in late May, 2013. Michael Mann is scheduled to be examined for discovery in Vancouver by Ball’s lawyer on May 22, 2013. I anticipate conducting discoveries of Ball’s co-defendant Frontier Centre for Public Policy in the near future. Christopher Monckton’s statement about the litigation has no basis in reality.

Joanne Codling (JoNova) has since corrected her story. Lord Monckton has also been making threats of his own [16]. He has written to the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and accused scientist Dr Tony Press of “serious professional and academic misconduct and scientific fraud”.PAL OF WOOD/NAS

Monckton claims there is now a “rigorous” investigation taking place. What is in fact happening, is that UTAS has received a complaint and is obliged to consider it, no matter how ungrounded it might be. A UTAS spokesperson (possibly playing with the straighest bat you'll ever see) told me: “The University is assessing the matters under Part B of the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research.”

You would have to be concerned if UTAS was taking seriously threats made by a man who calls for climate scientists to be “locked up”, claims President Barack Obama's birth certificate was most likely forged and launches an extremist political party fronted by an anti-Islamist creationist pastor [17]. Not to mention his many misrepresentations of climate science. [18] And it's worth reminding ourselves just what it is that UTAS is apparently “assessing” - namely, comments Dr Tony Press made to a newspaper reporter [19] which outlined why Monckton's argument that global warming has stopped was misleading.

If Lord Monckton really has taken umbrage with Dr Press, why not publish his concerns in a scientific journal and subject his ideas to established peer review - something which he has never been able to do? Instead, Lord Monckton abuses scientists and calls for them to be sacked with the potential to intimidate academics, intimidate a Vice Chancellor and tie up university resources with an unfounded complaint.