PRESS RELEASE
Tuesday, April 20th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Jeff Davis
Washington, DC — Penn State University’s Michael Mann, one of the central figures in the Climategate scandal, has threatened legal action against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over the group’s popular satirical YouTube video “Hide the Decline.” The No Cap-and-Trade Coalition, a group that includes M4GW, responded today at an event at the National Press Club, releasing Mann’s threatening letter and an updated version of the “Hide the Decline” video.
“We understand why Michael Mann is eager to silence public discussion of the hockey stick scandal,” said Jeff Davis of No Cap-and-Trade, “but truth is an absolute defense.”
The original “Hide the Decline” video, which had more than 500,000 viewers, was removed today from YouTube by M4GW’s Elmer Beauregard. It received national attention when Rush Limbaugh played it on his radio show and was later featured on CBS Evening News in the wake of the Climategate email scandal. “Hide the Decline” parodied Mann, the Penn State professor who is largely responsible for the creation of the now debunked “hockey stick” graph, which purported to show a dramatic spike in average global temperature during the 20th century after 900 years of relatively constant temperature.
The video spotlighted a phrase from one of the central “Climategate” e-mails in which the University of East Anglia’s Phil Jones explains how he used Mann’s “Nature trick” to “hide the decline” of key temperature data. The hockey stick graph relied on “hiding this decline.”
When asked why he removed the video, Beauregard said “Right now, the last thing I need is a lawsuit. I can barely afford my electric bill.” Beauregard recently converted M4GW’s world headquarters (a recreational vehicle parked in Northern Minnesota) from propane to wood heat. “Mann should be glad to know that we don’t burn fossil fuels anymore — just trees,” said Beauregard.
“M4GW was started to poke fun at Global Warming because I knew it was a joke, it’s hard to believe in Global Warming when you live in a place like Minnesota. During last winter we all wished we had some global warming, hence the name of our group,” said Beauregard. As global warming developed into a political issue, M4GW has tried to educate the public that CO2 is not harmful but part of the natural carbon cycle.
Minnesotans for Global Warming did comply with Mann’s cease and desist demand, taking the “Hide the Decline” video down from their YouTube account and webpage. The No Cap and Trade Coalition unveiled a new video they’re calling “Hide the Decline 2,” however. It was screened at a press conference on April 20th and is available on YouTube and NoCapAndTrade.com.
“If Doctor Mann decides to sue,” said Davis, “we would welcome the opportunity to do legal discovery. I believe he’s hiding more than just ‘the decline.’”
Speaking at the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition press conference was M4GW spokesman “Chicken Little,” a man in a chicken suit who goes to rallies crying “The globe is warming, the globe is warming!”
When asked about the situation, Chicken Little said, “I used to believe in global warming — of course, I used to believe the sky was falling too, but Elmer set me straight.” Chicken Little went on to say, “I think it’s horrible that Elmer had to take down the video. Can’t a person have a little fun on YouTube anymore? Those Global warming guys sure don’t have any sense of humor.”
At the press conference, the No Cap-and-Trade Coalition handed out a historical review of the hide-the-decline controversy entitled, “Michael Mann: Defamed or Defined by Hide-the-Decline?” as well as mini-hockey sticks that read “Mann-Made Global Warming: Why We Should Be Worried About the Intellectual Climate.”
Both versions of the “Hide The Decline” video can be viewed at http://www.nocapandtrade.com/michael-mann-controversy/.
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Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) uses humor to illustrate the absurdity of anthropogenic global warming fears. Their slogans are “Turn your snow shovels into lawn chairs,” and “Nothing would be green without CO2.” – M4GW.com
The No Cap and Trade Coalition consists of over 40 state and national organizations that are opposed to cap and trade legislation. For more information, see NoCapAndTrade.com
Satire may only be allowable as a defense against charges of copyright infringement, which is part of the Cease & desist letter.
I don’t know if it can be used for a defense against charges of defamation (slander), but truth is not slander, and courts give less protection to public figures than most of us. Mann’s frequent appearances on the talk show circuit could be used as evidence that he is a public figure, that would be a bit ironic, but irony is like that. 🙂
Evidently this was already covered in the famous Larry Flynt versus Jerry Falwell Supreme Court decision. Hustler had printed a satirical advert about Jerry Falwell’s early sex life and he sued and won damages, but it was later over turned by the Supreme Court. There is even a movie about it.
How does one donate to Mann’s legal fund?
21 April: UK Times: Flying into the unknown: why Met Office science on ash is inexact
Indeed, all weather models deal in probabilities rather than facts; nor are our satellites and weather balloons designed with ash plume monitoring in mind.
The Met Office uses a pollution dispersion model called Name. That stands for Nuclear Accident Model — it was prompted by the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Developed to model dispersion of nuclear fallout, the system treats ash and dust in the same way. An estimate of the volume of ash being injected into the atmosphere is fed into the model, which applies Met Office forecasts of wind speeds and structures and produces a best estimate for where ash will be found…
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article7103311.ece
Michael Mann. Along with Phil Jones, his name will go down in the annals of science as an example of how science gets corrupted.
He would win in Britain where satire ,per se, is not a defense. That is the purpose of the threat. Unfortunately no one in America gives a damn about British law and awards. The Brits have become as judicially respected as Russia, China, Spain or Turkey. Nut cases.
And in other news – It turns out there is indeed a link between CAGW and the recent volcanic ash air shutdown. The Met Office (ardent CAGW fans) produced the map that was responsible for unnecessarily shutting down European air space. From:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7612109/Iceland-volcano-UK-airports-reopen-as-BA-claims-shutdown-unnecessary.html
“It emerged that two vastly differing maps of the ash cloud were being circulated by official bodies.
One, prepared by the government-controlled Met Office and used by the CAA and Nats, showed the ash cloud covering much of Europe.
A second, produced for the European air traffic control co-ordinator Eurocontrol limited the areas of danger to two high-density clouds over the Atlantic.
This second map and extensive test flights which have shown no negative effects on aircraft helped persuade many other European countries to reopen their air space.”
The left will come the aid of Mann due to the trillions involved in the fraud.
I feel the ice-age coming on fast – I say freeze um out.
Of course, dr mann will claim the SUV’s did it.
Chicken little global warmers are going to be sooo angry about the decline in temps caused by Mr Icelandic Volcano. Also, how about those solar flare cycles. Honestly, if the climate only changes because of my suv and air conditioning, why do I have sea shells and glacial boulders on my Ohio farm. What the heck were those dinos and…cavemen up to…?
Tom in South Jersey (21:06:18) :
Evidently this was already covered in the famous Larry Flynt versus Jerry Falwell Supreme Court decision. Hustler had printed a satirical advert about Jerry Falwell’s early sex life and he sued and won damages, but it was later over turned by the Supreme Court. There is even a movie about it.
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I don’t believe copyright infringement was an issue in the Flynt vs Falwell case.
Quoting from the letter M4GW received from Dr. Mann’s attorney, as reported at ClimateAudit:
“You are hereby advised that the use of Dr Mann’s likeness, which you clearly misappropriated from PSU’s webpage,www.meteo,psu.edu/~mann/MRG/index.html, is not authorized and infringes on various copyrights.”
My 7th grader came home from school after watching “An Inconvenient Truth” and “learning” about global warming. We talked about the facts presented on this website and watched “Hide the Decline” together. It was the most successful act of parenting I’ve ever done.
You didn’t see Sarah Palin suing Tina Fey, and whatever you might think about Palin, she’s nobody’s fool to do something as inadvisable as Mann is about to.
Other examples are Rich Little and Richard Nixon, Dana Carvery and GHW Bush.
I forget who did Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton.
Oh well, it’s Mann’s choice.
I must say I wondered if the threat of law suits was why the Oxburgh inquiry released that strange addendum.
It sounded like it was — and Mann was the obvious person for someone upset enough to threaten legal action unless they released a statement saying … “it is important to be clear that the neither the panel report nor the press briefing intended to imply that any research group in the field of climate change had been deliberately misleading in any of their analyses or intentionally exaggerated their findings.”
especially as Steve McIntyre’s research was specifically cited by Professor Head as being very impressive,
Come on guys. Google it, and then play it.
Got 7191 views already.
Hilarious
“Missing” heat may affect future climate change
http://www2.ucar.edu/news/missing-heat-may-affect-future-climate-change
The Firefox Download Helper lets you download videos from YouTube and other streaming video sites. It downloads them in .flv format though, so you’ll need VLC Media Player to play them unless they are converted to another format.
I just got my copy of Hide The Decline this way.
Nine times out of ten, these “Cease and Desist” letters concerning internet content are nothing more than bullying tactics. In order for content to be defamatory, it has to be false, and satirical works are protected under free speech in the USA.
Discovery!
I wondered how a professor could hire an attorney for such a frivolous lawsuit. One that would get tossed out if ever brought before a judge.
Of course, a quick look at Cozen O’Connor’s web site (the attorney’s for Mann) show them to be deeply involved in representing the underwriting of carbon trading and off-sets. They have former members of the EPA on staff, etc. Their representation of Mann is a business move to protect their investments.
In agreement.
Most people would let the kerfuffle die. Not ego boy.
Mr Manne can’t afford the high risk stakes of a lawsuit, because discovery is one thing, but there is enough to damn him ten times over, even without discovery.
His brief may try to remove the emails as inadmissible on a legal technicality but the case is about the emails, the subject of the song, good luck.
But seeing the documents are government funded and M4GW did not hack but are only commenting on them, having seen them on the internet and Mr Manne never having denied them, just trying to explaijn them and reinterpret them, again good luck.
Lastly Mr Manne has made himself by conduct an advocate and hence political, his privacy issues are less defendible. He has had to front Government and failed to defend his preposterations.
Most people having dug themselves in a hole they can’t climb out of, they stop digging.
And the victim angle, we all know victims of Manne Jones and the whole conspirator crew. Someone buy him a tissue.
I think someone gave him some very bad advice.
Take it to the Supreme Court!
Cambell and Acuff-Rose, the U.S. Supreme Court
Parody needs to mimic original, at least to the extent the audience can perceive the original expression. Therefore, if one has to make the original expression unperceivable in order to avoid infringement, there is no way to create parody as a logical consequence.
Therefore, if one has to make the original expression unperceivable in order to avoid infringement, there is no way to create parody as a logical consequence.
The Chief Justice realized this dilemma and wrote a supplemental opinion saying that “to avoid infringement, for example, we may conceive a way that Defendant should take a photo by himself which mimics the expressive form of the Plaintiff’s photo to the extent necessary for expressing parody and adding photo montage method to his own photo.” I cannot believe there is any parodist in the world who would fly to the Alps just to make such a montage.
All the sceptic blogs should carry a copy of the video under the heading “Please sue us, Dr Mann”.
There’s absolutely no way he’s going to go to court over this. He’s all bluster.
The original is still available here:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ff_1268964195
Erm was there not a photo-shopped image in the emails released…….and did this not involve it being sent to Mann’s coworkers if not Mann himself?
http://dailyradar.com/beltwayblips/video/hide-the-decline-ii-1/