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/.
###
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
Hide the Decline II is a white flag.
Beauregrad’s French genes got the best of him.
The teutonic Mann sensed it and rolled over him.
We lose our right to free speech.
Now No Cap & Trade has to storm the beach and do his fighting.
Sorry, but it really is pathetic.
On the off chance that this makes it to court, just who is most likely to be the ‘court jester’?
Just some help for all the buddies out there: Playing You Tube .flv videos? Doesn’t EVERYONE have K-Lite codec pack and the included Media Player Classic? This plays any format that exists, is light on memory and is free. You will never need anything else. For downloads: ant.com for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Also free and works like a charm! (Just thought I’d mention it)
A couple of the posts here point to an analogy in regards to climate and the volcanic ash cloud.
On the one hand, there is the IPCC and the UK Met Office maximising the scare stories through the use of bad/dodgy scientific models, thus causing as much harm and inconvenience as possible to the general public (in Europe).
On the other hand, you have another group – in this case the European Union, the airlines, the pilots and groups like WUWT etc, who say: “yes, we recognise there may be a bit of a problem, but it is no way as bad as you say it is”.
In the first instance, it is a combination of bureaucrats, academics and dumb politicians. In the second instance it is mostly people who actually understand the real world and interact with it.
I am still not happy about comparisons between planes flying through sand storms and volcanic ash – sand storms are OK, yet they are forbidden to fly through areas of much lower concentrations of volcanic ash.
The volcano in Iceland is spewing out mostly silicates, but no quartz – it is not that type of volcano. Silicates are much softer (hardness 5-6, as opposed to quartz sand, which is 7) and therefore should be much less abrasive than quartz sand.
One day history will judge AGW as being “Much ado about nothing”, but until then we have Mann, Patchi, Jones, Hansen et alia as today’s purveyors of bad and/or distorted and/or manipulated science. Mann’s threat to sue should be taken in the context of the Icelandic volcano, potentially impressive, but not really all that dangerous.
JimBrock (17:42:57) :
“… Now that Mann has threatened a lawsuit, an action in declaratory judgment would lie in federal court….”
Jim, could you please explain that for us poor layman? Getting Mann in court while Congress is trying to push another Cap and Trade bill sounds like a necessity.
This has made me watch the old version again in “High Definition”
Utube “Hide the decline – High Definition”
as well as the new version. The new version has some extras (I like the erasing) but the first video was brilliant, timely and a very hard act to follow.
The word on the street is no one is buying Capn Trade, just arse covering back pedal.
EPA is the worse outcome. Barry flanked you there.
In Oz, our Barry, has just recognized what the press doesn’t, he holds job seats, for his majority.
They are called battlers, working class, trades and jobs, merchants and so on, even white collar.
He is flipping like a pancake.
He is dropping la la land like a shit sandwich and going whitebread.
Micheal J Bentley,
Doesn’t one also have to prove the “Public Figure” has a reputation to defame? For instance, isn’t it true that to call a woman who is known publicly (presumably through legal convictions) as a prostitute a “whore” would not be considered libelous by the courts but that it normally would be considered so for a woman without that legal history? At least I think I remember that being a commonly used example to explain this nuance of libel law.
Any legal experts out there?
Mann bring it on, we await the courtesy of a blog duel in the real world.
I like Elmers crew, dont like their abode much, but then again a 4 poster dont move that well on land.
Aaargh.
I also want to see what Mann said about Phil Jones’s citation index. Was it 62? That alone is fraud enough to sink them both.
When the legal discovery is done, I’d like to see Mann’s email to Gene re deleting emails, and Gene’s reply.
————————————————————
1212063122.txt
From: Michael Mann
To: Phil Jones
Subject: Re: IPCC & FOI
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 08:12:02 -0400
Hi Phil,
…
I’ll contact Gene about this ASAP. His new email is: xxxxxxxxx@yahoo.com
talk to you later,
mike
Phil Jones wrote:
>
>> Mike,
> Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4?
> Keith will do likewise. He’s not in at the moment – minor family crisis.
> Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don’t
> have his new email address.
> We will be getting Caspar to do likewise.
We need some pro Bono to bone this thing.
Let me check me ships log.
Yer in cases like this, a dishlicker can make partner.
May day May day, Ship in distress, (not a ship a campervan).
Manage the planet by all means, deal with the population elephant in the room definitely.
Fight to stop rome burning while people get rich researching CO2.
toyotawhizguy (23:13:20) :
Free speech in the US and New Hampshire Constitutions puts limits on what the government can do. It does not restrict prosecution in cases like this where the harmed party is a private citizen(*) or in things like disclosing a company’s trade secrets.
(*): Given that some of Mann’s research was funded by federal grants, that opens an avenue to claim Mann is a government agent. Therefore, he may not qualify to claim defamation. When the politicians give you a big government, take advantage of what you can.
This is happening at the same time Hitler vids are being taken down:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/194649/hitler_parodies_booted_off_youtube_death_of_a_web_meme.html
If I had the resources, I would by the rights to the original and publish and promote the heck out of it and dare the Manniac to sue.
OT sort of. A new bill introduced by Inhofe, etc. which seeks to prevent the Administration from using NEPA to consider greenhouse-gas emission or climate effects in proposed federal-agency rules.
The Bill – http://www.eenews.net/public/25/15249/fe….ument_gw_03.pdf . Note the comment within the bill credited to the Council on Environmental Quality.
“(A) ‘‘it is not currently useful for the NEPA analysis to attempt to link specific climatological changes, or the environmental impacts thereof, to the particular project or emissions, as such direct linkage is difficult to isolate and to understand.’’;
(B) ‘‘From a quantitative perspective, there are no dominating sources and fewer sources that would even be close to dominating
total [greenhouse gas] emissions.’’; and (C) ‘‘agencies should recognize the scientific limits of their ability to accurately predict climate change effects, especially of a short-term nature’’.
The video is still everywhere, HD version:
good luck getting rid of it Mann.
The word is buy. This aint about copyright this fight is free speech.
He has had his free speech.
He Mann can’t complain.
This is open source. He has decided legal.
He can either retract and apologise Internationally or he can fight.
This is not a staring contest.
If we’re talking copyright, wouldn’t it be Tommy James who might have a grievance?
He has not been defamed.
Just been called a crook. (For non Oz, breaking laws).
The accusation in the song is: fraud.
Merrick,
I think some legal beagles have weighed in on the subject several times on this thread. The point is, proving a “public figure” classification isn’t that difficult – Joe the Plumber is a good recent example.
(Little man scurries in to the mic….(copy from previous post))
Mike
Mann can’t win and any low priced lawyer or better can tell him that.
The “title” of the video came from his own e-mails. Mann smeared himself and handed this to the comedy world free of charge.
Any low priced on up lawyer will however write just about any threatening letter for a little money.
In a civil case, it is for Mann to show damages. He may be able to show damages. But they come from his self destructing admission we call personal e-mails.
The last chance Mann had to save himself was if he had been successfull in deleting the data, records and the e-mail.s.
Don´t you have a constitution anymore, is it also unemployed?
Klimaskeptik.cz has a nice story about:
http://www.klimaskeptik.cz/news/nova-krize-s-karikaturami-/
The new caricature crisis
===============
As we have previously informed, Michael Mann threatened to sue the authors of a satirical video about him. Also, Osama bin Laden declared himself a warrior against climate change a few months ago (needless to say, climate change is caused by the evil capitalism). If this evolution continues, we can speculate that these two movements that share a strong anti-capitalist ethos will ultimately be unified.
The vision of the year 2030 is the following: mobs of angry climoslems are burning cars in nighttime Paris. They demand the authors of the caricatures of Michael Mann and Jim Hansen, the prophets, to be punished. Imam Jihad Climatechange bin Mussavi says: “Not only they are destroying Allah’s work by the CO2 emissions but those infidels are also blaspheming the holy prophets. These acts have touched our sensibilities. We denounce the tomorrow’s murder of the authors of the caricatures but we understand it.”