While the IPCC gets taken to the woodshed, Mannian methodology gets another free pass.
Cuccinelli left Credit: TIMES-DISPATCH, Dr. Mann, right
An Albemarle County judge has dismissed Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s demand that the University of Virginia turn over documents related to the research of a prominent climate change expert.
Cuccinelli, a vocal climate change skeptic, had been investigating the possibility that climatology professor Michael Mann fraudulently obtained five taxpayer-funded research grants while employed at UVa between 1999 and 2005.
In an opinion issued this morning, Judge Paul M. Peatross Jr. ruled that Cuccinelli failed to show a sufficient “reason to believe” that UVa possessed any documents related to Mann that suggested a fraud occurred.
…
Peatross added, however, that the attorney general is within his rights to issue CIDs — which carry the legal weight of subpoenas — to investigate taxpayer-funded research grants awarded to professors such as Mann.
Cuccinelli said in a statement that he will send a new CID to UVa to continue his hunt for proof that Mann defrauded Virginia’s taxpayers in obtaining grants that funded his climate change research.
More here at The Daily Progress (not to be confused with the ‘angry progress’ blogs)
h/t to WUWT reader AnonyMoose
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Unlike Pravda,
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has examined every one of the hacked CRU emails and has strongly affirmed that it finds nothing more than “candid discussion of scientists working through issues that arise in compiling and presenting large complex data sets”.
On 29 July 2010, the EPA denied 10 petitions which challenged the Agency’s 2009 determination that climate change is real, is occurring due to emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities, and threatens human health and the environment.
The petitions claimed that climate science could not be trusted, citing the CRU emails and asserting a conspiracy that they said invalidated the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the US National Academy of Sciences, and the US Global Change Research Program.
After months of serious consideration of the petitions and of the state of climate change science, the EPA has found no evidence to support these claims. In contrast, it says its review shows that climate science is credible, compelling, and growing stronger.
The agency reviewed all of the stolen CRU emails, concluding:
… petitioners have routinely misunderstood or mischaracterised the scientific issues, drawn faulty scientific conclusions, resorted to hyperbole, impugned the ethics of climate scientists in general, characterised actions as “falsifications” and “manipulation” with no basis for support, and placed an inordinate reliance on blogs, news stories, and literature that is often neither peer reviewed nor accurately summarized in their petitions. Petitioners often “cherry-pick” language that creates the suggestion or appearance of impropriety, without looking deeper into the issues or providing corroborating evidence that improper action actually occurred.
The agency makes clear that:
Petitioners’ assumptions and subjective assertions regarding what the e-mails purport to show about the state of climate change science are clearly inadequate pieces of evidence to challenge the voluminous and well documented body of science that is the technical foundation of the Administrator’s Endangerment Finding.
(from: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/endangerment/petitions.html)
[snip – unacceptable language. ~dbs, mod.]
The Financial Times (4-15-10) reports:
There have been indications that the hackers could have been based in Russia, and some experts believe they may have been hired by sceptics based in the US.
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Snapple,
You better file your stuff quickly with the attorneys for UVa!!! You might save Michael Mann. Quick. Don’t waste our time here. You won’t help Mann on this blog.
I am sure you can really help him. But better hurry up before Cuccinelli surely files another CID very soon.
John
Last winter, the Kremlin-financed Russia Today satellite T.V. interviewed the English conspiracist Lord Monckton who promoted the official Russian view that global warming was a “hoax” cooked up by Western scientists. His claims were not challenged by climate scientists. This summer, Russia’s official press agency RIA Novosti reported Dr. Andrei Areshev’s defamatory claim that U.S. climate scientists were causing global warming with secret “climate weapons.” How can it be that in the winter global warming is a “hoax” that isn’t happening and in the summer the climate scientists are causing global warming with secret climate weapons?
In the U.S. destructive canards about the “plots” of climate scientists are also spread by politicians such as Oklahoma Senator Inhofe and Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Those two American politicians are even persecuting climate scientists. History will remember Inhofe and Cuccinelli as destructive, mendacious demagogues who followed the money instead of leading the people.
Even in Russia, politicians eventually retract ridiculous lies about scientists because they have to deal with reality.
luca turin says:
August 30, 2010 at 3:51 pm
I think Mann is a scoundrel but am relieved this is not going through. Those who, as I do, remember Congressman Dingell’s efforts to bring scientists to account in the ‘eighties will recall how futile his efforts were and how they came to be seen as hounding innocent eggheads. Scientists should do their own policing, and do it well. This is what this website is about.
_________________________________________________
Unfortunately Scientists doing their own policing doesn’t work. They go after those who are not “Team Players” and crucify them. See: Lewis B. Allyn expulsion from the American Chemical Society – for telling the truth (pg 36)
Sure, the state governments should investigate all of the scientists at their universities that get research grants. Why just focus on a few climate scientists. Medical research is a much bigger field. Attorneys going throught the notes and email messages of scientists should find lots of evidence for wrong doing.
Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Does one really have to go beyond that incorrect assertion?
DaveE.
No the logical conclusion is that if there’s nothing to hide, release it, clear the air. And I don’t appreciate your illogical conclusion about WUWT. – Anthony
No, Anthony. The logical conclusion is that Cuccinelli had zero evidence that Mann had done anything wrong, and the judge therefore properly ruled that the Commonwealth had zero basis to pursue this. In fact, his ruling essentially said: if you happen to find something, feel free to come back.
As for your “nothing to hide” line of reasoning, sites like WUWT make a living picking through every single word as evidence of a grand conspiracy amongst the world’s climate scientists, all the while ignoring the learned findings of groups like the National Academies of Science. In short, Mann would have no opportunity to “clear the air” because you would simply mine every word of his to turn it into malfeasance. You’ve done this repeatedly with the so-called “Climategate” emails, despite the fact that every inquiry into it found nothing wrong.
Medvedev isn’t going to kick the gift horse in the mouth. If the US is bound and determined to throw itself on its idealogical sword, why shouldn’t he encourage America to do so? Russia would join China in reaping the benefits of a ruined America.
paulw says:
August 30, 2010 at 1:39 pm
This are aggressive and shameful actions by Cuccinelli. Dr Mann was found to have done his job properly. Instead of letting it go, this polarizes the debate. As if the goal is to silence scientists and bring fear.
Cuccinelli, let it go.
Do tell: Precisely how is conniving with a pack of ClimateGate insiders to produce a predetermined result, i.e., stitching the tree ring record to the instrument record and foisting it upon the world without ever assessing what had been done openly, somehow to be considered as ‘doing one’s job properly?’
Is it your thought that machinating is now the going style in the science community?
Still on the witch hunt! GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY! because thats what we want to think!
Snapple says:
“I bet Dr. Mann didn’t get 55,000 dollars from a criminal.”
No. It appears to be just the reverse. He received funds from honest taxpayers which the disclosure denying Dr. Mann used to create and perpetuate his thoroughly discredited ‘hockey stick’ graph. He has resisted full disclosure of the raw data used for his analyses, modifications he and others made to those raw data sets, and the analytical methods used to further manipulate those altered data sets into the discredited graphs purporting mann made global warming.
The disclosure averse doctor acts like a mann with much to hide….
“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive! ”
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.
Scottish author & novelist (1771 – 1832)
It would seem that Walter Scott was a ‘Sir ahead of Dr Mann’s time’!
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Joe,
I think you do not have the meaning of the court ruling quite right. Cuccinelli is probably quite encouraged by the ruling. Basically, the judge did not accept the argument of UVa that State of Virginia did not have a right to serve a CID on the UVa. A win for Cuccinelli . What the court said was that Cuccinelli needs to frame his CID and reasons for it more precisely. I think Cuccinelli is likely to do just that very quickly. And maybe keep doing it until it is precisely enough to proceed.
Joe, see mpaul’s excellent comment above at:
John
Snapple, has it ever occurred to you that the Russians are no friends of ours and have figured out that the best way they can undermine the economies of the West is to act like they believe in AGW? They and the Chinese would love to watch us strangle our own economies in the name of fighting non-existent AGW. Then they’ll have all the chips.
mpaul says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:29 pm
The judge’s ruling was very narrow. He simply said that Cuccinelli’s CID was defective while affirming the right of Cuccinelli to issue CIDs to investigate fraud at universities. UVa had argued that the AG had no right to investigate wrong doing at universities. This is a silly argument — if not the AG than who? UVa was essentially arguing that no one has the right to investigate them for financial fraud. This argument was clearly shot down. I imagine that the AG will now re-issue the CID with sufficient specificity regarding the alleged conduct. My bet is that we will see a new CID in 48 hours.
According to the following quotation: “Cuccinelli did not show, Peatross wrote, any evidence that Mann’s work was “misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia.””, the judge appears to take the view that Cuccinelli is limited in his action to grants from Va. Of the 5 grants in question only one was from Va and Mann was not the PI on that one so perhaps he’s targeting the wrong person?
A good and salient quote from the blog posters on the related article about Cuccinelli /Mann (the Virginian Pilot):
“With the 63 comments as on now there is still zero that have explained why the raw data and assumptions are not on the Internet for everyone to see.”
“Where is the academic freedom that is demanding sharing of information and knowledge? Is the university saying that only academia can view the data like the high priest of the Ark of the Convenant? Is there a ritual that academia have to perform to gain access to the inner sanctum?”
“I am ashamed of those calling for limit access of knowledge. What do you want to do next – burn books so the unfortunate “non-believers” can see?”
================================
Right on!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Phil says:
“According to the following quotation: “Cuccinelli did not show, Peatross wrote, any evidence that Mann’s work was “misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia.””, the judge appears to take the view that Cuccinelli is limited in his action to grants from Va. Of the 5 grants in question only one was from Va and Mann was not the PI on that one so perhaps he’s targeting the wrong person?”
I suspect that Cuccinelli will re-issue a revised CID related to the Va grant and will simultaneous appeal the ruling that the other 4 are not subject to Va jurisdiction. If false claims were made, they were presented to UVa for payment through Va bank accounts. As such, they come under Va jurisdiction. This is a matter of law and not of fact — as such it is grounds for appeal.
False claims can be made by people other than a PI obviously.
Snapple wrote:
President Medvedev stated:
“What is happening to our planet’s climate should motivate all of us, I mean, states and heads of non-governmental organizations, to take more active steps to resist global warming.”
The Russians are just momentarily confusing their recent hot weather with climate. Wait until another Russian winter comes, and they will be back pedaling their back pedaling.
(And I thought Snapple was once promoted by Rush Limbaugh!)
mpaul says:
August 30, 2010 at 2:29 pm
The judge’s ruling was very narrow. He simply said that Cuccinelli’s CID was defective while affirming the right of Cuccinelli to issue CIDs to investigate fraud at universities. UVa had argued that the AG had no right to investigate wrong doing at universities. This is a silly argument — if not the AG than who? UVa was essentially arguing that no one has the right to investigate them for financial fraud. This argument was clearly shot down. I imagine that the AG will now re-issue the CID with sufficient specificity regarding the alleged conduct. My bet is that we will see a new CID in 48 hours.
UVa can now not argue that the CID is improper; they can now only try to shoot it down based on technical defects, which is a loser because the AG will eventually get the CID technically correct. UVa also can not argue that the alleged conduct does not rise to the level of fraud — that’s for a grand jury to decide. In our system, the accused does not get to decide whether the accusation has merit or not.
Game, set, match Cuccinelli.
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Interesting take on it mpaul. I think you may be right….. As you said, Cuccinelli should be issuing another CID shorty then.
Hey Snapple you wearin’ yer tin foil hat mate?…. You better be careful. Those Russkies will pinch yer thoughts before you even have ’em ya know!…;-)
I really don’t get the point of all this hunting for evidence of ‘fraud’ by our scientists.
Does Cuccinelli seriously think he can find a sentence like this in Mann’s emails ? :
“I cooked the Hockey Stick graph in my paper from 1998 from a bunch of made up data tables that I wrote on a rainy sunday afternoon.”
And even if that’s there, then what ? It does not change anything about the trend in global temperatures (increasing at 0.15 C per decade IIRC). It does not change the absorption spectrum anything about the physics such as radiative transfer theory, nor does it discredit the models that we use that are based on these physics. And it does not change anything about the 1000+ new proxies used in dozens of reconstructions, showing roughly the same ‘hockey stick’ shape.
The only difference would be that Mann’s carreer is finished.
Is that what you guys are after ? Or do you guys just want a (this time legally approved) “Climategate 2” so you misrepresent some more cherry-picked texts and use them to smear more dirt on scientists ?
“Snapple says:
August 30, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Russia’s President Medvedev recently stated that global warming is happening.”
My god! That’s just the proof I needed!! Why have I wasted all this time as a sceptic?? Thank you Snapple, thank you.
cheers David
Stonewalling may work now, but I can see November from here.
[fake email ~ ctm]
Rob says:
” It does not change anything about the trend in global temperatures (increasing at 0.15 C per decade IIRC)”
But Rob, global temperatures have been flat-lining (even slightly decreasing) over the past decade. Even the AGW high-priest Prof. Jones admitted this.
Snapple says:
“1. Cuccinelli inaccurately asserts that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age “disappeared” in Mann et al.’s original hockey stick paper.”
Snapple, please post a graphic (link?) of the hockey-stick graph that shows the MWP and LIA. One of the (many) reasons why this wretched graph was roundly condemned was because the flat stick DIDN’T show those two periods.
Oh, one other thing: I’m not Russian and have never been given any money by ‘Big Oil’