Mann at Orange County Water Conference – emotional presentation, polar bears threatened, still thinks snows of Kilimanjaro are receding due to 'climate change'

Was Roger Sowell’s question poorly worded? It was.
Now if anyone thinks that a carefully worded, to the specific point, with no room for misinterpretation or obfuscation, would have resulted in anything else from Dr Mann, they are mistaken. There have been cases where the question got the specific issue correct, the specific paper, and the response comes back along the line of some obscure reference in some obscure footnote that supposedly explains everything. By the time one actually can get the paper, find the obscure reference in the obscrure footnote, which leads to a quote in another paper, equally obscure, that isn’t even about that specific issue (but does mention the issue, except it refers to another paper still)…. ooops, it is days later, the room is empty, and Mann has gone his merry way without a scratch upon him.

Pompeii is lost? C’mon guys! Own up! Where have you hidden it? You guys are such kidders. You haven’t hidden it under 100 feet of Gauloise ends again have you? Sheesh.

Mann evaded the question very skillfully. Probably he has to do that a lot since 1998.

Mann seems to be depending upon Hansen’s projection that were presented to congress,
I would like to see new graph showing the comparison to latest temperature. And not on such small graph. And reminder of the A,B, and C scenarios as Hansen explained them when he presented them.
I don’t where Mann is getting the idea human emission has been reduced to the levels Hansen advocated them to be.

Sowell blew it. Victory to Mann on this one. That’s the nature of debate. You must get you facts right.

I just listen from 59 min to 1h04.
The question is excellent and the answer of Mann is typical of what we call in french ‘la langue de bois’. He just does not answer to the question and at the end you even don’t know what was your question.
This guy is a politician !!!

(I’m glad there are other subtopics on this thread to discuss–the main topic is worth reading about, I suppose, *yawn*, but (except for this small blurb) unworthy of written comment.)
How’s that for a Big Mann Skewer?

Mann responded to the question like a politician. I doubt it would have mattered what Sowell asked, Mann would not have given a clear answer. Mann considers that human influence on the climate is no longer worthy of debate. Any evidence that falsifies his scientific results he characterises as attacks meant to discredit his work. He considers his results immune from the scientific method.
He knew what Sowell was asking, because he said, “I think you’re referring to the paper that we published in Nature in 1998, myself, Ray Bradley and Malcolm Hughes.”
But in the next breath he decided to focus on Briffa’s paper by saying: “The study you’re actually referring to is a study by Keith Briffa and colleagues that I was not part of…..”
Mann knew that the question was about his MBH98 paper and hockey stick graph as Sowell had asked him why he chose “to not use tree core data after 1960 and instead to splice in the instrumental temperature record. In effect to hide the decline of the trees after 1960.…” But he decided to ignore this and pretend that the question was about Briffa’s paper.
Mann claimed that Briffa’s paper was about the ‘divergence problem’ whereby he states that data which didn’t fit the rising temperature scenario must have been affected by pollution or some unknown enigmatic limiting factors. But this was simply a red herring to divert attention from the valid criticisms of his MBH98 paper as highlighted by Stephen McIntyre and Ross Mckitrick in their paper:
“CORRECTIONS TO THE MANN et. al. (1998)
PROXY DATA BASE AND NORTHERN HEMISPHERIC
AVERAGE TEMPERATURE SERIES
The data set of proxies of past climate used in Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998,
“MBH98” hereafter) for the estimation of temperatures from 1400 to 1980 contains
collation errors, unjustifiable truncation or extrapolation of source data, obsolete data,
geographical location errors, incorrect calculation of principal components and other
quality control defects.”
http://www.multi-science.co.uk/mcintyre-mckitrick.pdf
Mann concludes by plugging his book and claiming that there is no debate about human caused climate change, because he wants the debate to move away from science and into politics.
Sowell asked a perfectly good question:
“How do you respond to the charge that the tree ring data was cherry picked to show a desired result and that Mr Steve McIntyre has falsified your work by showing that the premise of a hockey stick falls apart when all the data is used?”
There was no conflation. Sowell knew exactly what he was asking and so did Mann. Except that Mann used a well known debating trick by ignoring the fact that the question related to his paper and responding to a ‘straw man’ question about Briffa’s paper.
Mann has morphed into an activist politican and like a politician answered the question he wanted to answer, regardless of whether or not he was addressing the precise point of the actual question.

Follow the money

I don’t think that Mann is smooth talker or great a thinking on feet or anything like that, in fact he comes across as being very uncomfortable on the stage, but the question was totality blown, especially since it was written out.

My thanks and appreciation to those with positive comments on the question I posed:
David Ball, mfo, Bob the Swiss, HankHenry. I hope I did not inadvertently overlook anyone.
There are some critics among the commenters, too.
The question, as Anthony posted in an earlier thread on Mann at Disneyland, was the result of a collaborative effort. I did read it off of a piece of paper. As Mann correctly pointed out, I did state Briffa when I should have stated Bradley as one of the coauthors. However, that was a minor mistake.
There are several very interesting things to be learned from this question and Mann’s answer. First, it is important to note the venue, the purpose, and the time constraints.
This was not a debate. Live debates in modern days are fairly uncommon. Scientific debates, or promoting an issue while downplaying others, are generally carried out in the published, peer-reviewed literature.
This was also not a command performance, a Congressional hearing, with subpoenaed witnesses providing sworn testimony under penalty of perjury. In such a hearing, elected officials may ask question after question, delving into what they see as important aspects of an issue.
It was also not a presentation to a hearing board of a government agency, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency.
It was also not a board of inquiry into alleged scientific misconduct.
Finally, it was not a trial in a court of law, with a judge, jury, witnesses, expert witnesses, tangible evidence, and skilled attorneys for each side.
This was none of those venues. This was a one-hour (more or less) audio and still-slides presentation during a half-day meeting, open to the public. A few questions were taken, and a short answer was made to each. Time was short. There was no requirement to tell the truth, and no penalty for being less than truthful. There was no means for a questioner to ask follow-up questions. There was no means for an attorney (in this case, the questioner, me) to object, on the grounds that the witness’ answer was non-responsive. Non-responsive means the witness did not answer the question that was posed to him.
Yet, we can learn a few things from Mann’s answer.
We note that, as one commenter indicated above, Dr. Mann turned a one-sentence answer into a 3-minute ramble. Clearly, Mann wanted to address the issue, or a least part of the issue. It could be that he really would like to have a live, face-to-face debate. It may rankle him that “the debate is over.”
Mann also used his time to focus on an admitted error in the factual pre-statement, Briffa rather than Bradley. The pre-statement was offered before the question, in order to establish a bit of context for the question. Also as someone above noted, this is a debate tactic where one debater attempts to avoid an unpleasant point and focus on a trivial matter. Politicians also do this.
Why would Mann do this? Why would he, having a perfect opportunity, avoid saying why he believes he is right and Steve McIntyre is wrong? There could be a number of reasons. Just speculating, but Mann probably was elated when his Hockey Stick graph was chosen for a prominent position in the IPCC report. Mann undoubtedly has followed all the hoopla after that, too. He is surely aware of the debunking efforts, and must be keenly aware that the Hockey Stick graph no longer has a prominent position in the IPCC reports. Perhaps that stung, maybe more than a little. Perhaps that is why Mann felt compelled to write a book on the entire matter, and place his version of things in public.
It could also be that Mann was keenly aware that this presentation was being video recorded and would be placed on the internet where, potentially, 6 billion pairs of eyes and ears could see and hear it.
It is evident that Mann did not want to address the actual question posed to him, that his data for the hockey stick graph was cherry-picked to provide a pre-determined outcome. It seems to me that this is the question that should be posed to him at every opportunity. I suspect he really does want to answer that question.
Finally, as to asking a question to a panelist in a public venue such as this OC Water Summit, I felt comfortable with that. But then, as an attorney, I do this sort of thing routinely. As for reading the question off a piece of paper, attorneys do that, too. It is good practice to write out one’s questions, especially long or complicated questions.
In a civil or criminal trial at court, I would not pose a question in this manner. It is far too open-ended and gives the witness far too much latitude. This was not a court of law, as noted above.
For this venue, the question was fine, and the answer was very instructive.
Perhaps others have a different view on the significance of Mann’s response and non-response.

Dr. Michael Mann’s debate evasion at the Orange County water summit. Better luck next time Dr. Patrick Michaels. Now I know why they say the debate is over.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2012/06/27/michael-manns-hissy-fit-shows-why-global-warming-alarmists-fear-debate/

Dr. Mann is the poster boy for the scientist grazing in the trough of public grant money, using his proceeds to read tea leaves and tree rings, rather than doing the important research in astrophysics wherein lies the true answer to climate change on the Sun and Earth. The disgusting thing about his conduct is he will continue to do this lying for years to come, and will never be called to account along with all these other CO2 snake oil climate salesmen like Gore, Hansen, Schmidt, Jones, et al. Thirty years from now, when we are freezing our testicles off at the nadir of the Grand Solar Minimum, charlatans like Mann will be a distant, unprosecutable memory.