Gavin must be having a bad hair day, because this headline is most certainly over the top:
Now compare the headline to the letter that was sent, bold emphasis mine:
From: Bill Hughes
Cc: Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen
Subject:: E&E libel
Date: 02/18/11 10:48:01
Gavin, your comment about Energy & Environment which you made on RealClimate has been brought to my attention:
“The evidence for this is in precisely what happens in venues like E&E that have effectively dispensed with substantive peer review for any papers that follow the editor’s political line. ”
To assert, without knowing, as you cannot possibly know, not being connected with the journal yourself, that an academic journal does not bother with peer review, is a terribly damaging charge, and one I’m really quite surprised that you’re prepared to make. And to further assert that peer review is abandoned precisely in order to let the editor publish papers which support her political position, is even more damaging, not to mention being completely ridiculous.
At the moment, I’m prepared to settle merely for a retraction posted on RealClimate. I’m quite happy to work with you to find a mutually satisfactory form of words: I appreciate you might find it difficult.
I look forward to hearing from you.
With best wishes
Bill Hughes
Director
Multi-Science Publsihing [sic] Co Ltd
Notice the missing key word “lawsuit”. It does not appear in that letter anywhere.
Note the tone of the last paragraph. In essence it says: “hey, I’m upset, but happy to work it out with you”. No mention of legal threats whatsoever.
What follows the letter on RealClimate’s post is a whole bunch of bluster and posturing about how E&E conducts its reviews. I wonder though, did Gavin even bother to ask how they conduct their affairs of review, or did he simply (as Joe Romm loves to say) “make stuff up”?
And then there’s this paragraph:
As a final note, if you think that threatening unjustifiable UK libel suits against valid criticism is an appalling abuse, feel free to let Bill Hughes know (but please be polite), and add your support to the Campaign for libel reform in the UK which looks to be making great headway. In the comments, feel free to list your examples of the worst papers ever published in E&E.
Appalling abuse? Again, there was no legal threat. Using the word “libel” in the subject line states an issue of concern, and doesn’t automatically assume that lawsuits are attached, especially when the sender says: I’m prepared to settle merely for a retraction posted on RealClimate. I’m quite happy to work with you to find a mutually satisfactory form of words.
When that word libel is used in conjunction with the word lawsuit, then by all means, assume that to be a threat. When the word libel is used to point out an issue, absent the word ‘lawsuit” or phrase “legal action” or “our attorney will be contacting you”, it doesn’t automatically follow then that “…threatening unjustifiable UK libel suits against valid criticism is an appalling abuse” is a valid description of what was communicated in the letter. That’s an important distinction, don’t you think?
Here’s a few thoughts.
What is disappointing about all that is that Dr. Gavin Schmidt could just as easily have said all that posturing bluster in a private email to Bill Hughes. Given what RC did with a request for a change in wording, it really underscores the deliberate defiant chutzpah that The Team is famous for, which really offends taxpayers like myself that fund this NASA GISS Team.
Gavin, remember, thou art mortal (and a public servant).
And of course this post today is all a front: in reality they could not give a rodent’s posterior about anyone’s peer review standards.
Look at their own problems with “pal review”, look at the famous ‘lets re-define what the literature is’ from Climategate emails. The reason E&E has been, and is being attacked, is that its very existence contradicts the slogans like ‘all peer reviewed science agrees’, so it has to be derided at every opportunity.
And if some papers out of the couple of thousand or so it has published over 20+ years are poor quality, then they’re wheeled out again and again as being typical of the journal, which is not the case and plenty of journals publish papers that have all sorts of problems.
Peer review isn’t perfect no matter who’s doing it. One has to wonder if the Steig et al Antarctica paper might have gotten a more thorough review in E&E than it did in Nature, because the likelihood of such a paper being reviewed by someone who might question The Team PCA style math.
So I’d suggest that
1) Gavin, when somebody actually threatens you with a lawsuit, you’ll most certainly be able to know it by the inclusion of the key word “lawsuit” and
2) I think you owe Multi-Science an apology
For those that would like to judge for themselves, you can view issues of E&E here.
http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm
Consider supporting the journal by purchasing a subscription.
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I urge everyone to read Canada’s National Post article provided by Poptech above. It’s a short piece, and goes to the heart of the corruption by Mann’s conniving climate clique.
Type “libel” into the Google search engine.
First hit?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation
“In common law jurisdictions, slander refers to a malicious, false,[2][not specific enough to verify] and defamatory spoken statement or report, while libel refers to any other form of communication such as written words or images.[3] Most jurisdictions allow legal actions, civil and/or criminal, to deter various kinds of defamation and retaliate against groundless criticism.”
Nope, no relationship whatsoever between libel and lawsuit. /sarc
REPLY: That’s the best you can come up with? You’re as amusing as Jack Greer. – Anthony
EFS_Junior, “Nope, no relationship whatsoever between libel and lawsuit. /sarc”
Try using Wikipedia as evidence in a court case, “Yes your honor my five year old son can edit that page at any time but I assure you no such thing like that ever happens because the Internet is only filled with honest people who know how to properly define words from the dictionary and no such corruption of Wiki pages ever happens on Wikipedia.”
Now lets use a real dictionary,
[b]libel[/b] (defined) “A false and defamatory statement expressed in writing or in an electronic medium. ” – Webster’s New World Law Dictionary
Are all RealClimate supporters this computer illiterate?
EFS_Junior, “Nope, no relationship whatsoever between libel and lawsuit. /sarc”
Try using Wikipedia as evidence in a court case, “Yes your honor my five year old son can edit that page at any time but I assure you no such thing like that ever happens because the Internet is only filled with honest people who know how to properly define words from the dictionary and no such corruption of Wiki pages ever happens on Wikipedia.”
Now lets use a real dictionary,
libel (defined) “A false and defamatory statement expressed in writing or in an electronic medium. ” – Webster’s New World Law Dictionary
Are all RealClimate supporters this computer illiterate?
@Noelle
Your question is fair. It is not for me to decide whether I can publish in a journal. I can submit my papers where I like, but the editors and referees decide whether I get published.
While my PhD is in economics, I was a professor in GeoSciences for 7 years, and have now been on the faculty of Earth and Life Sciences for over 3 years. I’ve published in journals like Theoretical and Applied Climatology, Journal of Hydrology, Environmetrics, Atmospheric Environment, and the ICES Journal of Marine Science. I’ve reviewed papers for these journals and for Advances in Meteorology, Journal of Applied Meteorology, Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, and Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmosphere.
Having just read Benny P’s Piece in Canada’s ‘National Post’, I am utterly amazed at the dishonesty and utter lack of principles held collectively by The Team. Schmidt is anything but conciliatory with regard to E&E’s suggestion that they were libeled on/by RC. The man is clearly doing what all spoiled children do when they have been asked to apologize for behaving badly, i.e. stamping feet and shouting that people are being mean to him. His behavior is best described in Antipodean vernacular as ‘Spitting the dummy’. He has lost what little sense of reality he ever had, IMHO.
Everyone calm down – this is really really simple.
IANAL but…
Libel is about printing/publishing (as opposed to speaking) some untrue and defamatory or damaging.
If you are libelled, you may want to take steps to undo that damage.
One way of doing that is to go to law. The lawsuit is to determine whether the libel occurred – the libel is not the lawsuit: it is the publication.
This is really basic stuff.
Let’s try, pace Gavin and his hurricanes, an analogy.
Person A breaks into person B’s house and takes their TV away. That is theft. Saying it is theft is not a lawsuit – it’s a description of what happened.
Person B writes to Person A, with the title “Theft of TV” and says, “give me TV back (and possibly repair the damage to my window) and we’re done”.
There is indeed a clear threat that if the TV is not returned as an absolute minimum, then further action may be taken. That further action might include a lawsuit. Since that lawsuit might involve Person A not only having to return the TV but also go to jail, Person B is being generous and sensible in offering to settle the matter without a lawsuit.
To suggest that Person B is threatening Person A with jail because he writes “Theft” in the title and reserves his right to action IF person A does not want to be sensible is simply perverse.
The very act of writing is specifically saying to A that he does NOT need to go court if he is sensible.
Theft != lawsuit/jail
Libel != lawsuit/damages
They are merely descriptions of what has happened.
Late to this party, but there was clearly the implied threat of a lawsuit in the letter:
Gavin’s bluster is a preemptive attack, aimed at disarming the enemy by making him appear ridiculous. If I were the publisher, I’d proceed with the suit, just to make Gavin wet his pants.
/Mr Lynn
“Gavin’s bluster is a preemptive attack, aimed at disarming the enemy by making [him] appear ridiculous.”
You could read that either way: Gavin is indeed making himself look ridiculous.
“Look at me!! I’m studiously ignoring the fact that I am being offered a way to settle without a lawsuit so that I can claim I’m being taken to court!!!”
that does indeed make him look ridiculous…
Richard Tol,
I’ve looked over your long list of publications (http://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Tol_Richard/Publications). Many are economic (and that supports your formal training and many of your appointments over the years). Others appear to be interdisciplinary. Which peer-reviewed papers would you consider as contributions to the understanding of the natural sciences as they relate to climate science (e.g., geophysics, meterology, etc.?)
I’d guess that it’s the first step in a move to have E&E blacklisted as a “peer-reviewed journal” for AR5 purposes.
Just guessing.
“I’d guess that it’s the first step in a move to have E&E blacklisted as a “peer-reviewed journal” for AR5 purposes. ”
I think that counts as malicious intent Hu…
So what?
Lack of payment results in lawsuits sometimes, too.
So if a company sent an email to someone with a subject line, “Lack of Payment”, and the email discussed what could be done to settle the payment.
None of that implies lawsuit.
@Noelle
My earlier work is about detection and attribution of climate change.
Re my comment above on 2/23 @ur momisugly 10:31AM, I have had two articles published by E&E, both linked at http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/ .
My “Irreproducible Results in Thompson et al. (PNAS 2006), ‘Abrupt Tropical Climate Change: Past and Present,'” Energy and Environment Vol, 20, No. 3 (April, 2009): 369-375 was published as a “Technical Communication”, and therefore not necessarily subject to the same reviewing as a regular article, by E&E’s rules.
Nevertheless, it was sent out to a reviewer and revised in response to the comments, even though it might have counted as a paper that “follows the editor’s political line,” as Gavin put it. So this is one counter-example to his blanket assertion that E&E has “essentially dispensed with effective review” for such papers.
The reviewer did express surprise that E&E did not send the paper to Thompson et al for reply. Given, as I had already indicated to E&E when I submitted the note, that I had previously e-mailed Thompson and most of his co-authors three times asking for clarification of the discrepancy I had found, with no reply at all, I doubt that they would have responded to E&E either, and perhaps E&E felt the same way. However, it would have been preferable, IMHO, if E&E had, just for the record, sent it to them in addition to (or even before) a reviewer. But if I’ve made an error, Thompson is still free to reply in E&E or elsewhere, and has not.
In the second article, I was just the second author on a correction to an article originally by Craig Loehle, who as lead author communicated with the journal. He reports above,
The correction, BTW, benefitted greatly from detailed “blog-review” comments by Gavin himself in a post on RC.
An interesting new comment as RC,
“I would just make one comment though – you say that the ISI Master List is an ‘official’ list of journals, and this is repeated in the Guardian piece. It is nothing of the sort. It is a list run by a private commercial enterprise that prides itself on rejecting large numbers of perfectly decent journals every year on the basis of its own (opaque and unaccountable) ‘priorities’. Unfortunately, it has become the basis of academic assessment exercises worldwide, but we should not keep allowing Thomson-Reuters the power to decide which journals are ‘worthy’ and which are not.”