MANN, M

===

see MANN2 6/15capt 219

==

<a href="http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/index.php" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Michael Mann</a> is, through the sceptic looking glass, an accomplished dissembler, a manipulator of science, a fraud, and a threat to the American people.

He is reviled, attacked and harassed. A formerCIA agent has contacted his colleagues looking for dirt. The hacker who broke into the University of East Anglia servers during <a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2014/11/19/climategate-five-years-later" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Climategate</a> was searching for his data and emails, among other things.

The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_graph" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">hockey stick graph</a>, which Mann helped create and showed that the rapid rise in global temperatures over the last decades has been unprecedented in human history, has become the totem the sceptics are most desperate to tear down.

If Mann is any of these things, then he is the most convincing con artist the world has ever seen, because to the outside world he is living the American dream.

Family Life

Mann is a distinguished professor and director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He is married to Lorraine, a cell biologist also working at the university. The two met at an event in an amphitheatre in Charlottesville in Virginia and married the following year, in the summer of 2003 on Long Island Harbour, New York.

They live with their daughter in a 3,300-square-feet, three-bedroom detached house in Pennsylvania, which they bought with a mortgage for $600,000 in 2005. Mann now earns $150,000 a year through his professorship, as well as around $30,000 from talks and events.

He follows American Football and each year watches the UC Berkeley College game against rivals Stanford who, he tells me, “often pummels us”.

Mann will tell you everything about his life, his work and his finances if you ask him politely; he has, over the years, come to enjoy the media spotlight.

“My daughter thinks it’s pretty cool that Daddy is often on TV. She knows that it’s a little different from her friends,” he beams. “But I’ve been able to shield them, her especially, from the nonsense and the uglier episodes.”

Middle Class American

Mann is like millions of middle class Americans in that his family fled destitution and persecution, but were able to prosper through hard work and strong ethics in the Land of the Free.

His father’s grandfather was a newspaper merchant who fled Ukraine during increasingly deadly pogroms, while his mother’s family were forced to flee their home on the Polish border with Imperial Russia because of the tide of violent anti-semitism.

His great-grandfather came through Ellis Island and, once in America, won a scholarship to study medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he became a doctor.

Mann’s father became a maths professor, while his mother grew up in a small town in Katanning, outside Pittsburgh, and moved to Pennsylvania to gain a degree in education.

The family history is steeped in the values of education and hard work. Mann was raised in the college town of Ambrose, Massachusetts, a “progressive enclave”. As a child, he was given freedom to follow his own interests but was never allowed to wander too far from the path of knowledge.

Bipartisan Influence

One of Mann’s earliest memories is escaping the family home in his nappy in search of cookies and calling in at the neighbours’ house. The neighbours were James and Edna Anderson, retired Republicans and staunch Christians.

Mr Anderson was a pomologist, an apple expert, at the University of Massachusetts, and he railed against environmentalists who criticised the new Alar insecticide, believing the chemical was providing food for the poor.

The elderly neighbours “adopted” the young tearaway and taught him the Ten Commandments. Perhaps because they were Christian and Republican, while Mann’s family were Jewish and Democrats, the core values seemed to the young boy to contain some universal truths.

“I had a sort of bipartisan upbringing,” he recalls fondly. “That’s where I acquired some of my ethical foundations, as much from their influence as from my parents’ influence. From an early age I grew up with a belief that it’s important to do good with your life. It is important to try and make the world a better place.”

Schoolwork and education were always highly valued. “In elementary school I was sort of, liked to goof off a bit,” he recalls. During junior high, Mann scored a B in maths for one quarter and was immediately taken to one side by his father for a stern word.

“I remember there being some discussion about what happened. There was a little bit of incentive provided. Maybe a down payment towards a new bike,” he recalls. “I ended up getting an A+ the next quarter.”

Fellow Scientists

While still a high school senior at Amherst High School, Mann competed in a computer programming contest at Western New England University College - and still takes considerable pride at having won the prize.

“What I was really driven by, what the reward really about, was in solving an important problem, solving a difficult problem, and I suppose at some level, there is some, you know, recognition for that: That provides an additional incentive. It's fun to be recognised by your fellow computer nerds.”

He adds: “What means a lot to me is the recognition I've received from my colleagues, awards from my fellow scientists. I can be smeared by charlatans and it sort of washes over me because what really matters to me is how I’m viewed and how my work is viewed by my colleagues.”

If Mann is really trying to fool the world into wasting billions during a recession to pump his research grants then he is seriously jeopardising the love and admiration of his entire family, his wife, and his closest friends.

‘Dead End’

Mann graduated from UC Berkeley and in the autumn of 1989 went to Yale University where he focused on theoretical physics; however, he found himself losing interest with the specific project he was funded to work on.

“I talk about the random path, the random walk - a term that has meaning both in science and in life. It was this random walk and I sort of walked into a bit of a dead end… I just had to back up a little bit and find my way out of it, back into the main part of the maze.”

Many of his university friends were also leaving university to enter Wall Street, where their maths and physics knowledge could be used to create complex derivatives and other financial instruments that would fool American investors, and ultimately the state, out of billions of dollars.

“Anybody with any sort of advanced training in maths and physics could immediately find a job working for an investment firm doing derivatives modelling and some people in my cohort of physics graduate students at Yale at the time did leave for Wall Street to do just that - and made a lot of money doing it.”

The Bigger Picture

The government had just scrapped the super collider project in Texas. Funding for Mann’s specific area of science was significantly reduced. But Mann was not interested in earning millions.

“I was interested in bigger picture problems, solving big picture problems, you know, like the wide-open existential problems of cosmology, e.g. the grand unified theory of physics. I wanted to work on really interesting big picture problems.”

He thumbed the Yale University prospectus and decided to change course; in doing so, he changed the course of his life.

<a href="http://www.michaelmann.net/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">ichael Mann</a>, the scientist behind the climate change hockey stick graph, began his PhD at the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University under the supervision of <a href="http://www.yale.edu/opa/arc-ybc/v29.n18/story18.html" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Professor Barry Saltzman</a>.

He remembers Saltzman as an “old fashioned scientist” who remained deeply sceptical about the latest claims being made by climate scientists that the atmosphere had begun warming and the future was bleak.

Mann himself was weary of the news reports and some of the peer-reviewed literature at this time.

“You know, when I came into this field in the early 90s, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had not concluded that there was a discernible human influence on the climate. There was still a scientific debate about that.

“There was not a legitimate scientific debate about whether greenhouse gases would in warm the climate. That was established more than a century ago. But there was still some debate about the level of natural variability and the extent to which that greenhouse warming signal had emerged from the background of natural variability.”

Physicist Mindset

The scientist certainly did not consider himself any kind of political radical or environmentalist. “I had the mindset of a physicist. I understand where some physicist climate change deniers are coming from.”

He added: “I still remember being sceptical about pretty much all claims. There’s a tendency for the physicist to think that they understand a problem at a level that experts in other fields can’t. I understand and appreciate where that comes from – because I was there.”

Mann was interested in Saltzman’s work with climate models: “But it wasn’t because, ‘hey, I’m an environmentalist and I want to save the world’. It was more: ‘hey, this problem is interesting and it also really matters’.”

As a graduate student, Mann was partly funded by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) which is funded by the electric power industry – fossil fuel interests.

Fossil Fuel Funding

“I was once supported by the fossil fuel industry in a very real sense. And my guess is that they funded Barry in part because he was a sceptic – but he was sceptic in the  honest sense.”

Mann’s PhD examined the natural variation in climate to establish whether this might be at least a partial cause of recent global warming. “So I went into climate research more from the standpoint of somebody who was more on the sceptical side. Some of my early work was actually celebrated by climate change deniers,” he explains.

But then something changed his mind.

Mann started doing research with Saltzman and another of the professor’s former students. This was Robert Oglesby, a postdoctoral researcher who is now with the University of Nebraska working on general circulation modelling (GCM).

Colour Maps

The scientists had privileged access to the very latest technology—including modelling software and even a colour printer.

“This was in the early days of computer printers. So to get a colour printout you had to get special paper, and you would go up to the third floor to the special colour printer, so there was a certain drama. Until you printed it out in colour on paper you couldn’t really appreciate the results.”

They printed out world maps which had been colour-coded to show the rise in temperatures for each of the decades, moving through light yellows for little change to reds for the occasional spot where there had been a significant rise.

These maps are now ubiquitous in climate research and reporting, but this was the first time Mann had produced or even seen one like this.

Discernible Influence

“We were just looking decade by decade where there’s been maps of temperatures: 1900, 1910s, 20s, 30s, all the way to the 70s. And if you compare the 70s map to the 1900s map, there isn’t much of a difference,” Mann remembers.

“But once you get to the 1980s, it's like 'bam!' The map turns bright yellow and red. It was in that moment that I actually think that all of us, including Barry I think, crossed over into weighing more on the side that there is a discernible human influence on climate. This is before the IPCC reached that conclusion in 1995 with the publication of the second assessment report.”

In a single moment, Mann abandoned his scepticism about the reality of human-caused climate change. As it happens, he would dedicate the rest of his working life to understanding the true scientific meaning and implications of those red smudges on an early colour printout.

There were three scientists in the room that day. No politicians, no ideologues, no closet Communists tampering with the ink cartridges.

Science-Led

Mann points out: “The important thing to understand there is that our views on this issue were led by the science we were doing, which is the way it should be. The science that we were doing was not influenced by our views on the climate change issue.”

The colour maps formed part of Mann’s first climate change publication, with colleagues, in a peer-reviewed paper. He then set about trying to place modern climate change in a larger context.

What he found, and what he wrote, would throw him headfirst into a sometimes vicious and soul-destroying battle with the climate sceptics who had previously celebrated his work.

<a href="http://www.desmog.uk/2015/03/04/who-michael-mann-and-why-do-climate-deniers-hate-him">http://www.desmog.uk/2015/03/04/who-michael-mann-and-why-do-climate-deniers-hate-him</a>

===

Mother Jones

A Win for the Climate Scientist Who Skeptics Compared to Jerry Sandusky

As the judge green-lights his libel suit, the defendants' lawyers jump ship.

By Mariah Blake | Fri Jan. 24, 2014 7:00 AM EST

Social Title:

A win for the climate scientist who skeptics compared to Jerry Sandusky

A judge green-lights his libel suit, the defendants' lawyers jump ship.

In 2012—after writers for National Review and a prominent conservative think tank accused him of fraud and compared him to serial child molester Jerry Sandusky—climate scientist Michael Mann took the bold step of filing a defamation suit. The defendants moved to have the case thrown out, citing a Washington, DC, law that shields journalists from frivolous litigation. But on Wednesday, DC Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg rejected the motion, opening the way for a trial.

Although public figures like Mann have to clear a high bar to prove defamation, Weisberg argued [1] that the scientist's complaint may pass the test. And he brushed aside the defendants' claims that the fraud allegations were "pure opinion," which is protected by the First Amendment:

Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable.

Weisberg's order is just the latest in a string of setbacks that have left the climate change skeptics' case in disarray. Earlier this month, Steptoe & Johnson, the law firm representing National Review and its writer, Mark Steyn, withdrew as Steyn's counsel. According to two sources with inside knowledge, it also plans to drop National Review as a client.

The lawyers' withdrawal came shortly after Steyn—a prominent conservative pundit who regularly fills in as host of Rush Limbaugh's radio show—publicly attacked the former judge in the case, Natalia Combs Greene, accusing her of "stupidity" and "staggering" incompetence. Mann's attorney, John B. Williams, suspects this is no coincidence. "Any lawyer would be taken aback if their client said such things about the judge," he says. "That may well be why Steptoe withdrew."

Steyn's manager, Melissa Howes, acknowledged that his commentary "did not go over well."* But Steyn maintains it was his decision to part ways with his attorneys.

The lawsuit centers on Mann's famous "hockey stick" graph. In 1999, Mann and two colleagues charted 1,000 years worth of climate data, and found a steep uptick in global temperatures beginning in the 20th century. The graph, named for its iconic shape, became a potent, easy-to-grasp symbol of global warming. And it was featured prominently in the landmark 2001 report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded [2] that "the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years."

The chart also made Mann a target for climate change skeptics. This was especially true beginning in 2009, when more than 1,000 emails were stolen from Britain's University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU), one of the world’s leading climate research institutions. In one message, CRU’s director, Phil Jones, famously described using Mann's "Nature trick" to "hide the decline." He was referring to a technique that Mann had used to control for variations in tree-ring data [4] in a paper for the journal Nature. But Skeptics—among them the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a free-market think tank that has received funding from the Koch bothers and Exxon Mobil—seized on this revelation as evidence that scientists were conspiring to cover up a decline in global temperatures.

Soon, climate researchers found themselves under siege. Mann's inbox was flooded with death threats and messages calling him a "fraud," a "fucking terrorist," and a "one-world-government socialist.” As Mother Jones reported in 2011 [5], "Images of Mann and other scientists were posted on neo-Nazi sites. The CRU's Jones temporarily stepped down from his post; he later said he contemplated suicide."

Pennsylvania State University, where Mann works, and at least six other institutions conducted separate investigations into the allegations of scientific misconduct. An independent probe [6] commissioned by the University of East Anglia faulted the researchers for their bunker mentality, and found their responses "to reasonable requests for information were unhelpful and defensive." But none of the investigations turned up evidence of malfeasance or data manipulation. After completing its inquiry, the US Environmental Protection Agency posted a fact sheet [7] on its website stating:

The CRU emails do not show either that the science is flawed or that the scientific process has been compromised. EPA carefully reviewed the CRU emails and found no indication of improper data manipulation or misrepresentation of results…Some people have "cherry-picked" a limited selection of CRU email statements to draw broad, unsubstantiated conclusions about the validity of all climate science.

Still, the emails remained a rallying cry for skeptics, some of whom turned their ire on Penn State, which allegedly declined to interview Mann's critics during its probe. In 2012, it came to light that Penn State officials had ignored or concealed evidence that former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky was molesting children, including in the university's locker room. That July, CEI scholar Rand Simberg wrote a post [8] for the organization's blog likening the situation to "another cover up," the "Michael Mann affair." Simberg also called Mann "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data."

Several days later, CEI deleted the passage, which it admitted was "inappropriate." But Steyn, a regular National Review contributor, quoted it on the magazine's blog [9]. He added:

Not sure I'd have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point. Michael Mann was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change "hockey-stick" graph.

Mann's attorney fired off letters to CEI and the National Review, calling the fraud allegations "defamatory" and demanding apologies and full retractions. National Review Editor Richard Lowry responded with another post, which dismissed the defamation claims as "transparent nonsense." "In common polemical usage, 'fraudulent' doesn’t mean honest-to-goodness criminal fraud," he wrote. "It means intellectually bogus." At that point, Mann filed his defamation suit against CEI, Simberg, National Review, and Steyn. In July 2013, Judge Combs Greene of the DC Superior Court rejected the defendants' motion to dismiss. The defendants appealed the decision. But that December, the appeals court, which was concerned that Mann had filed an amended complaint shortly before Combs Greene's ruling, sent it back to the Superior Court for further review. Judge Weissman took on the case, following Combs Greene's retirement.

Finally, on Christmas Eve, Steyn published his blog post [10], railing against Combs Greene and her ruling, which contained typographical errors and mixed up the defendants:

Among her many staggering incompetences, DC Superior Court judge Natalia Combs-Greene…denied NR's motion to dismiss the fraudulent complaint while simultaneously permitting Mann’s lawyers to file an amended complaint.

The appellate judges have now tossed out anything relating to Mann's original fraudulent complaint, including Judge Combs-Greene's unbelievably careless ruling in which the obtuse jurist managed to confuse the defendants, and her subsequent ruling in which she chose to double-down on her own stupidity. Anything with Combs-Greene's name on it has now been flushed down the toilet of history."

When asked about these comments, Steyn made no apologies. "I spent the first months attempting to conceal my contempt for Judge Combs Greene's court," he said in an email to Mother Jones. "But really, it's not worth the effort." Wednesday's ruling affirms the thrust of Combs Greene's order, however. It also concludes that "a reasonable jury" may "find the statement that Dr. Mann 'molested and tortured data' was false, and published with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for whether it was false or not."

Steyn, meanwhile, appears to be paying a price for his brazenness. He still has no legal representation. ("My check from the Koch brothers seems to have been lost in the mail or intercepted by the NSA," he wrote. "So for the moment I am representing myself.") And since his Christmas Eve diatribe, the conservative pundit—who had been writing near-daily posts for National Review Online—hasn't written a single item. Neither he nor the magazine's publisher, Jack Fowler, would say why. But Steyn hinted at the reasons in a post on his website: "As readers may have deduced from my absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation, there have been a few differences between me and the rest of the team."....

NATIONAL REVIEW, INC )

215 Lexington Avenue )

New York, NY 10016, )

)

- and - )

)

COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE )

1899 L Street, NW )

Washington, DC 20036, )

)

- and - )

)

RAND SIMBERG )

c/o Competitive Enterprise )

Institute )

1899 L Street, NW )

Washington, DC 20036, )

)

- and - )

)

MARK STEYN, )

Box 30 )

Woodsville, NH 03785 )

)

Defendants.

...

130. Plaintiff has engaged in a pattern of abusive

litigation designed to chill freedom of speech and to stifle

legitimate criticism of Plaintiff’s work. He is currently

suing Dr Tim Ball in British Columbia over a hoary bit of

word play (“should be in the state pen, not Penn State”)

applied to innumerable Pennsylvanians over the years. Having

initiated the suit, Dr Mann then stalled the discovery

process, so that the BC suit is now entering its third year

– Mann’s object being to use the process as a punishment,...

...

<div class="byline story" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Media Matters / By <a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/eric-boehlert" style="">Eric Boehlert</a> [1]</div>

<h1 property="dc:title" datatype="" class="node-title">Glenn Beck, National Review and NY Post Might be Forced to Pay Huge Defamation Damages in Court</h1>

</div>

<div class="story-date" style="">April 8, 2014  |  </div>

Libel and slander cases are increasingly viewed as <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/us-courts-throw-out-defamation-cases-against-journalists-tv-station" style="">long-shot legal propositions</a> [2] that aren't worth the effort required to see the cases to completion <a href="https://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/us-courts-throw-out-defamation-cases-against-journalists-tv-station" style="">only to suffer defeat</a> [2]. But three high-profile libel suits against media organizations are bucking that trend and making their way through the legal system. Two of them have already cleared steep judicial hurdles, opening the way for the discovery phase and possible jury trials. All involve well-know conservative media defendants: National Review, the New York Post and Glenn Beck's The Blaze.

As Media Matters has documented for years, newsroom standards for conservative journalists leave much to be desired and outlets routinely trample over <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2009/10/27/30-reasons-why-fox-news-is-not-legit/156164" style="">established norms</a> [3] of responsible behavior. But has the recklessness reached such heights, and have the attacks become so slanderous, that courts will rule against the offending media outlets? And if so, how high could the penalties run?

"Damages for every case come down to whatever the jury wants them to be," former New York Times general counsel George Freeman tells Media Matters.

Responding to <a href="http://theweek.com//article/index/255756/is-national-review-doomed" style="">speculation</a> [4] that a pricey courtroom loss could drive National Review out of business, publisher Jack Fowler <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/370938/no-national-review-not-doomed-jack-fowler" style="">assured</a> [5] readers in January that the magazine has libel insurance to cover damages, although he conceded "our insurance does not cover all the costs related to the suit." But even if the three outlets avoid a big jury loss, simply paying the legal fees becomes tantamount. "The costs can be absolutely staggering," says Robert Drechsel, <a href="https://journalism.wisc.edu/sjmc_profile/robert-drechsel/" style="">professor</a> [6] at the University of Wisconsin who specializes in media law.

Not surprisingly, the three headline-making suits revolve around hot-button issues for the right-wing media: last year's Boston Marathon terror bombing case, which led to the suits against the New York Post and Beck, and the political jousting over climate change, which pits National Review versus Penn State meteorology professor Michael Mann.

"All three are plausible libels suits," says Drechsel.

Three days after the Boston terror blast, Yassine Zaimi and Salaheddin Barhoum were <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/new-york-post-misidentifies-local-high-school-track-runner-as-boston-bombing-suspect/" style="">depicted</a> [7] as "BAG MEN" in a full-page color photo on the cover of The New York Post.

...

Glenn Beck's Saudi Bomber Conspiracy

If the Post's courtroom defense will be that reporters and editors simply followed the lead of law enforcement, what will Glenn Beck's defense be in his Boston bombing-related libel case? Unlike the "BAG MEN" suit and the Post's claim its reporters echoed investigators, Beck repeatedly attacked a 20-year-old Saudi national student living in Boston days after law enforcement had explicitly <a href="http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/04/18/saudi-national-not-a-suspect-not-a-person-of-interest-in-boston-bombings/" style="">cleared him</a> [14] of any wrongdoing.

Not surprisingly last month the student, Abdulrahman Alharbi, <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/03/31/66595.htm" style="">filed</a> [15] a defamation suit against Beck, his online outlet The Blaze, and his radio syndicator, Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks, claiming he was slandered by the talker following the Boston attack. Alharbi <a href="http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/03/31/glen-beck-sued-boston-marathon-attack/#http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2014/03/31/glen-beck-sued-boston-marathon-attack/" style="">accuses</a> [16] Beck of one count of defamation and one count of defamation with malice.

The student at the New England School of English had been injured by the terror blast on Boylston Street last year, was subsequently questioned by police, and then quickly dismissed as having any involvement. But that didn't stop Beck, who for days and weeks publically accused Alharabi of being a key player in the terror plot.

"Beck repeatedly and falsely identified Mr. Alharbi as an active participant, repeatedly questioned the motives of federal officials in failing to pursue or detain Alharbi and repeatedly and falsely accused Mr. Alharbi of being a criminal who had funded the attacks," <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/boston-marathon-victim-sues-glenn-beck-for-defamation/" style="">the lawsuit alleges</a> [17].

Indeed, Beck called the student a "<a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/19/boston-and-the-right-wing-medias-collapse/193703" style="">dirt bag</a> [18]," a "<a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/04/18/glenn-beck-is-undeterred-by-reality-on-saudi-na/193696" style="">bad, bad, bad man</a> [19]," and "<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/18/report-saudi-national-ruled-out-as-suspect-in-boston-marathon-bombings-to-be-deported-on-national-security-grounds-next-week/" style="">possibly the ringleader</a> [20]" of the bombing that killed three people and injured more than two hundred. The host even called for President Obama to<a href="http://mediamatters.org/video/2013/04/19/glenn-beck-america-should-demand-impeachment-fo/193699" style="">be impeached</a> [21] for what the host considered to be a <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/beck-breaks-exclusive-information-on-saudi-national-allegedly-connected-to-boston-bombings/?utm_source=googleplus&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=Share%20Buttons" style="">sprawling</a> [22] government cover-up surrounding the student, Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/04/01/glenn-beck-sued-for-defamation-after-calling-victim-of-boston-marathon-bombings-the-money-man-behind-attack/?tid=hp_mm" style="">From</a> [23] the Washington Post:

Beck <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/beck-breaks-exclusive-information-on-saudi-national-allegedly-connected-to-boston-bombings/" style="">continued</a> [24] days later: "While the media continues to look at what the causes were [behind] these two guys, there are, at this hour, three& people involved," <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb8gKYDS970" style="">he said</a> [25], alleging the U.S. government had "tagged" Alharbi as a "proven terrorist."

The broadcaster eventually called Alharbi an al Qaeda "control agent" and the "money man" behind the attacks. "You know who the Saudi is?" <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/glenn-becks-ever-expanding-boston-bombing-conspiracy-theory" style="">Beck asked</a> [26]. "He's the money man. He's the guy who paid for it."

</blockquote>

Will Beck opt for an opinion defense and suggest his Saudi national comments were rhetorical and never meant to be taken seriously? It might be his only option.

National Review's "Climategate" Coverage

Unlike the two Boston bombing cases, the libel suit filed against National Review, as well as the conservative think tank, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), involves a plaintiff who is likely considered to be a public figure, Penn State professor Michael Mann. Yet despite the higher burden of proof associated with that type of case, it continues to progress, surviving the Review's attempts to have it thrown out.

"I wouldn't want to be the defendant in the Mann suit," says media law professor Drechsel, noting the suit's survival to this point must be "worrisome" to National Review. "Even if Mann is a public figure and he has to prove what was published was known to be false and represented a reckless disregard for the truth, there's still a lot of disconcerting evidence there," says the libel expert.

In 2009, Mann found himself at the center of the so-called "<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/07/climate-emails-question-answer" style="">Climategate</a> [27]" scandal when more than 1,000 emails were stolen from Britain's University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, one of the world's leading climate research institutions. Based on a <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/2009/12/climategate/" style="">gross misrepresentation</a> [28] of one of the emails, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/2011/01/21/conservatives-refuse-to-close-the-door-on-bogus/175384" style="">conservative critics</a> [29] falsely <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2009/12/01/climategate-exposed-conservative-media-distort/157590" style="">portrayed</a> [30] Mann as having corruptly manipulated his research to find evidence of global warming. The next year Penn State <a href="http://www.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2010/07/mann-cleared" style="">cleared</a> [31] Mann of any academic misconduct; at least six other institutions, including the <a href="http://epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/myths-facts.html" style="">Environmental Protection Agency</a> [32], have <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/michael-mann-climategate-court-victory" style="">conducted</a> [33] their own reviews of Mann's work and found no wrongdoing.

Fast forward to 2012 when Penn State became embroiled in allegations that the university had ignored or concealed evidence that longtime football assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had been molesting children. That July, Rand Simberg <a href="http://www.openmarket.org/2012/07/13/the-other-scandal-in-unhappy-valley/" style="">blogged</a> [34] at CEI that Mann was "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data." (That sentence has since been removed from the post.) Over at National Review Online, Rush Limbaugh's fill-in host Mark Steyn quoted the "Jerry Sandusky" smear, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309442/football-and-hockey-mark-steyn" style="">writing</a> [35], "Not sure I'd have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr Simberg does, but he has a point."

When Mann demanded retractions and apologies for the Sandusky attack and for claiming he faked his scientific research, CEI and National Review refused. A lawsuit was subsequently filed.

Last July, Judge Combs Greene of the D.C. Superior Court <a href="http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/07/court-denies-slapp-motion-against-scientists-libel-suit.html" style="">denied</a> [36] the defendants' motion to dismiss the suit as frivolous. Then in <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/michael-mann-climategate-court-victory" style="">January</a> [33], D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg <a href="http://www.steynonline.com/documents/6028.pdf" style="">did the same</a> [37]:

<blockquote>Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable.</blockquote>

Frederick <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/01/michael-mann-climategate-court-victory" style="">concluded</a> [33] that "a reasonable jury" might "find the statement that Dr. Mann 'molested and tortured data' was false, and published with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for whether it was false or not." Steyn hasn't been published at NRO since last year and has since <a href="http://www.steynonline.com/documents/6109.pdf" style="">countersued</a> [38] Mann; in a January <a href="http://www.steynonline.com/6025/trial-and-error" style="">blog post</a> [39] on his own website, he wrote that his "absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation" were due to "differences between me and the rest of the team."

Unless settlements are reached or the cases eventually thrown out, representatives for The New York Post, National Review and Glenn Beck will be forced to defend their clients in front of juries with the threat of defamation damages looming large. That's the possible price you pay when standards become submerged.

</div>

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<div class="tags" style="">See more stories tagged with:

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/libel" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">libel</a> [40],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/slander" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">slander</a> [41],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/law-suits" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">law suits</a> [42],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/glenn-beck" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">glenn beck</a> [43],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/michael-e-mann" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">Michael E. Mann</a> [44],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/climate-change" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">climate change</a> [45],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/climate-change-deniers" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">climate change deniers</a> [46],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/abdulrahman-alharbi" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">Abdulrahman Alharbi</a> [48],</div>

<div class="field-item odd"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/islamophobia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">islamophobia</a> [49],</div>

<div class="field-item even"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/tags/climategate" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" style="">climategate</a> [50]</div>

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<div class="print-source_url" style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Source URL: <a href="http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/libel-will-defamation-suits-doom-three-right-wing-media-outlets" style="">http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/libel-will-defamation-suits-doom-three-right-wing-media-outlets</a></div>

</div>

===

slapp:  ===

The National Review magazine, longstanding house news organ of the establishment right, is facing a lawsuit that could shutter the publication permanently. According to The Week, a suit by a climate scientist threatens to bankrupt the already financially shaky publication and its website, the National Review Online (NRO).

Scientist Michael Mann is suing the Review over statements made by Canadian right-wing polemicist and occasional radio stand-in for Rush Limbaugh, Mark Steyn. Steyn was writing on the topic of climate change when he accused Mann of falsifying data and perpetuating intellectual fraud through his research.

Steyn went on to quote paid anti-climate science operative Rand Simberg — an employee of the right-wing think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute — who compared Mann to Penn State’s convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.

Mann, Simberg said, is “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.”

Mann sued for defamation. Steyn and the Review vowed to fight the suit, given that defamation is notoriously difficult to prove in court.

“My advice to poor Michael is to go away and bother someone else,” said Review editor Rich Lowry. “If he doesn’t have the good sense to do that, we look forward to teaching him a thing or two about the law and about how free debate works in a free country.”

As the case has played out, however, Lowry’s hubris has proven to be unwarranted.

“In July,” wrote The Week’s Damon Linker, “Judge Natalia Combs Greene rejected a motion to dismiss the suit. The defendants appealed, and last week D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg rejected the motion again, opening the door for the discovery phase of the lawsuit to begin.”

The Review, which has run at a loss since it was founded on money inherited by William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955, appealed to readers and supporters for help paying its rapidly mounting legal bills.

Lowry wrote:

As many of you know, National Review is not a non-profit — we are just not profitable. A lawsuit is not something we can fund with money we don’t have. Of course, we’ll do whatever we have to do to find ourselves victorious in court and Professor Mann thoroughly defeated, as he so richly deserves to be. Meanwhile, we have to hire attorneys, which ain’t cheap.

The bills are already mounting.

This is our fight, legally. But with the global-warming extremists going all-out to silence critics, it’s your fight too, morally. When we were sued, we heard from many of you who expressed a desire to help underwrite our legal defense. We deeply appreciated the outpouring of promised help.

Now we really need it.

Then, at Christmastime, Steyn abruptly fired the legal team representing him and the magazine, white shoe firm Steptoe and Johnson, after an argument over a highly inflammatory — and appallingly typed — NRO post about Judge Combs Greene. Steyn accused her of “staggering incompetence,” called her stupid, and accused her of deliberate obtuseness regarding the Mann suit.

Now, Steyn is representing himself against Mann and he and the Review have parted ways.

Steyn wrote to Mother Jones, saying that he was simply no longer able to contain his sense of disdain for the federal judge and her decision not to dismiss Mann’s suit.

“I spent the first months attempting to conceal my contempt for Judge Combs Greene’s court,” said Steyn. “But really, it’s not worth the effort.”

On his personal blog, Steyn wrote, “As readers may have deduced from my absence at National Review Online and my termination of our joint representation, there have been a few differences between me and the rest of the team.”

Now, as the suit grinds onward, the Review faces fairly dismal prospects. The suit could eventually be dismissed, but that is looking less likely. What’s looking more likely is that Mann could win a substantial judgment in court or the magazine could settle out of court.

The Week doubts that the publication could financially survive either of those outcomes. In 2005, before his death, Buckley estimated that the Review had lost more than $25 million in its 50 years of operation. It has never enjoyed a single moment of robust financial health competing in the “free market of ideas,” but has relied on reader contributions and bailouts from wealthy donors for the entirety of its history.

Conservatives like to point Buckley’s legacy and the Review as the reasonable, moderate edge of an regressive, reactionary party. In its history, the magazine has consistently staked out far-right positions that favor whites over nonwhites and plutocrats over the middle and working classes.

National Review authors have railed against racial integration, called Hitler a left-wing radical, and argued with a straight face that African-Americans are inherently more violent and less civilized than whites.

Lowry himself famously declared “We’re winning” the War in Iraq just before catastrophic waves of sectarian violence engulfed the country and permanently scuttled the American-led reconstruction effort.

Lately contributor Mona Charen has authored a series of wildly LGBT-phobic articles, lamenting the mainstreaming of “unusual sexual identities” and accusing parents who allow their transgender children to be themselves of “child abuse.”

===

bbc "debate" w/ morano <a href="https://soundcloud.com/ameliaf/newshour-moran-mann-climatewar">https://soundcloud.com/ameliaf/newshour-moran-mann-climatewar</a>

death threats, fbi had to check mail; character attack, threat family; has to all in nat sci fdn to clear him

mm said same; hansen calls skeptic crime against humanity/nuremburg; mann praisedf by media/ UN colusion upper echelon conspiracy to exclude; sci claims have realworld consequences; wegnener study showed echo chamber; world warmer 1000 years ago

===

forbes bs: The first law suit was filed against Canadian climate scientist Timothy Ball who humorously commented  in an interview published by the Frontier Center for Public Policy, a Winnipeg think tank, that Penn State researcher Mann should, instead, be in the state pen. Then, when Mann threatened to sue National Review editor Rich Lowry for printing a post by Mark Steyn for calling the beleaguered scientist’s infamous “hockey stick” graph “fraudulent”, Lowry’s response was succinct…”Get lost!”

===

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/24/1079601/climate-scientist-michael-mann-sues-the-national-review-and-competitive-enterprise-institute-for-defamation/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/24/1079601/climate-scientist-michael-mann-sues-the-national-review-and-competitive-enterprise-institute-for-defamation/</a>

===

<h1 style="">Mann Fights Back Against Denialist Abuse</h1>

At Skeptical Science, we prefer to stick to discussions of the scientific literature and <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/big-picture.html">body of evidence</a>.  However, for the long time there has been a systematic abuse of climate scientists from climate denialists, and from time to time this reprehensible behavior becomes so widespread that we feel the need to comment on it, for example in the cases of <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Katharine-Hayhoe-labour-of-love-inspires-torrent-of-hate.html">Katharine</a> <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/katharine-hayhoe-much-of-this-is-intended-to-intimidate.html">Hayhoe</a> and <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Nil_Illegitimi.html">Phil Jones</a>.

Most recently, Michael Mann, who himself has a long history being on the receiving end of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/mar/03/michael-mann-climate-change-deniers">abusive letters and death threats</a>, as he detailed in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hockey-Stick-Climate-Wars-ebook/dp/B0072N4U6S/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1343262285&sr=8-2&keywords=The+Hockey+Stick+and+the+Climate+Wars%3A+Dispatches+from+the+Front+Lines%2C">his book</a>, has been rather viciously defamed by the Competetive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and National Review.  CEI is a right-wing think tank with a long history of denying the <a href="http://www.no-smoke.org/getthefacts.php?id=71">health effects of smoking</a> and <a href="http://cei.org/issues/climate-change">human-caused climate change</a>, having received major funding from the <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#Tobacco_Industry_Funding">tobacco</a> and oil industries (i.e. <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?utma=1.2028257287.1343161522.1343161522.1343161522.1&utmb=1.3.10.1343161522&utmc=1&utmx=-&utmz=1.1343161522.1.1.utmcsr=google%7Cutmccn=%28organic%29%7Cutmcmd=organic%7Cutmctr=%28not%20provided%29&utmv=-&__utmk=15606710">over $2 million from ExxonMobil</a>, and more recently <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute#CEI.27s_Foundation_Funders">funding from the Koch Brothers</a> and other groups whose wealth is based in fossil fuels like <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Scaife_Foundation">the Scaife Foundations</a>).

Recently, Ryan Simberg published a <a href="http://www.openmarket.org/2012/07/13/the-other-scandal-in-unhappy-valley/">post on CEI's blog</a> accusing Mann of

"engaging in data manipulation to keep the blade on his famous hockey-stick graph"

</blockquote>

The CEI blog post proceded to compare Mann to Jerry Sandusky, a convicted serial child molester.  This extraordinarily inappropriate and offensive comparison has been removed from the CEI blog, but it remains in a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/309442/football-and-hockey-mark-steyn">National Review article written by Mark Steyn</a>, which quotes Simberg's post.  We will not reproduce this reprehensible quote here.

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Libelous Accusations of Fraud</h3>

The accusations of fraud are of course entirely baseless, but stem from the "<a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Muller-Misinformation-1-confusing-Mikes-trick-with-hide-the-decline.html">Mike's Nature trick</a>" email which was made public during <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked-intermediate.htm">the Climategate theft</a>.  "Mike's Nature trick" referred to  the technique of plotting recent instrumental temperature data along with historical reconstructed data.  This places recent global warming trends in the context of temperature changes over longer time scales.  This graph is commonly known as the "<a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm">hockey stick</a>."

There is of course nothing 'fraudulent' about plotting instrumental temperatures on the same graph as reconstructed temperatures.  Both the instrumental (red) and reconstructed temperature (blue) are clearly labelled in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v392/n6678/abs/392779a0.html">Mann's 1998 Nature article</a>, the follow-up <a href="http://www.agu.org/journals/ABS/1999/1999GL900070.shtml">Mann et al. 1999</a>, and the <a href="http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/WG1_TAR-FRONT.PDF">IPCC Third Assessment Report</a> (TAR) (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Northern Hemisphere mean temperature anomaly in °C (<a href="http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/pdf/WG1_TAR-FRONT.PDF">IPCC TAR</a>).

There has been subsequent scientific debate regarding the statistical methods used in Mann et al. 1999.  It was after all a groundbreaking study - one of the first northern hemisphere millennial temperature reconstructions, so of course subsequent research has resulted in improved methodologies, even by Mann himself in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/105/36/13252">Mann et al. 2008</a> (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Composite Northern Hemisphere land and land plus ocean temperature reconstructions and estimated 95% confidence intervals. Shown for comparison are published Northern Hemisphere reconstructions (<a href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/mann2008/mann2008.html" target="_self">Mann 2008</a>).

However, there is zero evidence that there was any fraudulent behavior whatsoever Mann et. al 1999, and in fact every subsequent millennial northern hemisphere temperature reconstruction has confirmed the general 'hockey stick' shape.  For example, see the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-6.html">summary of subsequent research on the subject in the 2007 IPCC report</a>.

Additionally, <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm">every investigation into the Climategate emails</a> found that the scientists whose emails were stolen, including Michael Mann, were not guilty of any wrongdoing.  Quite simply, any accusations of fraud are entirely without merit, and qualify as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation">defamation and libel</a>.

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Sandusky Comparison Beyond the Pale</h3>

It should go without saying that comparing anyone - particularly an honest scientist - to a convicted serial child molester is simply reprehensible and should be universally condemned.  We would hope that CEI and National Review would acknowledge their writers' blatant lapses in judgment, retract the articles, and issue a profound apology to Mann for their defamation and libel.  As noted above, CEI has taken the small step of removing what they call the "Two inappropriate sentences."

So far National Review has taken no action, and Mann has retained legal counsel who has <a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2012/07/22/mike-mann-calls-out-slime-vending-conservatives-at-national-review/">issued a letter to National Review</a> stating:

"Needless to say, we intend to pursue all appropriate legal remedies on behalf of Dr. Mann...we reiterate our demand that this defamatory article be immediately removed from further publication, and that you issue a retraction of this article and an apology to Dr. Mann."

</blockquote>

The letter also used <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/Climategate-CRU-emails-hacked.htm">the Skeptical Science Climategate rebuttal</a> to illustrate why the accusations of fraud are entirely baseless and without merit - we are pleased to have been a useful resource in Dr. Mann's endeavors on this matter.

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Comments from the Peanut Gallery</h3>

Mann's move onto the offensive has generated widespread commentary from the blogosphere.  For the most part there has been a great deal of support, for example on <a href="http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2012/07/22/slandering-someone-because-of-their-scientific-findings-can-be-very-costly/">AGU blogs</a>, <a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2012/07/22/mike-mann-calls-out-slime-vending-conservatives-at-national-review/">Climate Crocks</a>, Discover Magazine's <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/07/23/deniers-disgust-and-defamation/">Bad Astronomy</a>, and many others, including <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.401767799879428.89661.221222081267335&type=1">comments on Mann's Facebook Page</a>.  However, a number of climate denialists have inexplicably sided with CEI and National Review's defamatory attack, for example <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/7/24/manns-legal-case.html">Andrew Montford</a> and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/">WattsUpWithThat</a>, among others.

<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Denialists Frothing Up the Abusers</h3>

There is a clear connection between the behavior at climate denialist blogs and the abuse directed towards climate scientists.  Denialist blog posts constantly leap from their own flawed scientific analyses to the conclusion that climate scientists must be guilty of fraud, data manipulation, and other immoral behavior.  The letters received by climate scientists contain this same sort of language, with baseless accusations of fraud and data manipulation, followed by abusive language and often death threats.

Climate denialist blogs are also the source of the CEI and National Review accusations of fraud,[ESCALATOR] which soon warped into a denigrating comparison betweEn an honest climate scientist and a serial child molester.  Instead of condemning this reprehensible behavior, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/24/fighting-the-mann/">climate denialist ringleader WattsUpWithThat in particular appears to encourage it</a>.

This sort of behavior must stop, especially if these climate denialists wish to be taken seriously as real 'skeptics'.  It is completely unacceptable that honest climate scientists like Mann, Jones, and Hayhoe - who are just trying to do their jobs and further the collective human understanding of the inner workings of our climate - are being subjected to abusive attacks and death threats as a reward for their efforts.

We call on all climate 'skeptic' blogs to condemn the defamatory language from CEI and National Review, and the abuse directed towards climate scientists in general, and we wish Dr. Mann well in his efforts to hold National Review liable for its defamation of his character.

For those who wish to support Dr. Mann in this matter, donating to the <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-science-legal-defense-fund.html">Climate Science Legal Defense Fund</a> is one option.

Posted by dana1981 on Saturday, 28 July, 2012

===

che 3/12 case thrown out: <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Virginia-Supreme-Court-Rejects/131063/">http://chronicle.com/article/Virginia-Supreme-Court-Rejects/131063/</a>

Virginia's highest court on Friday threw out an attempt by the state's attorney general to make the University of Virginia surrender thousands of pages' worth of e-mail messages and other documents related to the work of one of the nation's most prominent climate scientists.

With its ruling, the state Supreme Court handed a definitive defeat to the attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, and a victory to the university and the researcher, Michael E. Mann, a former University of Virginia faculty member who is now a professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University.

Mr. Mann is the creator of an iconic graph that has helped demonstrate the progress of man-made climate change by showing estimates of global temperature records over the past 1,000 years. Mr. Cuccinelli is a high-profile Republican who is now running for governor and who said he wanted the documents to search for evidence of research fraud in Mr. Mann's work.

"I'm pleased that this particular episode is over," Mr. Mann said in a written statement. "It's sad, though, that so much money and resources had to be wasted on Cuccinelli's witch hunt against me and the University of Virginia when it could have been invested, for example, in measures to protect Virginia's coastline from the damaging effects of sea-level rise it is already seeing."

The university spent more than $570,000, all from private sources, defending the case over the past two years, a spokeswoman said. Its victory, however, was complete. The court made clear the state institution enjoys full exemption from the state's Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, which Mr. Cuccinelli had cited as his basis for demanding records of Mr. Mann's work.

"The University of Virginia, as an agency of the commonwealth, does not constitute a 'person' under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act and therefore cannot be the proper subject" of a records demand, the court wrote in its opinion.

<h3>Related Content</h3>

<ul>

<li><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Is-the-Real-Winner-in-the/131068/">Who Is the Real Winner in the Virginia Climate-Documents Case?</a></li>

</ul>

</div>

<h4 class="CHE-5-column-News subhead" style="">Dismissal 'With Prejudice'</h4>

It is an "important decision that will be welcomed here and in the broader higher-education community," said Teresa A. Sullivan, president of the University of Virginia, where Mr. Mann served as an assistant professor of environmental sciences from 1999 to 2005.

The decision also carries great weight for researchers, said Michael H. Halpern, head of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group. Mr. Cuccinelli "didn't have a legal leg to stand on in his pursuit of Mann's and other scientists' private correspondence," and the university deserves praise for firmly defending that principle, Mr. Halpern said.

The seven-member court, in a majority opinion written by Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., said it was dismissing Mr. Cuccinelli's case "with prejudice," meaning he cannot bring any further action on the same claim. The majority, in explaining its deference to state institutions, cited "ancient" legal interpretations dating to a time when it was recognized that "the king shall not be bound unless the statute is made by express words or necessary implication to extend to him."

One justice, Elizabeth A. McClanahan, dissented from the majority's dismissal of the lawsuit with prejudice. She agreed that the University of Virginia should be exempt from the fraud statute but said that Mr. Cuccinelli should be given other opportunities to seek records that might show fraud by Mr. Mann.

Mr. Cuccinelli, in pursuing a fraud allegation, suggested that Mr. Mann might have intentionally misrepresented scientific findings in order to obtain research grants. In a statement, he said he would now move to dismiss a follow-up request for documents that is still pending in Albemarle County Circuit Court.

"From the beginning," Mr. Cuccinelli said, "we have said that we were simply trying to review documents that are unquestionably state property to determine whether or not fraud had been committed. Today, the court effectively held that state agencies do not have to provide state-owned property to state investigators looking into potential fraud involving government funds."

It's not the end of investigations aimed at Mr. Mann, who has become a lightning rod for activists seeking to challenge scientific findings about the rise in average global temperatures.

The American Tradition Institute, a think tank with roots in the oil and gas industry, has filed its own lawsuit against the university, complaining that it has failed to respond adequately to an open-records request that seeks many of the same e-mails and other documents demanded by Mr. Cuccinelli.

The university so far has granted the American Tradition Institute access to about 2,000 of some 14,000 e-mails that it is seeking, said David W. Schnare, a lawyer who heads the institute's Environmental Law Center. That case is pending in Prince William County Circuit Court, with a decision expected within a few months, Mr. Schnare said.

Mr. Mann recently finished writing a book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, that depicts the efforts by Mr. Cuccinelli and the American Tradition Institute as part of a coordinated industry-financed campaign to raise doubts about the science of global warming.

Mr. Mann said in his statement on Friday that he had faced attacks from "powerful vested interests who simply want to stick their heads in the sand and deny the problem of human-caused climate change, rather than engage in the good-faith debate about what to do about it."

---

wa times op ed http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jan/27/global-warmings-dirty-laundry/

===

good sum of hockey stick:

<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/print/106101">http://www.motherjones.com/print/106101</a>

T'S DIFFICULT TO IMAGINE how a guy who spends most of his time looking at endless columns of temperature records became a "fucking terrorist," "killer," or "one-world-government socialist." It's even harder when you meet <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2005/04/man-behind-hockey-stick" target="_blank">Michael Mann</a> [3], a balding 45-year-old climate scientist who speaks haltingly and has a habit of nervously clearing his throat. And when you realize that the reason for all the hostility is a 12-year-old chart, it seems more than a little surreal.

Back in 1999, Mann—then a <a href="http://www.meteo.psu.edu/%7Emann/Mann/cv/cv_pdf.pdf" target="_blank">newly minted Ph.D.</a> [4] (PDF)—and a pair of colleagues constructed a chart that plotted historical climate data, spanning from 1000 to 1980. Because recorded temperatures only begin in the late 19th century, Mann and his team largely relied on so-called proxy records—measurements of tree rings, coral, and ice cores whose variations illustrate temperature changes over the years. The graph showed that after nearly 900 years of relatively stable temperatures, there was a sharp uptick starting in the 20th century.

</div>

You may have seen a version of the graph, known as the "hockey stick," in the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/" target="blank">An Inconvenient Truth</a> [5]—the rise in carbon dioxide levels<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/print/106101#correction">*</a> is so steep, <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2008/11/can-we-save-planet-and-rescue-economy-same-time" target="blank">Al Gore</a> [6] <a href="http://i43.tinypic.com/15g4jt0.jpg" target="blank">uses a mechanical ladder</a> [7] to reach the most recent readings. The graph was featured prominently in a seminal 2001 report from the United Nations' <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch1s1-6.html" target="blank">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> [8] (IPCC) that concluded, for its first time, that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."

The film and the IPCC report made the chart famous, but <a href="https://motherjones.com/files/11_mann_geophysical_rsch_letters_study_1999.pdf" target="blank">Mann's version</a> [9] (PDF) appeared in the journal <a href="http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/" target="blank">Geophysical Research Letters</a> [10]. There, he and his colleagues explained the complex methodology, and the uncertainties, involved in their study; but let's face it, phrases like "multiproxy data network" and "extensive cross-validation experiments" are lost on most of us. "This," Mann says with an upward swoop of the arm, "the public understands." The chart tells "a very simple story."

[11]<a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/04/watch-our-hockey-stick-adventure" target="_blank">Watch our video on how we fact-checked the hockey stick graph</a> [11].

In fact, some complained that it was too simple, <a href="http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba478" target="blank">glossing over</a> [12] uncertainties in historical climate readings in order to make <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/09/hockey-stick-graph-ipcc-report" target="blank">a more dramatic point</a> [13]. Yet numerous other reconstructions of historical temperature records made since Mann's graph have also shown a dramatic uptick in the 20th century, and a 2006 assessment from the <a href="https://motherjones.com/files/21_nrcreport.pdf" target="_blank">National Academy of Sciences concluded</a> [14] (PDF) that while Mann's methodology wasn't perfect, the story the chart told was accurate.

Yet global warming skeptics have made the graph exhibit A in their cause. <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/07272006hearing2001/hearing.htm" target="blank">Congressional hearings</a> [15] have focused on it, and it has been the impetus for <a href="http://www.stacey-international.co.uk/v1/site/product_rpt.asp?Catid=329&catname=" target="blank">multiple</a> [16] <a href="http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/SingleBook.shtml?command=Search&db=%5EDB/CATALOG.db&eqSKUdata=0742549224&thepassedurl=[thepassedurl]" target="blank">critical</a> [17] <a href="http://www.regnery.com/books/redhotlies.html" target="blank">books</a> [18] and blog posts. Skeptics have <a href="http://climateaudit.org/2010/05/02/cuccinelli-v-mann/" target="blank">dismissed the graph</a> [19] as "little more than paleo-phrenology" and claimed that "<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/14827/mann-made-warming-confirmed/chris-horner" target="blank">Mann-made warming is real</a> [20], while man-made warming remains at best a theory, more likely a hypothesis."

And Mann himself has become a target. Virginia's crusading <a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/10/cuccinellis-attack-climate-science-continues" target="blank">Republican attorney general</a> [21] has suggested that he may have committed research "fraud." The <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpgYNsB3x38" target="blank">2011 Conservative Political Action Conference</a> [22] had a booth where attendees could throw eggs at his picture. There was a flood of hate mail, much of it containing death threats: "Your work is finished. YOU ARE GOING TO HANG SOON!"

<div class="pullquote-left">There was a flood of hate mail, much of it containing death threats: "Your work is finished. YOU ARE GOING TO HANG SOON!"</div>

"Climate science has basically been at the receiving end of the best-funded, best-organized smear campaign by the wealthiest industry that the Earth has ever known—that's the bottom line," Mann told me when I visited him at his Penn State office last November. Near his desk, Mann keeps an actual hockey stick, signed by Middlebury College's championship hockey team to show the school's support for his work.

Things really heated up for Mann in late 2009, when more than 1,000 emails from him and other climate scientists were lifted from a server <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34392959/ns/us_news-environment/" target="blank">at the Climatic Research Unit</a> [23] (CRU) of the UK's University of East Anglia, the world's leading research institution focused on climate change. The emails offered a window into the climate-science bunker, with a view of Mann and his fellow researchers growing increasingly defensive. <a href="http://www.climate-gate.org/email.php?eid=1045" target="blank">One scientist wrote</a> [24] that he was "tempted to beat the crap out of" a skeptic at the libertarian Cato Institute. Another joked that the way to deal with skeptics was "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit)." Scientists suggested that they would rather destroy data than provide them to their critics. They also discussed using "tricks" in their research, debated how to frame uncertainties in some of their data, and attempted to control access to peer-reviewed journals.

[25]<a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/03/climategate-anatomy-scandal" target="_blank">Click here to see our timeline of the Climategate scandal</a> [26].

Within days, the heist—soon dubbed "<a href="http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/climategate-officially-fake-scandal" target="blank">Climategate</a> [27]"—was all over the news. <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/200911230052" target="blank">Glenn Beck called it</a> [28] a "potentially major scandal"; <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXBo20oztXk&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL" target="blank">Fox News crowed</a> [29] that the emails "undercut the whole scientific claim for man's impact on global warming." Rep. <a href="http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/pdfs/cqtranscript_dec2houseclimatehearing.pdf" target="blank">James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) decried</a> [30] (PDF) them as evidence of "scientific fascism."

The immediate impact on public opinion was dramatic. A <a href="http://environment.yale.edu/uploads/AmericansGlobalWarmingBeliefs2010.pdf" target="blank">poll by Yale and George Mason University</a> [31] (GMU) found that in November 2008, 71 percent of respondents agreed that the planet is warming (PDF). Five weeks after Climategate, only 57 percent believed it. The emails, <a href="http://environment.yale.edu/climate/files/Climategate_Opinion_and_Loss_of_Trust_1.pdf" target="blank">said a Yale report</a> [32] (PDF), had "a significant effect on public beliefs in global warming and trust in scientists."

IF A SINGLE PERSON CAN BE credited with setting the stage for Climategate, it's Stephen McIntyre, the retired mining consultant behind the popular skeptic blog <a href="http://climateaudit.org/" target="blank">Climate Audit</a> [33]. Over the past decade, McIntyre has built a reputation for finding methodological errors—some real, some perceived—in climate studies. The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704335904574496850939846712.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" target="blank">Wall Street Journal heralded McIntyre</a> [34] as "global warming's most dangerous apostate."

Indeed, McIntyre has made goading scientists—particularly Mann—close to a full-time job. Like Mann, McIntyre is genial in interviews, but on his blog, his tone toward the scientists targeted by his audits ranges from inquisitive to openly hostile.

The 63-year-old squash enthusiast from Toronto made his money in mining. He has also consulted for the Canadian oil and gas exploration company <a href="http://cgxenergy.ca/" target="_blank">CGX Energy</a> [35]. He says his mining ties don't affect his views on climate change and insists that his prolific blogging on the topic has not benefited him financially—rather, it's taken time away from more profitable business.

</div>

------

sued by ATI (montana CU2) <a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html">http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html</a> see below

attack by heartland

<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/16/485531/heartland-ceo-joe-bast-calls-bill-mckibben-and-michael-mann-madmen/">http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/05/16/485531/heartland-ceo-joe-bast-calls-bill-mckibben-and-michael-mann-madmen/</a>

===

<h1 class="title">Big Coal Attacks Penn State Climate Scientist (Again)</h1>

</div>

—By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/kate-sheppard" rel="author">Kate Sheppard</a>

| Fri Feb. 3, 2012 4:35 PM PST

</div>

We've documented the long-term effort to malign Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann here <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/04/history-of-climategate">rather extensively</a>.  <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/transition/inter.php?dest=http://www.motherjones.com/print/106101">http://www.motherjones.com/transition/inter.php?dest=http://www.motherjones.com/print/106101</a>   Now a coal-backed group is running a smear campaign targeting an upcoming speaking event Mann is holding on campus.

The Common Sense Movement and the Secure Energy for America Political Action Committee (CSM/SEAPAC) have <a href="http://www.votervoice.net/Core/core.aspx?APP=GAC&AID=1398&IssueID=27239&SiteID=-1">started a petition</a> asking Penn State to cancel Mann's Feb. 9 speech. In the petition, they rehash "Climategate" and accuse him of "allegedly manipulating scientific data to align with his extreme political views on global warming." The group offers a template letter for people to send to "daily newspapers near you" attacking Penn State for hosting a speech by "someone of such questionable ethics."

Who is this "Common Sense Movement"? The website claims to represent "a group of individuals and businesses committed to ensuring the availability of affordable, reliable and secure sources of energy for American consumers." But as Brad Johnson reports at Think Progress, it's a coal front group:

SEAPAC is a wing of the Pittsburgh-based astroturf group Common Sense Movement, which is running the <a href="http://choosecommonsense.org/powerofnow">"I Am Coal"</a> campaign. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave2.php?cmte=C00466458&cycle=2010">Contributors</a> include James Clifford Forrest III, president of coal company Rosebud Mining, David Young, president of the Bituminous Coal Operators’ Association, and the top executives of Swanson Industries, a West Virginia mining equipment company.

</blockquote>

Yes, just your average "American consumers."

Andrew Revkin <a href="http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/a-shameful-attack-on-free-speech-by-a-group-claiming-to-speak-for-coal-dependent-workers/">called out the group's attempt</a> to silence Mann as a "shameful attack on free speech." Thankfully, Penn State has not cowed, as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/03/penn-state-facebook-michael-mann?CMP=twt_gu">The Guardian reported</a> on Friday.

<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/big-coal-attacks-penn-state-climate-scientist-again">http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/02/big-coal-attacks-penn-state-climate-scientist-again</a>

<h1 itemprop="name">The inside story on climate scientists under siege</h1>

Michael Mann reveals his account of attacks by entrenched interests seeking to undermine his 'hockey stick' graph

</div>

</div>

<div class="contributor-full"><a class="contributor" rel="author" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/suzannegoldenberg"> Suzanne Goldenberg</a>, US environment correspondent</div>

</li>

<li class="publication"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/">guardian.co.uk</a>, Friday 17 February 2012 07.28 EST</li>

</ul>

</div>

Mann's story of what he calls the climate wars, the fight by powerful entrenched interests to undermine and twist the science meant to guide government policy, starts to seem pretty much on the money. He's telling it in a book out on March 6, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-15254-9/the-hockey-stick-and-the-climate-wars" title="">The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines</a>....

It's hard to square the surroundings with the description in the book of how an entire academic discipline has been made to feel under siege, but Mann insists that it is a given.

"It is now part of the job description if you are going to be a scientist working in a socially relevant area like human-caused <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change">climate change</a>," he said.

He should know. For most of his professional life has been at the center of those wars, thanks to a paper he published with colleagues in the late 1990s showing a sharp upward movement in global temperatures in the last half of the 20th century. The <a title="" href="http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/millennium-camera.pdf">graph became known as the "hockey stick"</a>.

If the graph was the stick, then its publication made Mann the puck. Though other prominent scientists, such as NASA's James Hansen and more recently Texas Tech University's Katharine Hayhoe, have also been targeted by contrarian bloggers and think tanks demanding their institutions turn over their email record, it's Mann who's been the favorite target.

He has been regularly vilified on Fox News and contrarian blogs, and by Republican members of Congress. The attorney general of Virginia has been fighting in the courts to get access to Mann's email from his earlier work at the University of Virginia. And then there is the high volume of hate mail, the threats to him and his family.

"A day doesn't go by when I don't have to fend off some attack, some specious criticism or personal attack," he said. "Literally a day doesn't go by where I don't have to deal with some of the nastiness that comes out of a campaign that tries to discredit me, and thereby in the view of our detractors to discredit the entire science of climate change."

By now he and other climate scientists have been in the trenches longer than the US army has been in Afghanistan.

And Mann has proved a willing combatant. He has not gone so far as Hansen, who has been arrested at the White House protesting against tar sands oil and in West Virginia protesting against coal mining. But he spends a significant part of his working life now blogging and tweeting in his efforts to engage with the public—and fending off attacks.

On the eve of his talk at Penn State, a coal industry lobby group calling itself the Common Sense Movement/Secure Energy for America put up a <a title="" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/feb/03/penn-state-facebook-michael-mann">Facebook page</a> demanding the university disinvite their own professor from speaking, and denouncing Mann as a "disgraced academic" pursuing a radical environmental agenda. The university refused. Common Sense appeared to have dismantled the Facebook page.

But Mann's attackers were merely regrouping. A hostile blogger published a link to Mann's Amazon page, and his opponents swung into action, denouncing the book as a "fairy tale" and <a title="More from guardian.co.uk on Climate change" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/scienceofclimatechange">climate change</a> as "the greatest scam in human history".

It was not the life Mann envisioned when he began work on his postgraduate degree at Yale. All Mann knew then was that he wanted to work on big problems, that resonated outside academia. At heart, he said, he was like one of the amiable nerds on the television show Big Bang Theory.

"At that time I wanted nothing more just to bury my head in my computer and study data and write papers and write programs," he said. "That is the way I was raised. That is the culture I came from."

What happened instead was that the hockey stick graph, because it so clearly represented what had happened to the climate over the course of hundreds of years, itself became a proxy in the climate wars. (Mann's reconstruction of temperatures over the last millennium itself used proxy records from tree rings and coral).

"I think because the hockey stick became an icon, it's been subject to the fiercest of attacks really in the whole science of climate change," he said.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change produced a poster-sized graph for the launch of its climate change report in 2001.

Those opposed to climate change began accusing Mann of overlooking important data or even manipulating the records. None of the allegations were ever found to have substance. The hockey stick would eventually be confirmed by more than 10 other studies.

Mann, like other scientists, was just not equipped to deal with the media barrage. "It took the scientific community some time I think to realize that the scientific community is in a street fight with climate change deniers and they are not playing by the rules of engagement of science. The scientific community needed some time to wake up to that."

By 2005, when Hurricane Katrina drew Americans' attention to the connection between climate change and coastal flooding, scientists were getting better at making their case to the public. George W. Bush, whose White House in 2003 deleted Mann's hockey stick graph from an environmental report, began talking about the need for biofuels. Then Barack Obama was elected on a promise to save a planet in peril.

But as Mann lays out in the book, the campaign to discredit climate change continued to operate, largely below the radar until November 2009 when a huge cache of email from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit was released online without authorization.

Right-wing media and bloggers used the emails to discredit an entire body of climate science. They got an extra boost when an embarrassing error about <a title="" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/20/himalayan-glaciers-melt-claims-false-ipcc">melting of Himalayan glaciers </a>appeared in the UN's IPCC report.

Mann now admits the climate community took far too long to realize the extent of the public relations debacle. Aside from the glacier error, the science remained sound. But Mann said now: "There may have been an overdue amount of complacency among many in the scientific community."

Mann, who had been at the center of so many debates in America, was at the heart of the East Anglia emails battle too.

Though he has been cleared of any wrongdoing, Mann does not always come off well in those highly selective exchanges of email released by the hackers. In some of the correspondence with fellow scientists, he is abrupt, dismissive of some critics. In our time at State College, he mentions more than once how climate scientists are a "cantankerous" bunch. He has zero patience, for example, for the polite label "climate skeptic" for the network of bloggers and talking heads who try to discredit climate change.

"When it comes to climate change, true skepticism is two-sided. One-sided skepticism is no skepticism at all," he said. "I will call people who deny the science deniers…I guess I won't be deterred by the fact that they don't like the use of that term and no doubt that just endears me to them further."

"It's frustrating of course because a lot of us would like to get past this nonsensical debate and on to the real debate to be had about what to do," he said.

But he said there are compensations in the support he gets from the public. He moves over to his computer to show off a web page: I ❤ climate scientists. He's one of three featured scientists. "It only takes one thoughtful email of support to offset a thousand thoughtless attacks," Mann said.

And although there are bad days, he still seems to believe he is on the winning side.

Across America, this is the third successive year of weird weather. The US Department of Agriculture has just revised its plant hardiness map, reflecting warming trends. That is going to reinforce scientists' efforts to cut through the disinformation campaign, Mann said.

"I think increasingly the campaign to deny the reality of climate change is going to come up against that brick wall of the evidence being so plain to people whether they are hunters, fishermen, gardeners," he said.

And if that doesn't work then Mann is going to fight to convince them.

"Whether I like it or not I am out there on the battlefield," he said. But he believes the experiences of the last decade have made him, and other scientists, far better fighters.

"Those of us who have had to go through this are battle-hardened and hopefully the better for it," he said. "I think you are now going to see the scientific community almost uniformly fighting back against this assault on science. I don't know what's going to happen in the future, but I do know that my fellow scientists and I are very ready to engage in this battle."

</div>

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/michael-mann-climate-war">http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/17/michael-mann-climate-war</a>

===

<h1 itemprop="name">Death threats, intimidation and abuse: climate change scientist Michael E. Mann counts the cost of honesty</h1>

Research by Michael E. Mann confirmed the reality of global warming. Little did he know that it would also expose him to a vicious hate campaign

</div>

</div>

<div class="contributor-full"><a class="contributor" rel="author" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/robinmckie">Robin Mc</a>kie</div>

</li>

<li class="publication"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a>, Saturday 3 March 2012 06.32 E</li>

</ul>

...

</div>

trouble is that the hockey stick graph become an icon and deniers reckoned if they could smash the icon, the whole concept of global warming would be destroyed with it. Bring down Mike Mann and we can bring down the IPCC, they reckoned. It is a classic technique for the deniers' movement, I have discovered, and I don't mean only those who reject the idea of global warming but those who insist that smoking doesn't cause cancer or that industrial pollution isn't linked to acid rain."

A barrage of intimidation was generated by "a Potemkin village" of policy foundations, as Mann puts it. These groups were set up by privately-funded groups that included Koch Industries and Scaife Foundations and bore names such as the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity and the Heartland Institute. These groups bombarded Mann with freedom of information requests while the scientist was served with a subpoena by Republican congressman Joe Barton to provide access to his correspondence. The purported aim was to clarify issues. The real aim was to intimidate Mann.

In addition, Mann has been attacked by Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican attorney general of Virginia who has campaigned to have the scientist stripped of academic credentials. Several committees of inquiry have investigated Mann's work. All have exonerated him.

Thousands of emails have been sent to Mann, many deeply unpleasant. "You and your colleagues… ought to be shot, quartered and fed to the pigs along with your whole damn families," said one. "I was hopin [sic] I would see the news and you commited [sic] suicide," ran another.

Yet all that Mann had done was publish to a study suggesting, in cautious terms, that Earth had started to heat up unexpectedly in the past few decades.

"On one occasion, I had to call the FBI after I was sent an envelope with a powder in it," Mann adds. "It turned out to be cornmeal but again the aim was intimidation. I ended up with police security tape all over my office doors and windows. That is the life of a climate scientist today in the US."

Mann insists he will not give up. "I have a six-year-old daughter and she reminds me what we are fighting for." Indeed, Mann is generally optimistic that climate change deniers and their oil and coal industry backers have overstepped the mark and goaded scientists to take action. He points to a recent letter, signed by 250 members of the US National Academy of Science, including 11 Nobel laureates, and published in Science. The letter warns about the dangers of the current attacks on climate scientists and calls "for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them."

"Words like those give me hope," says Mann.

The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars will be published by Columbia University Press in April

===

coal used radio ads to pressure penn state

<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/coal-powered-pac-runs-harassment-campaign-against-climate-scientist-michael-mann">http://www.desmogblog.com/coal-powered-pac-runs-harassment-campaign-against-climate-scientist-michael-mann</a>

</div>

<h3 class="author-name">james west</h3>

Climate Desk Producer</div>

</div>

cuccinelli: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/08/audio-michael-mann-ken-cuccinellis-climategate-investigation

===

hoggan: attacked by inhofe 110

http://motherjones.com/environment/2005/05/some-it-hot

mooney

RECENTLY, NAOMI ORESKES, a science historian at the University of California at San Diego, reviewed nearly a thousand scientific papers on global climate change published between 1993 and 2003, and was unable to find one that explicitly disagreed with the consensus view that humans are contributing to the phenomenon. As Oreskes hastens to add, that doesn’t mean no such studies exist. But given the size of her sample, about 10 percent of the papers published on the topic, she thinks it’s safe to assume that the number is “vanishingly small.”

What do the conservative think tanks do when faced with such an obstacle? For one, they tend to puff up debates far beyond their scientific significance. A case study is the “controversy” over the work of University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann. Drawing upon the work of several independent teams of scientists, including Mann and his colleagues, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2001 report asserted that “the increase in temperature in the 20th century is likely to have been the largest of any century during the past 1,000 years.” This statement was followed by a graph, based on one of the Mann group’s studies, showing relatively modest temperature variations over the past thousand years and a dramatic spike upward in the 20th century. Due to its appearance, this famous graph has been dubbed the “hockey stick.”

During his talk at the AEI, Michael Crichton attacked the “hockey stick,” calling it “sloppy work.” He’s hardly the first to have done so. A whole cottage industry has sprung up to criticize this analysis, much of it linked to ExxonMobil-funded think tanks. At a recent congressional briefing sponsored by the Marshall Institute, Senator Inhofe described Mann’s work as the “primary sci- entific data” on which the IPCC’s 2001 conclusions were based. That is simply incorrect. Mann points out that he’s hardly the only scientist to produce a “hockey stick” graph—other teams of scientists have come up with similar reconstructions of past temperatures. And even if Mann’s work and all of the other studies that served as the basis for the IPCC’s statement on the temperature record are wrong, that would not in any way invalidate the conclusion that humans are currently causing rising temperatures. “There’s a whole independent line of evidence, some of it very basic physics,” explains Mann.

Nevertheless, the ideological allies of ExxonMobil virulently attack Mann’s work, as if discrediting him would somehow put global warming concerns to rest. This idée fixe seems to have begun with Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Both have been “senior scientists” with the Marshall Institute. Soon serves as “science director” to TechCentralStation.com, is an adjunct scholar with Frontiers of Freedom, and wrote (with Baliunas) the Fraser Institute’s pamphlet “Global Warming: A Guide to the Science.” Baliunas, meanwhile, is “enviro-sci host” of TechCentral, and is on science advisory boards of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Annapolis Center for Science-based Public Policy ($427,500 from ExxonMobil), and has given speeches on climate science before the AEI and the Heritage Foundation ($340,000). (Neither Soon nor Baliunas would provide comment for this article.)

In 2003, Soon and Baliunas published an article, partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute, in a small journal called Climate Research. Presenting a review of existing literature rather than new research, the two concluded “the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.” They had, in effect, challenged both Mann and the IPCC, and in so doing presented global warming skeptics with a cause to rally around. Another version of the paper was quickly published with three additional authors: David Legates of the University of Delaware, and longtime skeptics Craig and Sherwood Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Tempe, Arizona. All have ExxonMobil connections: the Idsos received $40,000 from ExxonMobil for their center in the year the study was published, while Legates is an adjunct scholar at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (which got $205,000 between 2000 and 2003).

Calling the paper “a powerful new work of science” that would “shiver the timbers of the adrift Chicken Little crowd,” Senator Inhofe devoted half of a Senate hearing to it, bringing in both Soon and Legates to testify against Mann. The day before, Hans Von Storch, the editor-in-chief of Climate Research—where the Soon and Baliunas paper originally appeared—resigned to protest deficiencies in the review process that led to its publication; two editors soon joined him. Von Storch later told the Chronicle of Higher Education that climate science skeptics “had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common.” Meanwhile, Mann and 12 other leading climate scientists wrote a blistering critique of Soon and Baliunas’ paper in the American Geophysical Union publication Eos, noting, among other flaws, that they’d used historic precipitation records to reconstruct past temperatures—an approach Mann told Congress was “fundamentally unsound.”

==

from gwskepticB

45

183 Fred Pearce, ‘Climate change special: State of denial.’ New Scientist, 4 November 2006.

http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn10445

184 http://naturalscience.com/ns/letters/ns_let06.html

Michael Mann

Attacks on Mann’s work on the ‘Hockey Stick’ have already been addressed. But perhaps the most virulent

attack on Mann came from Congressman Joe Barton who in 2005 sent letters185 to Mann and a handful of his

colleagues, essentially demanding they reproduce their entire life’s work so it could be discredited.

Mann was dragged through Senate hearings in 2006 to defend his work.

As The New Scientist reported in November 2006:

‘Texas Republican Congressman Joe Barton186, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce,

ordered Mann to provide the committee with voluminous details of his working procedures, computer

programmes and past funding.

Barton's demands were widely condemned by fellow scientists and on Capitol Hill.

‘There are people who believe that if they bring down Mike Mann, they can bring down the IPCC,’ said

[Ben] Santer at the time. Mann's findings, which will be endorsed in the new IPCC report, have since been

replicated by other studies.’ 187

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), publishers of the peer-reviewed journal

Science, protested about the witch hunt in a June 2005 letter to Barton:

‘Your letters, however, in their request for highly detailed information regarding not only the scientists’ recent

studies but also their life's work, give the impression of a search for some basis on which to discredit these

particular scientists and findings, rather than a search for understanding.’188

A Washington Post editorial titled ‘Hunting Witches’189 accused Barton of ‘outrageous’ behaviour, stating that,

‘The only conceivable purpose of these letters is harassment.’ Science writer Chris Mooney further details this

‘congressional inquisition’ in an article in American Prospect 190 in July 2005 entitled ‘Mann Hunt’.

Personal attacks go viral

One particularly nasty outcome of the front-group-led denial campaign has been the abuse of climate scientists.

The Scientific American191, George Monbiot in the Guardian192 and Clive Hamilton blogging on Australia’s

ABC website193 have all written recently about the storm of abuse climate scientists are getting.

The target of sceptic attacks for some years, Kevin Trenberth, told Scientific American, ‘In science there's a

whole lot of facts and basic information on the nature of climate change, but it's not being treated that way.

It's being treated as opinion.’194

‘In recent months, each time they enter the public debate through a newspaper article or radio interview these

scientists are immediately subjected to a torrent of aggressive, abusive and, at times, threatening emails.

Apart from the volume and viciousness of the emails, the campaign has two features - it is mostly anonymous

and it appears to be orchestrated,’ writes Clive Hamilton195.

Hamilton authored ‘Scorcher – the dirty politics of climate change’  <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Scorcher-Dirty-Politics-Climate-Change/dp/0977594904">http://www.amazon.com/Scorcher-Dirty-Politics-Climate-Change/dp/0977594904</a> 196, a book where he outlines the decade-long,

coal-industry funded campaign in Australia to deny climate science and its close relationship with then Prime

Minister and climate sceptic John Howard who refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

He tells of a respected climate scientist, Professor David Karoly at the University of Melbourne, who received

these emails. ‘It is probably not to [sic] extreme to suggest that your actions (deceitful) were so criminal to be

compared with Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. It is called treason and genocide’ and ‘Oh, as a scientist, you have

destroyed peoples trust in my profession. You are a criminal. Lest we forget.’197

Comments across the blogosphere follow a similar vein, such as this, posted on a Chicago Tribune blog

explaining the robustness of the climate science conclusions:

‘Global warming is a genocidalist scam to kill us all by 2050. There is no scientific basis for climate science,

there is no such thing as radiative forcing. This hoax is bringing down the US government and the rest because

we see by their going along with this $45 trillion scam, they are just lining their own pockets. Both the Clintons

and Obamas are personally involved in this mass murder ring worse than Hitler's Nazi Germany, in fact this plan

is Nazi in origin, like the original Green Movement.’198

Stan_Lippmann (03/03/2010, 4:30 AM)

Climate scientists are used to robust debate through the peer review process with challenges coming from new

research that proves or disproves their research. But when they are faced with a barrage of abuse from nonscientists,

fed by the denial industry, it’s much more difficult for them to deal with. This is made worse because

like most practicing academics the contact details of climate scientists are almost always publically listed on

university websites.

185 http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=172 See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/

content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071701056.html For a full summary of the furore see

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=109

186 Barton’s biggest contributor in his career has been the oil and gas industry, totaling nearly $3.2 million

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=Career&cid=N00005656&type=I

187 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19225765.000-climate-change-special-state-of-denial.html

188 http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2005/0714letter.pdf

189 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/22/AR2005072201658.html

190 http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=9932

191 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-cyber-bullying&page=2

192 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/jan/27/james-delingpole-climate-change-denial

193 http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm

194 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-cyber-bullying&page=2

195 http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2826189.htm

196 http://www.clivehamilton.net.au/cms/index.php?page=scorcher

===

SPECIAL INVESTIGATION: Who's behind the 'information attacks' on climate scientists?

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This week, in a courtroom in Prince William County, Virginia, a hearing will take place that could have implications for the privacy rights of scientists at colleges and universities across the country.

It's part of a lawsuit brought by the American Tradition Institute, a free-market think tank that wants the public to believe human-caused global warming is a scientific fraud. Filed against the University of Virginia, the suit seeks emails and other documents related to former professor Michael Mann, an award-winning climate scientist who has become a focus of the climate-denial movement because of his research documenting the recent spike in earth's temperature.

By suing the university, the American Tradition Institute wants to make public Mann’s correspondence in an effort to find out whether he manipulated data to receive government grants, a violation of the state’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.

But a Facing South investigation has found that the Colorado-based American Tradition Institute is part of a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation. Our investigation also finds that ATI has connections with the Koch brothers, Art Pope and other conservative donors seeking to expand their political influence.

'A Hostile Environment'

Michael MannThe controversy involving ATI began in January, when the group submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to U.Va. seeking documents connected to Mann (photo at left), who now directs the Earth System Science Center at Penn State. After the school was slow to produce the materials, ATI along with Virginia Del. Robert Marshall (R), another global-warming skeptic, filed a lawsuit in May seeking to expedite the documents' release. This week's hearing will consider Mann's motion to intervene in the case in order to protect privacy interests he does not think will be adequately protected by the other parties.

A physicist and climatologist with advanced degrees from Berkeley and Yale, Mann’s research contributed to the "hockey stick graph," which shows a sharp rise in the earth’s temperature in recent years. He was also among those caught up in the so-called "Climategate" controversy, involving emails hacked from a British university that climate skeptics claimed showed global warming was a fraud. Multiple investigations by Penn State, the National Science Foundation's Inspector General, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and British parliament have cleared Mann and others of misconduct and determined that the content of the emails in no way changed the scientific consensus that global warming is occurring as a result of human activity.

Despite those exonerations, however, Mann became the target of a separate ongoing investigation launched last year by Virginia Republican Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a global-warming skeptic who issued civil subpoenas for Mann's emails and other documents. A Virginia judge dismissed the investigation, but Cuccinelli -- who previously challenged the Environmental Protection Agency's finding that greenhouse gas pollution endangers public health -- is now appealing that decision to the Supreme Court of Virginia. ATI is seeking the same documents as Cuccinelli.

ATI's lawsuit has been widely condemned by science, academic and civil liberties groups, who describe it as a politically motivated intrusion into academic freedom. The board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science said that such legal challenges "have created a hostile environment that inhibits the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas." Earlier this year, public-interest groups including the American Association of University Professors sent a letter to the U.Va. president noting that the Virginia public documents statute expressly exempts scholarly data of a proprietary nature that has not yet been publicly released, published, copyrighted or patented.

"While we need freedom of information laws to hold public officials accountable, the law has exemptions for good reason," said Francesca Grifo, director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, one of the letter's signatories. "Scientists should be able to challenge other scientists’ ideas and discuss their preliminary thinking before their analyses are complete and published."

But ATI has fired back against the scientists and academics, accusing them of taking part in a conspiracy to mislead and defraud the public.

"Once again these self-interested groups -- who hope to protect their billions of dollars in government funding of dubious, unsupportable research -- accuse ATI of 'harassment and intimidation' of scientists," ATI Executive Director Paul Chesser said in a statement. "It shows how blind they are to the fact that ATI has acted in the interest of sound, verifiable science and for the protection of the hard-earned money that taxpayers are forced to relinquish for such research."

ATI's Western roots

atp logoThe American Tradition Institute’s foray into the Virginia case marks the expansion of a controversial group already known for its fierce advocacy on behalf of oil, gas and coal interests in Western states.

The American Tradition Institute was launched in Colorado in February 2009 as the nonprofit Western Tradition Institute, changing its name to ATI last year.  WTI, in turn, was a spinoff of the Western Tradition Partnership (WTP) -- a 501(c)(4) political advocacy group backed by energy interests.

"They are offshoots from the same poisoned roots," said Peter Fontaine, the attorney representing Michael Mann in the ATI lawsuit.

WTP, which has since changed its name to American Tradition Partnership (logo above), describes itself as a "no-compromise grassroots organization dedicated to fighting the radical environmentalist agenda." It was first registered as a Colorado nonprofit in 2008 by Scott Shires, a Republican operative with a checkered past: He was fined over $7,000 for campaign finance violations in Colorado, pleaded guilty in a scheme to fraudulently obtain federal grants for developing alternative fuels, and was tied to an illegal gambling ring. WTP was active on behalf of oil and gas industry interests in the 2008 commissioners race in Garfield County, a center of Colorado's energy industry.

Last year, the then-Western Tradition Partnership also backed a Colorado ballot initiative that would have allowed voters to opt out of the state’s renewable energy standard, which requires 30 percent of the electricity produced by investor-owned utilities to come from renewable sources by 2030. WTP missed the filing deadline to put the measure on the ballot, but ATI is picking up the slack: The group has sued Colorado over the standard, and is targeting similar renewable energy promotion programs in Delaware, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico and Ohio.

The groups have not only been fighting on behalf of the energy industry: They’ve also been targeting laws that restrict corporate money in elections and that require disclosure of contributions. In 2009, Western Tradition Partnership sued the city of Longmont, Colo. over their local Fair Campaign Practices Act. The city eventually settled the suit and agreed to drop requirements that political donors have their identities disclosed on campaign advertisements.

And in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, WTP successfully challenged the constitutionality of the Montana Corrupt Practices Act of 1912, which prohibited independent expenditures by corporations to influence political campaigns -- a law originally aimed at powerful mining and railroad interests in the state.

But even while it has fought to weaken election laws, WTP has at times run afoul of them. A decision issued last year by the Montana Commission of Political Practices found that the organization had broken state campaign laws by failing to register as a political committee or properly report its donors and spending. The investigation discovered that the group had solicited unlimited contributions to support pro-mining, pro-logging and pro-development candidates in Montana and avoided disclosing the contributions by passing them along to a sham political action committee that in turn ran attack ads against Democrats.

As Commissioner Dennis Unsworth said in his decision, the group's wrongdoing "raises the specter of corruption of the electoral process."

A window into the climate-denial industry

paul chesserIn the Western Tradition Partnership's Winter 2010 newsletter, the group announced that it changed its name to the American Tradition Partnership. It also reported in an article datelined North Carolina that it had launched the American Tradition Institute, a think tank that would be "battling radical environmentalist junk science head on."

The group would be led by Paul Chesser, who they described as a "noted climate scholar." In fact, Chesser (photo at left) is not a scientist but has long worked in what environmental advocates call the "climate denial machine": a network of organizations, many backed by energy interests, that work to create doubt about the science of human-caused global warming.

According to his bio, Chesser grew up in Rhode Island and worked as an accountant in Los Angeles. He launched his reporting career in North Carolina, where he edited two weekly conservative Christian newspapers, The Raleigh World and The Triad World. Now defunct, the papers were owned by World Newspaper Publishing, whose stated purpose is to "bring journalism informed by a distinctly Christian worldview to major cities across America."

From there, Chesser moved to the John Locke Foundation (JLF), a free-market think tank based in Raleigh, N.C. that has been a leading voice of climate denial in North Carolina. The Locke Foundation decries what it calls "global warming alarmism" and promotes the views of global warming skeptics like Patrick Michaels, who left the climatologist's office at the University of Virginia in 2007 over controversy about his funding sources and fringe views.

The Locke Foundation was founded and is largely funded by Art Pope, a North Carolina millionaire and leading conservative benefactor. As a national director of the free-market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, Pope has close ties to the Koch brothers, the billionaire owners of the Kansas-based Koch Industries oil and chemical conglomerate and leading funders of global warming denial efforts. The Koch Family Foundations have also contributed at least $70,000 to the Locke Foundation.

It was at the Locke Foundation that Chesser began his crusade against the growing scientific consensus about climate change. He served as an editor of Carolina Journal, the group’s monthly newspaper that relentlessly attacks the science of global warming in its climate coverage. While there he also began working with Climate Strategies Watch, an initiative that sought to discredit the Center for Climate Strategies, a nonprofit group that helps states figure out ways to reduce greenhouse gas pollution.

Climate Strategies Watch was a joint project of the Locke Foundation and the Heartland Institute, a corporate-backed think tank in Chicago where Chesser also served as a special correspondent. Heartland has received at least $676,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. Between 1997 and 2008, they also received $30,000 from foundations connected to the Kochs and another $50,000 from Pope's family foundation. One of Heartland's government-relations advisors also served as Exxon's senior environmental advisor.

Chesser was soon fully immersed in the climate-denial network. He became an associate fellow for the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative think tank heavily funded by the Scaife Foundations, which are controlled by the family that owns Gulf Oil. He blogged for the Cooler Heads Coalition, an industry front group led by the Competitive Enterprise Institute -- a fierce opponent of greenhouse gas regulation that has taken over $2 million from ExxonMobil as well as funding from the American Petroleum Institute, Texaco and the Koch, Scaife and Pope foundations. (ATI’s director of litigation, Christopher Horner, is a CEI fellow.)

Now at the American Tradition Institute, Chesser again finds himself speaking for a group largely bankrolled by fossil fuel interests. According to its most recent filing with the IRS, ATI last year received $40,000 from its sister group ATP, which in turn is supported by oil, gas and coal interests. It received another $5,000 from the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, a Virginia-based think tank that since 1998 has received over $1 million in funding from Exxon Mobil; between 1997 and 2008, Atlas also received $122,300 from the Koch foundations and $735,000 from the Pope foundation.

But ATI's biggest funder is Montana businessman Doug Lair and his Lair Family Foundation; they contributed $5,000 and $135,000 respectively to the group last year -- over 75 percent of its total income.

Lair’s fortune comes from Lair Petroleum, the family business that was sold in 1989 to William Koch, the lesser-known brother of Charles and David Koch. As recently as 2010, Lair Petroleum was listed as Lair’s employer in state campaign finance reports, although now he’s also an investor in commercial and agricultural real estate.

Along with the American Tradition Partnership, Lair and another Montana resident recently filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Montana campaign finance laws, arguing that limits on donation amounts and corporate contributions are impermissible under the First Amendment -- a suit similar to others filed by the group. The plaintiffs are represented by James Bopp Jr., a prominent conservative attorney who worked as a legal adviser to the group behind the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision that successfully challenged strictures on corporate money in elections.

"The Supreme Court has ruled that corporate political speech is protected by the First Amendment, and you cannot ban political speech just because the speaker is a corporation," said Bopp.

A chilling trend for academic freedom

The hearing on the American Tradition Institute's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the University of Virginia seeking Michael Mann's records is set for Tuesday, Nov. 1 before Judge Gaylord Finch in Prince William County Court. The hearing was postponed from September after Finch said he wanted to allow more time for arguments because of the case's significance.

"If it wasn't clear before, it should now be clear to everybody," David Schnare (photo at right), pro bono director of ATI's Environmental Law Center, said at the time. "This is an extremely important case, and we appreciate Judge Finch’s careful attention to detail as we proceed."

Critics say the case not only symbolizes the industry attack on climate science but is part of a growing trend of using public information requests to target academics for political reasons.

Earlier this year, the Republican Party of Wisconsin filed a records request seeking materials from University of Wisconsin history professor William Cronon after he criticized Republican Gov. Scott Walker's push for legislation to weaken public-sector unions. Soon after, the Mackinac Center for Public Policy -- a free-market think tank based in Michigan -- submitted Freedom of Information Act requests seeking materials related to the Wisconsin union battle from labor studies faculty at the University of Michigan, Michigan State and Wayne State.

In the Cronon case, the University of Wisconsin's Faculty Senate passed a resolution arguing that open records laws are abused when they become partisan tools. "What was begun as a classic notion of sunshine being the best disinfectant has turned into a law that's used as a weapon to target not government officials and offices but individual public employees," said professor Howard Schweber, one of the political scientists who helped craft the resolution.

In the end, the university released some Cronon emails but withheld others, including exchanges with students protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and what it considered private exchanges among scholars. In the Wayne State case, the think tank's action led the university to take down some pages of its Labor Studies Center's website and investigate whether they had violated state campaign finance laws.

The American Tradition Institute is also using open records law to target another prominent and award-winning climate scientist: James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. In January, ATI filed a federal FOIA request with NASA seeking information on how Hansen "has complied with applicable federal ethics and financial disclosure laws and regulations, and NASA Rules of Behavior." An outspoken advocate for limiting greenhouse gas pollution, Hansen has long been a target of global-warming skeptics for his research and activism. ATI has sued NASA for withholding documents over concerns about Hansen's privacy rights.

In the upcoming hearing on the U.Va. case, Mann's attorney, Peter Fontaine (photo at left), told Facing South that he will argue his client should be permitted to intervene in the ATI lawsuit because of his personal interest in protecting his private email correspondence with other scientists -- what Fontaine calls the "raw materials of scholarship" that lead to finished science.

"If this information is disclosed and allowed to be cherry-picked, distorted and mischaracterized, it will result in a terrible chilling of the rights of scientists to exchange their ideas," said Fontaine, co-chair of Cozen O’Connor’s energy and climate change programs and an EPA air pollution enforcer in the early 1990s. "It would be a blatant violation of my client's copyrights to his private emails, as well as his First Amendment rights and the right to academic freedom."

Fontaine faces a formidable adversary in ATI’s Schnare, who holds advanced science degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and worked as an attorney with the Department of Justice and Virginia Attorney General before serving in the same EPA air-pollution enforcement job as Fontaine from 1999 until his retirement four months weeks ago. Schnare dismissed the idea that the lawsuit is targeting Mann or his scholarly position on climate science, and said he plans to argue that the professor should not be allowed to intervene.

"This case is about FOIA, not Mike Mann," Schnare said. "If he had wanted to protect himself from embarrassing emails, he should not have pressed 'send' to begin with."

<a href="http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html" style=""> http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/10/special-investigation-whos-behind-the-information-attacks-on-climate-scientists.html</a>

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