It seems the process to get supporting evidence from University of Virginia has overcome a roadblock. From the Virginia Court System: h/t to WUWT reader Laws of Nature
Appeals Granted
Case
KENNETH T. CUCCINELLI, II, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA v. RECTOR AND VISITORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
(Record Number 102359)
From
The Circuit Court of Albemarle County; P.M. Peatross, Jr., Judge.
Counsel
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, Wesley G. Russell, Jr., E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., Charles E. James, Jr., and Stephen R. McCullough (Office of the Attorney General) for appellant.
Chuck Rosenberg, Jessica Ellsworth, N Thomas Connally, Jon M. Talotta, Stephanie J. Gold, and Catherine E. Stetson (Hogan Lovells US LLP) for appellee.
Assignment of Error
- The circuit court erred in setting aside the CIDs based on the ground that the Attorney General lacked a “reason to believe” that UVa. may be in possession, custody, or control of any documentary material or information relevant to a FATA investigation because it is contrary to the statute and without support in the record.
- The circuit court erred in setting aside the CIDs based on the ground that the Attorney General’s “reason to believe” had to be stated on the face of the CIDs because it is contrary to the statute.
- The circuit court erred in setting aside the CIDs based on the ground that the CIDs failed to sufficiently state the “nature of the conduct” being investigated because that is contrary to the face of the CIDs.
- The circuit court erred in setting aside the CIDs based on the ground that FATA does not cover requests for payments made on the Commonwealth when the Commonwealth has been a recipient of a federal grant because that is an incorrect construction of FATA and ignores that money is fungible.
- The circuit court erred by limiting the remaining right of inquiry based upon the errors assigned above.
Assignment of Cross-Error
- Whether the circuit court erred in holding the University is a “person” subject to FATA’s CID provision, where the General Assembly specifically defined the term “person” in FATA not to include Commonwealth entities.
Date Granted
3-4-2011
The blogosphere just created a lot more areas of follow-up for the AG.
Best remember how to spell Cuccinelli’s last name, he’s a “comer!”
George
Now some will awake at 3:00 A.M. with the night sweats. Some will have to have new sheets from time to time.
Please correct me if I am reading this correctly. The VSC is granting the appeal under “Appeals granted” including “Whether the circuit court erred in holding the University is a “person” subject to FATA’s CID provision”. This last grant seem to be the VAG can not issue the CIDs to the University. This would seem to be a big roadblock.
The cause grinds slowly, but it grinds. The warm worriers have had 5 years head start but they have hit a wall now. Good sense should always prevail.
All this means is that the Va Supreme Court has agreed to hear the matter. This does NOT say anything to the merits of the suit or of the appeal.
Both McIntyre and Christy oppose the type of efforts being pursued by Cuccinelli here. It smacks of auditing the taxes of your political opponents. Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree. Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
Buzz Belleville says:
“Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree.”
Really? You don’t think an AG should investigate possible misappropriation of funds and defrauding of taxpayers? Cuccinelli just wants to ask Mann some questions. If Mann has done nothing wrong he should be happy to answer them.
No Buzz, it’s not Mann’s “conclusions” (actually, scientific fraud on a level to match Trofim Lysenko). It is that there is prima facia evidence that Mann engaged in financial fraud by taking taxpayer monies for studies that were based on cherry-picked data and phony-baloney statistics.
Where were you when the University handed over Pat Michael’s emails to Greenpeace without so much as a FOIA request? Your threat to Spencer and Lindzen is amusing, given that there is no evidence THEY have participated in financial fraud.
The attorney general’s office is engaged in a fishing expedition, and one based on flawed view of the case against climate scientists. They are acting based on mistaken press stories.
Buzz Belleville, if the hockey stick team made their whole research process transparent in the first place, there wouldn’t be any need for a freedom of information requests.
To bring up a previous chapter in this story, the University of Virginia were more than cordial with Green
peacecorp when a non-believer is involved.http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/06/yes-virginia-you-do-have-to-produce-those-global-warming-documents/
“Importantly, also under FOIA in late 2009, the pressure group Greenpeace sought, and was promised, e-mails and other materials of Patrick Michaels, who also formerly worked in the same university department.
While the university proceeded to compile the material for Greenpeace, one of us, Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, R-Prince William, thought to ask for records relating to Michaels’ former colleague, Mann. Oddly, the university informed Marshall that such records no longer existed because Mann had left the department.”
It seems as if Green
peacecorp chased the records of Dr. Michaels simply because they reached to their own conclusions in contrast to Dr. Michaels’ work.MikeN,
You don’t know that. You’re just making a baseless conjecture.
D Bonson,
Greenpeace is heavily funded by George Soros. There’s probably a reason that the university assisted Greenpeace with such alacrity.
“Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.”
Anyone that accepts public money should be required to make the work paid for by the public open for public inspection. With the internet there really is no excuse that “it is too much work to reply to requests”.
When scientists receive public money to conduct research, and then can withhold this from the public, we might as well just hand the money back to the taxpayers for all the good it is doing. Why should the public be asked to fund science if the science is not available to the public for inspection?
I have zero problem with scientists keeping their work secret if they want. Just don’t ask me as a taxpayer to:
1) have me pay you to do the work
2) have me pay for the findings
The problem that I have with climate science is that the underlying data has been largely kept secret. The results have not been independently confirmed. That the public is being asked to pay trillions of dollars based on results that cannot be scientifically verified as there is no agreed falsification method.
Without falsification climate science is not science. It is worse than useless. It is potentially extremely dangerous to the world’s economy.
The current course of the world’s economy has shown that industrialization, while it causes environmental harm, substantially improves the life of people on the planet. The fact that industrialization creates waste products that are harmful to life forms is the way of the world. Every life form on earth produces waste products that are harmful to other life forms in one way or another.
What industrialization has shown is that most of the environmental harm comes from early stage industrialization. That the later stages of industrialization are stable to declining populations, and reduced environmental damage due to increasing efficiencies.
Quite simply, industrial economies over time reduce their harm to the environment because it is cost effective to do so. Not because of taxes, but simply because of market pressure. The market is always seeking a less expensive way to do something. Over time industrial processes seek to reduce waste simply because waste reflects lost value.
For example, early mines created huge tailing piles. These same tailing piles are now the source of ore for more advanced mining technology. Now, we could have tried to make this happen by taxing tailings on early mines, trying to force them to do something uneconomical.
The problem is that you can’t force an economy to do something uneconomical for long. People quickly adjust their strategies to maximize their personal benefits, even in the face of strict state controls to the contrary. The net result on a tax on tailings would be a reduction in mining and higher prices for metals. The less efficient mines would go out of business and new mines would open in areas that did not have the tax. There would still be the same amount of tailings created, just that they would be created in different places. There might even be more tailings created if the new mines opened are less efficient.
This sort of approach can sometimes be used if your economy operates in isolation, with barriers to imports. However, in the case of CO2 there are no barriers to imports. CO2 is generally thought to be well mixed. Thus, using our example of mine tailings, a tax will move the tailings to another country, and the prevailing winds will bring them back. The amount paid in tax is therefore completely wasted. You might as well simply ship the tax money to the other countries. At least that way the mining jobs would remain in your own country.
The problem is that people don’t look beyond simple cause and effect when looking for solutions to problems. They forget that everything is interconnected, and the results of change are most often unexpected and unpredicted.
Smokey says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:36 am
If Mann has done nothing wrong he should be happy to answer them.
=================================================
Exactly, what’s the problem…
….If they really believed their science was so “robust”
they would have put it out there a long time ago and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation
Going through all these contortions, smoke and mirrors, and magic tricks…
…just tells everyone they don’t even believe in their own science either
Messrs Russell and Bronson — First off, if you believe any of the proxy information for Mann’s reconstructions are not available, you’re mistaken. How do you think M&M were able to attack the conclusions drawn from those proxies? If a reconstruction appears in a peer-reviewed journal, to my knowledge you can always access the underlying proxy info. Let me (or the owners of this blog) know if you can’t find any such information, and I’m sure you’ll get some help.
Moreover, there are big differences between Greenpeace’s FOIA request (relating to public documents generated by Singer and Michaels) and the AG’s subpoena (which is a “civil investigative demand,” meaning that it is not tied to even any alleged wrongdoing at this time). Exemptions under the state Freedom of Information Act protect certain documents that are being sought by the CIDs. In other words, the AG’s subpoena (have you seen it? if not, you should, then imagine the time and privacy concerns implicated with literally complying with all the requests) is seeking things that cannot be discovered by FOIA requests. FOIA requests only cover records and do not allow for the fact-finding “interrogatories” that Cuccinelli has imcluded in his subpoena. An official AG subpoena has absolutely no relation to a private group’s FOIA request … they’re simply not comparable.
Respectfully, I think you need to expand the bases of your knowledge beyond merely another WUWT article.
I get the logic of the beginning of your post Mr. Berple. And if all the subpoena sought was information relating to Mann’s use of state funds in conducting his research, Cuccinelli would be on better grounds (I still think there are academic freedom arguments that are troubling). But the subpoena seeks far more than just how Mann “spent” the grant money. You really should check out the breadth of the CID, then check out the NAS list of grant recipients, and imagine that every grant recipient has to turn over all of his or her e-mails to ideological opponents.
Seruios question Mr. Berple — What “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?
Whatever his motives, my money is on Cuccinelli. Climate scientists will eventually convince the world, but it is Mr. Cuccinelli who will ring the scalawags necks.
Latitude says:
March 10, 2011 at 10:13 am
Well, you’re more generous than I am–I call it “climsci”, which is part “climate” and part “science”. Unfortunately, the combination doesn’t benefit from any synergism.
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 10:50 am
For starters, I’d like to see all that data Phil Jones supposedly “lost”. And that’s just a start. Then I’d like to see EVERYTHING on the email servers involved in Climategate–you know, where everybody was blocking FOI requests, obstructing the peer review process, and stonewalling objective science. Then let’s find and interview Harry of the Harry Read Me file. I’d love to see what he says. Is that enough? If not, your question is useless obstruction.
“Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 10:50 am
Seruios question Mr. Berple — What “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”
I believe that the scientists who advance the AGW hypothesis have the burden of proven it to be correct. They have failed to do so completely to date.
Ken Harvey says:
March 10, 2011 at 11:18 am
As the result of Mr. Cuccinelli’s investigations and others like him, what I envision is “climate scientists” swinging figuratively from the yardarm. That image will certain dissuade most of the world from believing in their unsubstantiable theories.
MikeN says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:45 am
‘based on flawed view of the case against climate scientists. They are acting based on mistaken press stories.’
Only on your planet Mike, not this one.
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Both McIntyre and Christy oppose the type of efforts being pursued by Cuccinelli here. It smacks of auditing the taxes of your political opponents. Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree. Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
=======================================================
It hasn’t a thing to do with the conclusions Mann reached, but you probably know that already.
None of this occurs if the pinheads would stick with science and stay out of political and economic activism. If they wish to enter those worlds, they do it at their own peril. And they damn sure don’t need to be doing it on my dime. They are out of their depth. As far as Spencer, Lindzen and the rest, I’d be quite surprised if it were found that they engaged in the same behaviors that the “team” did. That said, let the chips fall where they lay.
FATA?
Joe Romm declares Fatwa in 10, 9, 8, 7,
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 10:50 am
“Seruios question Mr. Berple — What “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”
How would data “change the basic premises of AGW theory” in any case. It could strengthen it or weaken it, but a theory is a theory. Seems the problem with the AGW theory is that there is no convincing evidence that it is significant given the background of natural variability. The only data supporting AGW appears to be variously ‘adjusted,’ and/or manipulated, and/or cherry picked.
The ice cores show the big picture, while the AGW gang fixates on short term blips, and tries to make people believe that short term trends can be extrapolated in straight lines into the future. But again, the ice core data and any understanding of recent of longer term climate history reveals the folly of that. Lest we forget, in the 1970s some people were forecasting an ice age based on a short term cooling trend… including Stephen Schneider.
YES!
Now since GMU is also in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we’ll get to see all of Joe Burton’s (and co-conspirators politically motivated) emails, M&M’s (and co-conspirators) emails, Wegman’s (and co-conspirators) emails, dozens and dozens of climate scientists who have all reaffirmed Mann’s original works, hunderds and hundreds of climate scientists who all will confirm the reality of HIGW/AGW, and on, and on, and on, it goes, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
The proverbial tables will be turned, so to speak.
I can’t wait any longer, a total smackdown of the climate science disinformation crowd.
The final headline will read “Anti-climate science crowd meets its maker.”
It’s about time and long overdue.
With this VA case on top of the Wahl email excitement, things must really be heating up in Mann’s head… that may finally be the accelerating hockey stick he was imagining.
Buzz Belleville
“Seruios question Mr. Berple — What “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”
So close but still you can’t separate the apples from the “peers”.
It doesn’t matter whether the “underlaying data” change the basic premise since that’s not the case for an AG. The law is only interested in if it has been broken. For instance it is illegal for public officials to delete emails of official communications, unless of course they’ve been properly archived, but of course the communication within the emails might still be illegal (like for instance encouraging the deletion of official data belonging to the public that’s supposed to be properly archived according to the law.)
Ferd Berple,
Thanx for that excellent post @10:05 above.
Buzz Belleville says:
“First off, if you believe any of the proxy information for Mann’s reconstructions are not available, you’re mistaken. How do you think M&M were able to attack the conclusions drawn from those proxies? If a reconstruction appears in a peer-reviewed journal, to my knowledge you can always access the underlying proxy info.”
If you’re serious, then you are simply not up to speed on the issue. Steve McIntyre had to fight for many years to extract Mann’s hidden data. Getting it was harder than pulling teeth; it was never given willingly. Read The Hockey Stick Illusion [available on the right sidebar]. You will see that Mann fought tooth and nail to keep from sharing his data, methodologies, metadata and code.
The Climategate emails show the same deliberate intent to avoid the requests for data and methodologies, to the extent of corrupting an FOIA officer and convincing her to take sides. The central problem with Mann’s climate clique is their lack of transparency.
Then there is the data itself. The Harry_Read_Me file flatly states that climate data was fabricated.
M&M were able to destroy the Hockey Stick through sleuthing and perseverance. Their requests for MBH98/99 data were rejected or ignored every step of the way. By chance they discovered an FTP file labeled “Censored,” which finally broke Mann’s hockey stick. As you can see, if Mann had used better available proxies, his temperature reconstruction would have declined instead of rising. So rather than use the better proxy, Mann deliberately hid it in the “censored” file. Michael Mann is a scientific charlatan, and Attorney General Cuccinelli has a few questions for him on behalf of the taxpayers who funded Mann’s grants.
Finally, you say: “If a reconstruction appears in a peer-reviewed journal, to my knowledge you can always access the underlying proxy info.”
That is simply untrue.
“Seruios question Mr. Berple — What “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”
The data typically doesn’t typically change the premises, only the conclusions
The conclusion that would be changed was the entire point of the hockey stick and the IPCC findings.
1) That temperature rise in the second half of the 20th century exceeded natural variability.
2) That there is no explanation for this temperature rise other than human activity.
Obviously, if the data was to show point 1 was false, then point 2 can be explained as natural variability, and there is no case to modify human activity.
Buzz Belleville says: March 10, 2011 at 10:48 am
snip… “But the subpoena seeks far more than just how Mann “spent” the grant money. You really should check out the breadth of the CID, then check out the NAS list of grant recipients, and imagine that every grant recipient has to turn over all of his or her e-mails to ideological opponents.”
——————————————————-
Whoa! This is about ideology and not science? I thought that there was at least some science in “climate science.” Are you saying that along with no skepticism, there’s also no accountability in climate science? I’m not as experienced in scientific procedure, but as an engineer, I WANT my worst critics to comment on my designs.
“Buzz Belleville says: March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Both McIntyre and Christy oppose the type of efforts being pursued by Cuccinelli here. It smacks of auditing the taxes of your political opponents. ”
And I for one disagree whole heatedly with them on that one. If they take public money, they are accepting public scrutiny and if that means getting the law involved then that is what they signed up for. Publish (all data & methods) or perish indeed!
EFS JR:
Wegman’s ? ??
FS_Junior says:
March 10, 2011 at 11:50 am
“YES!
I can’t wait any longer, a total smackdown of the climate science disinformation crowd.
The final headline will read “Anti-climate science crowd meets its maker.
It’s about time and long overdue.”
==============
So, you err, approve of Cucinneli’s actions?
Mr. Cuccinelli is doing his job–what he was elected to do. I am happy to see some progress. If the people of Virginia have been defrauded, the A.G. is the person with the clout and the mission to come to the rescue. I, for one, think Cuccinelli is doing exactly the right thing. The people of Virginia have truly no other practical recourse beyond Mr. Cuccinelli’s action.
There was a time where I might have agreed that this sort of investigation was not desirable.
That was before the Penn State whitewash and the even more egregious bouts of intentional ignorance on the part of the Brits.
If the institutions will not police themselves then we need someone who will.
I have never been convinced that Cuccinelli will go to court with this. I’m inclined to think that just making public the results of the inquiry will do everything that’s needed.
Smokey the astroturfer says: March 10, 2011 at 9:36 am
Really? You don’t think an AG should investigate possible misappropriation of funds and defrauding of taxpayers? Cuccinelli just wants to ask Mann some questions. If Mann has done nothing wrong he should be happy to answer them.
I suppose with your multiple online persona you do not have time to read the text of the demands.
They wish to read the used toilet paper from the toilets that mann or any of his mates may have used. It is ridiculous.
I have been waiting five years to see this guy exposed.
I had a strong, immediate and negative reaction to Mann’s “disappearing” of the MWP, due to the fact I’d been focused on the work of archeologists and historians who studied the travels and travails of the Greenland Vikings. Not only did Mann’s blithe dismissal of the MWP seem to erase all the evidence their hard work had gleaned, but it also put these archeologists in the position of gathering data that was politically incorrect, which made it harder for them to get funding.
It never was easy to get funding in the first place. After all, the past is dead, and who really cares what happened to twenty generations of Vikings, or where they wound up?
It took a sort a madman to go cold places in the summer, and trudge about where the mosquitoes are so thick that they can carry you off and eat you for lunch. Not to mention that the shorelines are all changed by the Isostatic uplift of a thousand years, (or in a few cases, the Isostatic depression,) which means you can’t walk on the sandy shore but instead have to press through prickly pines or squelch through coastal tundra. The fellows were nuts, but were dedicated nuts, and I really liked the bits of evidence they found, such as chainmail in northern Canada.
Then along comes Mann, and suddenly any proof it was much warmer up there, back in Vikings times, is something that will get you frowned at, among the university bigwigs. Abruptly these fellows have to tiptoe, and their funding, which was never plentiful, is even scarcer.
What this meant in my life is that I stopped getting my fix of Viking studies. The only studies that appeared were these lame efforts which always attempted to cool down the MWP, and reduce the Viking populations, or the size of their herds of cows, goats and sheep on Greenland. (One even said there were no cows.) Even the illustrations in magazines changed, replacing the hale Viking of 1200 with the withered, hobbit-sized final-survivors of 1430. It was ridiculous; but very, very politically correct.
Therefore I wanted to strangle Mann. I didn’t need to do any math. I didn’t need to dredge through facts and figures. I just knew right off the bat, with a sort of instinct, that I could smell a rat, and it was a rat that was wreaking my hobby.
But now? Now I’ve had to go through five, long years of math, which I never liked. I have had to study facts and figures, and learn all sorts of annoyingly intricate stuff about politics and the law. The entire time I’ve continued to smell a rat. I’m tired of the stench.
The worst part is that enduring the stench will drag on for many more months, I fear.
The only good thing is that Mann himself has not suffered the quick death of a mercy killing. If I’d been in charge I’d have been far less civil than Anthony, or the people over at Climate Audit. (In fact I’ve been snipped over there, for frothing at the mouth and contributing nothing to the discussion.)
I fear there are times I am a bit like Saddam Husain, and want to sent certain individuals on a quick trip through a shredder. This is, of course, unspiritual and wrong of me, but I am just confessing how exasperated I get, especially after five, long years.
However then I think of how it must be for Mann. Not even on vacation in Hawaii does he get peace. He hears about the latest email revelations, and about the setback (for him) in the UVA case. Rather than a quick trip through a shredder, it is like a very, very slow trip through a shredder.
I almost feel sorry for him.
But I’ll really be glad when this is all over, and I can get back to studying Vikings.
This is a huge error. You’re either a terrible troll, or you’re joining this story when the climax is about to start all while acting like you know what the opening scene was. This whole skeptic movement started because Michael Mann refused to turn over his proxy data to McIntye for replication. Yes, it’s available now, it wasn’t available when it should have been.
If Michael Mann had simply shared his methods and proxy data from MM98 with Steve McIntyre when asked, and engaged him in worthwhile scientific debate to improve his methods. NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE EVER HAPPENED. Instead, he circled the wagons and played turf-defense because of the political ramifications that he didn’t like if his methods were called into question.
Years later, we’re here.
Now please restate your nonsense in the proper context.
walt man says:
“I suppose with your multiple online persona you do not have time to read the text of the demands.”
I post as Smokey. That’s it.
Buzz, you really should stop trying to redirect the debate. The question is not what did Mann spend the money on, but did he spend it fraudulently. To answer that question, the DA needs to determine whether Mann engaged in fraud in the production of the work that was being paid for. In order to do that, the DA has to see the work. All of it.
Plain enough for you yet?
As to the CID being broad. Have you ever read a search warrant? They are always written as broadly as the judge will permit.
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
I suppose that some warmists, in spiteful retaliation, may seek to search the correspondence of these and other sceptical scientists. Unless thy have been engaging in the same kind of dishonesty, manipulation and deception that Jones, Mann et al so clearly have been, (and I know of no evidence that they have), this is hardly going to alarm anyone.
I also seriously doubt the Spencer, Lindzen, Christy etc would put up a legal fight to keep their publicly funded correspondence secret. The fact that Mann, UVa etc are SO keen to keep their secrets, is of course one of the main reasons we are interested – honest science invites scrutiny, so we want to know why these people don’t.
Buzz, the basic premise of the AGW theory is nothing without the background data that was used to generate and buttress that theory. To date, little to none of that data has been forthcoming.
Jones has gone so far as to state that he has “lost” the data from which his original papers were generated.
“They wish to read the used toilet paper from the toilets that mann or any of his mates may have used. It is ridiculous.”
That’s how search warrants are always written. That way they don’t have to keep going back to the judge each time they find a new hiding place.
I thought part of the issue here was that UVA isn’t releasing Mann’s emails via some FOI requests? If this is what’s happening, this is pure bunk, don’t you think?
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Both McIntyre and Christy oppose the type of efforts being pursued by Cuccinelli here. It smacks of auditing the taxes of your political opponents. Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree. Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
———————————————————————————————–
Hey Buzz, only one problem with that… You see it is not Spencer and Lindzen who lie every time they open their mouth. It is not Spencer and Lindzen that are feverishly deleting data. It is not Spencer and Lindzen who try to “trick” us. I could go on, but you get the point. Do you think Mann would hand over the data if Spencer and Lindzen do?
Yeah, I thought so… I am fairly confident that Mann’s data will never see the light of day. I figure Mann and Co. think it will cost them less in the end if they get punished for hiding what they did rather than admit their crimes. The current plan is deny, deny, deny.
Robert says:
March 10, 2011 at 8:54 am
While I admit that language is pretty opaque, one reading of that is the circuit court held that Cuccinelli couldn’t subpoena documents because the University is a “person”, and the Supreme Court is saying they don’t buy it.
Buzz Belleville says: March 10, 2011 at 10:30 am Messrs Russell and Bronson — First off, if you believe any of the proxy information for Mann’s reconstructions are not available, you’re mistaken. How do you think M&M were able to attack the conclusions drawn from those proxies? ~ ~ ~
Jeremy says: March 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm{…}This whole skeptic movement started because Michael Mann refused to turn over his proxy data to McIntye for replication. Yes, it’s available now, it wasn’t available when it should have been.
If Michael Mann had simply shared his methods and proxy data from MM98 with Steve McIntyre when asked, and engaged him in worthwhile scientific debate to improve his methods. NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE EVER HAPPENED. Instead, he circled the wagons and played turf-defense because of the political ramifications that he didn’t like if his methods were called into question.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Wish I could believe you.
You overlook that Seitz at George C. Marshall Institute, was already hard at work developing and organizing specific strategies to ‘manufacture doubt.” The Mann 98 et al. “hockey stick” drama was more manifactured hyperbole, > taking a few degrees of fact and morphing it into a false narrative that ignored all that was inconvenient to the political cause.
A review reveals way more political motivations behind these attacks, than sincere interesting in the science or learning from it. Smoke’n mirrors all the way down. Sad part is here in 2011 the global warming “hockey stick” is alive and well, while Cuccinelli et al. are still beating a 12 year old study that received an OK stamp from the National Academy of Sciences and that has been superseded many times over by more refined studies.
It’s this whole turning scientist’s into enemies that really awful.
As many folks have pointed out ,Buzz is pretty late to this party, and is under the starry-eyed delusion that all underlying data is routinely available with “peer reviewed” literature.
Here’s a recent example for young Buzz to get up to speed with.
http://climateaudit.org/2011/01/06/more-data-refusal-nothing-changes/
Also, if I’m not mistaken, MBH 1998 never did disclose how they calculated errors.
And of course, how can one forget the archiving practices of a prof at THE Ohio State University.
http://climateaudit.org/2010/06/04/losing-glacier-data/
It’s good to see some ranting from the warmists. This investigation, if allowed to go its full natural course – and there is absolutely no chance of that – would expose ‘climate science’ it its true clothes This is something the high priests of the AGW cult definitely do not want. Maybe the rank and file followers are dumb enough to believe there is nothing to hide – but as stated elsewhere, if there was nothing to hide, why has there been such fanatical resistance to exposing the facts?
Any information/data retrieved by Cuccinelli will have long ago been gutted of the detail which would expose Mann and the Team as the data manipulating fraudsters they are.
Anyhow, there is always hope – another set of leaked emails would also be refreshing.
If these guys were scientists, and if they were not actually the enemies of the average citizen, I would definitely agree with you, citizen.
citizenschallenge says:
March 10, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Please show us the subsequent work that had the magical PR appeal of the original.
You know, this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hockey_stick_chart_ipcc_large.jpg
I know, the subsequent ones are kinda sorta maybe hockey sticks, and you still have to overlay with the instrumental record in order to make them “pleasing to the eye”.
Mods,
Sorry about that, but I forgot to close my brackets. No big deal, except subsequent comments may all be in italics.
The logical falicy of defending the indefensible. Its not deny, deny,deny, its desperately deny, deny, deny. The fallout from thr CRU emails continues to spread and I like the way its going.
citizenschallenge says:
March 10, 2011 at 2:51 pm
Smoke’n mirrors all the way down.
……………………..
Wait a minute, I thought it was turtles all the way down.
Is this the Seitz you are referring to? If it is, and he has doubts about AGW, then I’d say based on his credentials and experience, we should all have doubts as well. Who in climate science has qualifications anything like this?
Dr. Frederick Seitz is a Chairman Emeritus of the George Marshall Institute and President Emeritus of Rockefeller University. Dr. Seitz was the first full-time President of the National Academy of Sciences and was also President of the American Physical Society, former Chairman of the Defense Science Board and recipient of the National Medal of Science. Dr. Seitz was President Emeritus of Rockefeller University. Throughout his career, Professor Seitz served on numerous governmental panels and committees, and advised major political figures of the period on important scientific issues. He has made numerous scientific contributions to the understanding of the physics of solids; contributing significantly to the understanding of quantum mechanics, defect properties of solids, radiation damage, color centers, and transport properties of solids. Dr. Seitz was one of the pioneers to promote the creation of Materials Science Laboratories at the universities across the nation. He served as advisor to NATO, the President?s Science Advisory Committee, the Office of Naval Research, the National Cancer Advisory Board, the Smithsonian Institution, and other national and international agencies.
http://www.marshall.org/subcategory.php?id=45
What in the….
is that thing saying?
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree.
You are in error.
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
So you’re a witch hunt advocate.
Would you point out why that should be done?
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.
Why aren’t you anxious to have everything Michael Mann has done brought out into the light of day in court so the world can see how innocent he is and how dire global warming is? In that you threaten, instead, it reveals you are afraid of what will happen in court and issue a threat in hopes it will intimidate. You and this whole global warming thing smells of rat.
Thank you for showing your true colors. Please continue. Please, don’t let me discourage you.
citizenschallenge: “Sad part is here in 2011 the global warming “hockey stick” is alive and well, while Cuccinelli et al. are still beating a 12 year old study that received an OK stamp from the National Academy of Sciences and that has been superseded many times over by more refined studies.”
Chuckle – what a great example of the willfully ignorant beclowning themselves!
One can only guess where these false talking points are coming from (RC maybe?). The fact is that the Hockey Stick is dead – even the IPCC doesn’t use it anymore. Even members of the Hockey Team are now admitting the existance of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. Why aren’t you?
Your ‘more refined studies’ have in turned been examined by McIntyre (where the researchers have – or are forced like Briffa- made their data and methods available). All use short-centered PCA, or strip-bark tree cores, “upsiden-down” Tijlander, or carefully cherry-picked data like Briffa’s six (out of hundreds) Yamal tree cores. You can’t cite a single Hockey Stick paper that uses none of these techniques, can you?
As for your claim that the National Academy of Sciences gave an “OK stamp” to Mann’s work, that also is contradicted by the FACT of North’s testimony under oath to Congress that his NAS panel agreed with Wegman and McIntyre that Mann’s statistical methods invalidated his Hockey Stick.
No one here is ‘turning scientists into enemies” because “climate scientists”, with their deliberate and blatant violation of the principles of the Scientific Method, aren’t actually scientists.
What is this Hockey Stick anyway?
Ross McKitrick sheds some light:
Even less confidence can be placed in the original conclusions by Mann et al. (1999) that “the 1990s are likely the warmest decade, and 1998 the warmest year, in at least a millennium”
~National Academy of Science,
report on the Mann Hockey Stick graph,
page 4
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11676&page=4
Someone had to do it:
the original and best
‘citizenschallenge says:
It’s this whole turning scientist’s into enemies that really awful.’
Only the “junk scientists”.
Is it me, or are there a bunch of new Defenders of the One True Faith (TM) showing up here lately?
I’m seeing names pop up that I don’t recall seeing previously…
Andrew Russell says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:39 am
No Buzz, it’s not Mann’s “conclusions” (actually, scientific fraud on a level to match Trofim Lysenko). It is that there is prima facia evidence that Mann engaged in financial fraud by taking taxpayer monies for studies that were based on cherry-picked data and phony-baloney statistics.
There is no such prima fascie evidence for the work done at UVa by Mann, that’s the point!
Tony says: “Is it me, or are there a bunch of new Defenders of the One True Faith (TM) showing up here lately? I’m seeing names pop up that I don’t recall seeing previously…”
They are definitely running scared in this theater of operations. I’d say they’re inches from total panic.
Buzz Belleville says: “…Messrs Russell and Bronson — First off, if you believe any of the proxy information for Mann’s reconstructions are not available, you’re mistaken. How do you think M&M were able to attack the conclusions drawn from those proxies…?”
With great difficulty:
“…Mann also objected that we did not exactly replicate his computational steps or sequence of proxy rosters. No one had ever replicated his results, and we now know others had tried but were also unsuccessful. To date we are the closest anyone has been able to come in print. We were not bothered by Mann’s response on this point, but it did seem pointless to differ over trivial issues. So we requested his computational code to eliminate these easily-resolved differences. To our surprise he refused to supply his computer code, a stance he maintains to today….”
See the entire link, Buzz. You’ve been led down the garden path:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/McKitrick-hockeystick.pdf
The SCOVA said in granting Cuccinelli’s appeal:
——————-
Any lawyers out there can tell me if I am wrong, but I think the SCOVA found in Cuccinelli’s favor in the Assignment of Cross-Error. My interpretation of item #1 in the Assignment of Cross-Error is:
John
Caleb says: (March 10, 2011 at 1:00 pm)
I have been waiting five years to see this guy exposed.
I had a strong, immediate and negative reaction to Mann’s “disappearing” of the MWP…
Very nice, and instructive, read, Caleb. Thank you.
“Phil. says:
March 10, 2011 at 5:04 pm
“…There is no such prima fascie evidence for the work done at UVa by Mann, that’s the point!..”
Well Phil, it actually depends on which seats you were in when the stage was set. Yes, I agree that, for those in the bleachers: unititiated (like say politicians, MSM, and John Q. Public) the evidience was far from “prima facie (corrected spelling)” However, for those who had floor seats: the intitiated, the evidence was CLEARLY “PRIMA FACIE”. As soon as the graph was published everyone who was anyone with ANY common sense, concerning history and/or climate, saw the flat handle of that schtick (sans MWP) and called BS, “show us how you did THAT!”, to which Mann haughtily replied, “NOPE” And the rest is history.
“Buzz Belleville says: March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
Mann is being chased by Cuccinelli solely because Mann reached conclusions with which Cuccinelli does not agree.”
Yes, Mann took money intended for one purpose and may have used for another purpose. Yes, Mann may not have delivered the goods that the tax payers had paid for, a bait-and-switch trick, a decepton, a fraud.
I expect that “Cuccinelli does not agree” with Manns apparent conclusion that the taxpayers should be subjected to such things and that he not be questioned about it
Mann is guilty of so many things, it hardly matters what approach is used to take him down.
JEM says:
March 10, 2011 at 12:40 pm
There was a time where I might have agreed that this sort of investigation was not desirable.
That was before the Penn State whitewash and the even more egregious bouts of intentional ignorance on the part of the Brits.
If the institutions will not police themselves then we need someone who will.
seconded.
@ Amino Acids in Meteorites – thanks! ‘Hide the Decline’ always results in a broad grin.
@Caleb – I feel your pain because I share it!
There have been so many terrible consequences of this delusional ‘science’. Massive amounts of science funding has been diverted to the search for the elusive evidence for global warming. Food and heating prices are rising, and the poor and elderly have suffered and died and will continue to do so as a result of shoddy energy and economic policies based on this chimaera. As a mother I worry about the kinds of lives my own children will have as a result of all this.
My greatest pain aside from these is seeing the work of historians and archaeologists abruptly placed beyond the pale by this rubbish and political correctness. I teach this stuff – and it was incredible to see the scholarly history of the Medieval Warm Period literally disappearing on Internet sources even as I was trying to write lectures about Viking exploration. I was sceptical before, but the ‘hockey stick’s’ politicizing and erasing of history for ideological purposes really sealed my scepticism.
Mann deserves the discomfort he suffers from revelations of his past devious behaviour, both in his ‘scientific’ work and in his dealings with his peer group. I doubt he will ever face any penalties commensurate with the damage he has caused.
“If the institutions will not police themselves then we need someone who will.”
Institutions policing themselves is irrelevent.
Even if an taxpayer funded institutions, organization or profession says they are policeing themselves the tax payers still need someone to go in from time to time and actually make sure.
They need to know we can check anything, anytime without notice or warning. If they are clean they are clean, if not then they are busted.
It should be No Different from a road-side drunk driving check stop; we must be allowed to check anytime, anywhere, and we should not need anything other than a standing writ to investigate anyone using public funds or publicly paid for facilities.
The only reason that we should need is “We want to check to be sure”
vigilantfish;
If you (or anyone else in the same situation or state of mind) wants a link into a source of optimism about how this whole shambalooza is going to come out, email me at brianfh01-at-yahoo.ca . There’s a ‘dark horse’ development that may render the entire CO2-Warmista push moot and irrelevant.
Just so I can quickly pull the email from the flood in my Inbox, pls. include the word “Moot” in the subject line! 😉
If you believe Mann,you are blind.This man does whatever he wants to prove his point,not science politics
The sum of the parties of the first part through the parties of the nth part constitutes a giant ball of legal wax in which a pregnant elephant could safely hide. Good luck getting to the truth in such an environment! The Truth of Information Act, which seemed so simple and straightforward when written, has been tortured by our legal system to the point where you’re likely to see the entire train derailed by such arguments as, “It depends on what the definition of “is” is.”
– – – – – – –
Brian H,
OK, you peaked my curiousity.
But can’t you just put it over in Tips & Notes, then let us know on this thread that you put it there?
John
Horrible earthquake in Japan. A family I know and love just returned home there. Pray for all those people.
Bitterly I hope Mann has shut off the news, due to bad press he is getting, and is walking on a lonely beach in Hawaii, full of self-pity. Then he hears a rushing noise, and looks out to sea…
I’ve yet to see evidence of financial wrong-doing by Mann. Plenty of sloppy science, stonewalling, “not deleting emails”, etc. But no financial wrongdoing, which AFAIK, means spending the grant money on something other than what you said you would do in the grant. As a Virginian (and financial supporter of Cuccinelli among others), I have to face the fact that Mann spent my tax dollars on shoddy science and not something else entirely.
Buzz Belleville says: March 10, 2011 at 10:30 am
“Messrs Russell and Bronson — First off, if you believe any of the proxy information for Mann’s reconstructions are not available, you’re mistaken. How do you think M&M were able to attack the conclusions drawn from those proxies? If a reconstruction appears in a peer-reviewed journal, to my knowledge you can always access the underlying proxy info. Let me (or the owners of this blog) know if you can’t find any such information, and I’m sure you’ll get some help.”
Buzz, you should take careful note of the following two responses to your post. You may learn something regarding politics in climate research:
Smokey says: March 10, 2011 at 11:56 am and Jeremy says: March 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm.
“Respectfully, I think you need to expand the bases of your knowledge beyond merely another WUWT article.”
Please enlighten us with examples of your own sources for knowledge. Are they from websites aligned with “The Team” that delete comments from heretics? At least this site allows reasonable discussion, which is why it’s 2011’s Best Science Blog.
If I’m not mistaken, the one of the corner stones of scientific research is for others to replicate and therefore verify the results of such studies using the original data. Otherwise, any scientist could make any claim and never have to prove it.
I find it odd that Dr. Jones no longer has the original data used to produce the modified data sets he says supports his claim. If the original data has been deleted, how can you replicate the experiment?
Just as odd is the reverse in New Zealand. In that situation, the warmists have the original data but can’t find the modified data sets they used to “prove” their claim of AGW. Just as oddly, they can’t locate the equations they used to convert the data. Not too surprisingly, an examination of the original data shows no warming trends. So where did the warming trend come from in the New Zealand study?
It has been somewhat easier to demostrate how NASA interpolated temperatures where no temperature data existed. But it didn’t explain why NASA decided not to include all reporting stations and instead interpolate temperature data where reporting stations already exists. So far, NASA has refused to repond to FOIA requests for documents that explain those decisions.
But I digress.
If Mann is so certain he is right and his data is dead on accurate, then it becomes a mystery why he doesn’t want other scientists to replicate his results using the same data. Wouldn’t such openness and air-tight verification drive a stake through the heart of the skeptics once and for all? Wouldn’t this be especially true since skeptics have convincingly reversed engineered Dr. Mann’s work to a degree that there is credible evidence challenging its validity?
So, Dr. Mann, why are you so reluctant to have your statistics and methodology independently verified?
BMF says:
March 11, 2011 at 7:00 am
This strikes me as one of the better posts in recent memory. The topic is the science and Mann’s character as scientist. A genuine scientist is quite eager to help others replicate his work. The fact that getting such help from Mann is like pulling teeth should tell everyone all that they need to know about Mann and his work.
The fact that the scientific community has not excommunicated Mann for this behavior should raise a huge red flag among government funding agencies. The fact that no such red flag has been recognized by funding agencies should tell our elected representatives all they need to know about the climate science industry and government funding for climate science.
Buzz Belleville says:
March 10, 2011 at 9:22 am
“Spencer, Lindzen, et al better be ready to have their hard drives searched as well.”
If some valid investigative committee asks for Lindzen’s hard drive, he will be happy to copy it and send it to them. They will find that there are no personal emails on that hard drive at all. Lindzen is all work and professionalism. His character is beyond reproach. The same holds for Spencer.
BMF says:
If Mann is so certain he is right and his data is dead on accurate, then it becomes a mystery why he doesn’t want other scientists to replicate his results using the same data. Wouldn’t such openness and air-tight verification drive a stake through the heart of the skeptics once and for all? Wouldn’t this be especially true since skeptics have convincingly reversed engineered Dr. Mann’s work to a degree that there is credible evidence challenging its validity?
While I can’t speak for anyone else, I can say that such a verification would certainly get me rethinking my position. Funny that he seems to be so opposed to it.
Smokey, this is from an e-mail from the AG’s office:
The attorney general’s office is investigating whether or not fraud was committed against the commonwealth by Dr. Michael Mann while he was a professor at UVa. The office is investigating potential fraud, not Mann’s scientific conclusions. If Dr. Mann knowingly used research containing manipulated or deceitful data to obtain taxpayer-funded research grants in Virginia , he could be liable under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act (FATA). The attorney general is the sole official charged with enforcing FATA.
EFS_Junior says:
March 10, 2011 at 11:50 am
Transparency, Transparency,Transparency,Transparency.
It`s that simple.
That implies that what he’s looking for is an admission in Mann’s e-mails of doubts about or weaknesses in his hockey stick. Or, failing that, of his refusal to accept reasonable, solid private criticisms and modification-suggestions about it. Now I understand what’s going on.
I think it is very helpful to have the trolls post their talking points here so that they can be eloquently refuted for those who visit here occasionally and have not followed WUWT posts throughout this whole process. Posting those talking points on warmist sites will just get bounced through the echo chamber without bringing any new information to bare.
Keep up the trolling! You are making this very easy for us non-scientists to debunk this junk when the lunch crowd starts in on how global warming is “settled science”.
It just hit me that if the Utah scientists had been able to hide and manipulate their data concerning Cold Fusion in the fashion that Mann, Hansen, the IPCC, Gore, etc. have done with AGW, we would all have been stupid enough to have purchased cold fusion heaters and generators for our homes and now we would all be pissing and moaning because even though spent a fortune and we were told there was a consensus of scientists believing in Cold Fusion, our homes would be freezing and no electricity would be available for lighting. A fraud is a fraud and its time we recognized it.
What is truly amazing through this all is that those alleging have failed to produce any more evidence. The only evidence offered is “they are bad people”. Hardly evidence at all and far from proof. There is no proof to these allegations. Seems skeptics should be far more skeptical of unproven allegations. Where is the skepticism?
Anyone willing to bet that the server any of these emails might be on suffers a crash and all emails are lost. But they did back up there own stuff, but hadn’t bothered with Mann et al because they had long left UVa?
– – – – – – – –
sceptical,
As to your ” . . . those alleging have failed to produce any more evidence.”, the Cuccinelli CIDs are requests for UVa information and are based on a concern relative to public knowledge about UVa and Mann; I see no ‘allegations’. Based on the information obtained resulting from when CIDs are served on Uva, then there may be some allegations or not. To me it looks now like there is nothing blocking CIDs to be filed on Uva. Do not take it personally, it is just the legal system grinding away.
As to your “Seems skeptics should be far more skeptical of unproven allegations. Where is the skepticism?”, from the words of a famous skeptic, “It is skepticism all the way down.” In other words we are skeptical of your view of our lack of skepticism.
NOTE: I think when it looks to UVa that there actually will be CIDs filed on UVa, then UVa will privately contact Cuccinelli’s office to make a private arrangement for Cuccinelli’s office to view UVa and Mann information. That way, with a private arrangement, UVa would not need to show its stuff relating to Mann in the open legal process with the public watching. The public would see all UVa and Mann info if UVa gives it in response to CIDs. I would be willing to place a small wager on this. ;^)
John
John Whitman, nothing personal about it on my end, unlike many of the commentors. The complete faith some have in unproven allegations against the likes of Dr. Mann shows that skepticism is uninvolved. It seems to be about more government instead of skepticism.
It speaks volumes that to the question “what “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”, noone here had a good answer.
In fact it spoke more that several commenters made particularly bad answers (citing Jones lost data, Harry readme, etc), implying that their whole position is based on their lack of understanding.
While I admit that language is pretty opaque, one reading of that is the circuit court held that Cuccinelli couldn’t subpoena documents because the University is a “person”, and the Supreme Court is saying they don’t buy it.
The US Supreme Court recently rejected a similar arguement that a corporation, being considered a person, can have “personal” information that they can prevent disclosure of information concerning the corporation.
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/02/business/la-fi-court-corporations-20110302
“We do not usually speak of personal characteristics, personal effects, personal correspondence, personal influence or personal tragedy as referring to corporations or other artificial entities,” he wrote. “In fact, we often use the word ‘personal’ to mean precisely the opposite of business-related: We speak of personal expenses and business expenses, personal life and work life, personal opinion and a company’s view.”
…
“All the justices agreed in FCC v. AT&T, with the exception of Kagan, who did not participate. “We trust that AT&T will not take it personally,” Roberts said in a parting comment.
It speaks volumes that to the question “what “underlying data” do you believe climate scientists have hidden that would change the basic premises of AGW theory?”, noone here had a good answer.
You’re asking the wrong questions.
The question isn’t whether the AG can refute AGW. The question is whether the results that Mann provided were fabricated or not. If so, there’s a case for fraud.
Another question is whether there was a concerted effort to cover up and twart access to information when people started asking questions. If so, there’s a case for criminal behavior, and if it was a result of many people who then perhaps conspiracy.
The AG is engaging in “DISCOVERY”, after which he can decide whether it’s worth bringing charges or not. It happens every day in every city as detectives and lawyers attempt to discern whether they have a case or not.
Let’s put this in terms the lefties might understand:
What part of his findings and research related to the thesis of a heliocentric universe would Galileo have withheld?
citizenschallenge says:
March 10, 2011 at 2:51 pm
It’s this whole turning scientist’s into enemies that really awful.
Then nothing awful has been done. To turn a scientist into an enemy, you first have to find a scientist.
§ 1-200. The common law.
The common law of England, insofar as it is not repugnant to the principles of the Bill of Rights and Constitution of this Commonwealth, shall continue in full force within the same, and be the rule of decision, except as altered by the General Assembly. (Code 1919, § 2, § 1-10; 2005, c. 839.)
“INSOFAR as it is NOT REPUGNANT to the Principles of the Bill of Rights and Constitution”
§ 1-230. Person.
“Person” includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. (Code 1919, § 5; Code 1950, § 1-13; 1950, p. 22, § 1-13.19; 1988, c. 36; 2005, c. 839.)
“person” includes “any”…. corporation, partnership, …”commercial entity” AND…”any” representatitve, agent, agency or INSTRUMENTALITY thereof.