ATI Statement on Results from Today’s Hearing in Freedom of Information Act Case Against U. of Virginia
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 16, 2011
Contact: Paul Chesser, paul.chesser@atinstitute.org
Today in Prince William County court Judge Gaylord Finch delayed arguments and the scheduled production of documents in American Tradition Institute’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the University of Virginia. A brief hearing was held to discuss a Motion to Intervene in the case by lawyers for former UVA professor Michael Mann, whose records that were created while employed there are what ATI seeks. Judge Finch, recognizing the important precedent-setting potential of the case, said he wanted to schedule a longer hearing — two hours — to hear arguments about whether to allow Dr. Mann, now at Pennsylvania State University, to enter the case.
Judge Finch granted ATI a sur reply in the case, which allows ATI Environmental Law Center director David Schnare to place additional materials before the court as Judge Finch considers whether to allow Dr. Mann to intervene. The two-hour hearing is scheduled for Nov. 1.
Statement by ATI Environmental Law Center director Dr. David Schnare about today’s developments:
“If it wasn’t clear before, it should now be clear to everybody. This is an extremely important case, and we appreciate Judge Finch’s careful attention to detail as we proceed.”
See case documents, press releases, media coverage, commentary, broadcast interviews, etc. pertaining to ATI v. University of Virginia by clicking here: http://bit.ly/mLZLXC
h/t to Bob Ferguson
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“barry says:
September 17, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Werner, david’s ‘evidence’ amounts to a link to a heavily agendaed website (it uses words like ‘alarmist’ and ‘hoax’).”
Barry, if you do not like that one, here is another:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/
barry:
“ALL”? Not true, the study I spoke of didn’t do an in-depth analysis of MWP compared to present times. It was mainly concerned with temps from 5 – 10 k/yrs BP, the early to mid-Holocene – and it compared those temps with global temps centred on ~1750, in the middle of the Little Ice Age. It does not in any way say anything, either absolute or tentative, about MWP temps compared to the last few decades – which is the periods of interest WRT Mann’s papers.>>>
For starters barry, I was addressing Jesse’s contention that without Jones and Mann’s data there was no evidence for the MWP, which is just blatantly false. I wasn’t commenting on Mann’s papers at that point, was I? Now…onto the one paper that you now identify…
Your claim that my saying “ALL” isn’t true because that ONE study (talk about cherry picking!) concentrated on the mid-Halocene and didn’t do an in depth analysis of MWP. What, exactly, has that got to do with the fact that it DOES in fact confirm the MWP? If I do a study that’s mostly about honey bees and some part of it about wasps, does that make the part about wasps wrong?
From the very paper you finger as being suspect on the matter:
“a new multi-centennial period of temperatures exceeding those of the pre-industrial
(~1750 AD) period by more than 1°C seems to have occurred during the
Medieval Warm Period (c. 800–1300 AD; see, e.g., Bradley et al. 2001, 2003;
Broecker 2001; Esper, Frank 2009; Ljungqvist 2009”
If you don’t want to be insulted by my responses, then don’t insult my intelligence by attempting to cherry pick, argue points I never made, draw conclusions that your pontificate about without any supporting evidence, and then try to discredit what I said (about a list of papers that all support the MWP) by picking out ONE, and claiming it is mostly about the Halocene (which it is) but nonetheless provides supporting evidence for the MWP and quotes…one, two, three, four, five, SIX other papers that do the same.
Now, what about the historical references I provided you? Or the other 109 studies on that site? Or the ones Werner posted? I’ve done a ton of reading and studying on this topic, I know the physics and the fact that there is a debate at all is mind boggling in the first place, but you think I’m just throwing insults around?
I only throw insults at people who present completely hollow arguments that are insulting to the intelligence of anyone who bothers to actually delve into the details, I throw insults at people who make vague claims without substantiating them. I throw insults at people who look at a list of 110 peer reviewed studies and attempt to discredit all of them by pointing out that ONE is focused on a slightly different topic.
Frankly sir, I find your remarks insulting. The difference is I don’t run away and hide when the going gets tough. I keep putting the facts on the table, keep pointing out the misrepresentations, the cherry picking, the misleading positioning, and yup, I make my ire known. But we both know the truth. you’re not refusing to debate me because I’ve insulted you. you’re refusing to debate me because I’ve shredded every point you’ve raised.
Frankly, I thought you would last longer.
Werner, I’m really not interested in rehashing old MWP arguments. If you’re genuine, you can read a critique on that old ‘skeptical’ graph here, and an analysis of the 1990 IPCC millennial graph here. I examined the science-skeptical graph long before those posts linked were made, and concluded myself that it in fact corroborates that the MWP was not a spatially/temporally coherent event, as many of the warm periods on the various graphs (which conveniently pop up when you roll over them) happen at different times, some as much as 500 years apart.
However,
This thread is about the UVA emails. There are 3800+ pages of them and related material that ATI are free to disclose right now, but have not posted on their website. It appears no one is interested in having ATI release them to the tax-payer – on whose behalf ATI have supposedly been working all this time. ATI are the new gate-keepers, and faux skeptics are content to do nothing about that.
Jesse Fell says:
September 17, 2011 at 4:42 pm
“I would also note that if we have to discard all of the hockey stick except that which can be based on instrumental data, we also have to discard any idea of a medieval warming period, for the evidence for such a period is based on the same sort of proxy data as the long handle of the hockey stick.”
Oh, so you want to throw out historical evidence in the same bucket as tree rings and reindeer crap? Classic troll behaviour.
> Time for everyone to go “all in” and show all their cards, no exceptions: Mann, McLeod, Santer, Michaels, Spenser, Christy, Trenberth, Curry, Hansen, etc.
Reveal ALL the relevant docs from ALL the players…
That’s right. Because they are the only climate scientists in the entire world.
Slacko,
Historical evidence is also part of the hockey stick. So if you throw away your hockey stick, you have to give up on your medieval warming period.
Personally, I believe that there was a medieval warming period — but since it appears to have been confined to the lands around the north Atlantic, and maybe the west coast of norther Africa, it can’t be called an instance of “global” warming.
This is a nit, but anyway: during the MWP, Greenland was referred to as “Vinland”. This term does not mean “vine – land”, however. In Scandinavian languages, the root “vin” means “grassy”. So Greenland may have been grassy during the MWP, but they weren’t growing grapes there. It didn’t get THAT warm.
Still, Chaucer and company had pleasant enough weather to go to Canterbury.
Jesse Fell says:
September 18, 2011 at 1:45 am
Historical evidence is also part of the hockey stick. So if you throw away your hockey stick, you have to give up on your medieval warming period.
Don’t you just love these warmists….Always trying to re-write history
Perhaps we can have a book burning on the steps of next climate meeting in Rio.
Mycroft,
I am not advocating giving up either the hockey stick or belief in a medieval warming period.
I’m merely pointing out that both are based on the same types of evidence, and that if you reject hockey sticks because of the nature of the evidence on which they are based, you must also give up your belief in a medieval warming period. And, I repeat, I am not in favor of giving up either.
Not new, but something I personally only just discovered, and which might
have some bearing on the current FOIA issues:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2010/01/us-michael-mann-received-500k-economic-stimulus-funds/
Cui Bono ?
Darrell says:
September 18, 2011 at 12:35 am
> Time for everyone to go “all in” and show all their cards, no exceptions: Mann, McLeod, Santer, Michaels, Spenser, Christy, Trenberth, Curry, Hansen, etc.
Reveal ALL the relevant docs from ALL the players…
That’s right. Because they are the only climate scientists in the entire world.
Darrell, please note the use of “etc” and “ALL the players” in previous post.
John B (UK)
Nobis omnibus bono.
Michael Mann is conducting research that is leading to better understanding of climate change, something that will be of benefit to all of us of this planet. It’s hard to imagine a better use to which stimulus money could be put.
By the way, the article linked to wrongly asserts that the stimulus package failed to create jobs. According to the Congressional Budget Office, it created almost three million jobs — a number close to predictions. This achievement has been obscured by the fact that some government economists badly underestimated the amount of economic damage that had been done by the collapse of financial markets in 2008; and the subsequently underestimated the extent to which consumers would cut back on spending, and employers on hiring. It is for this reason that unemployment did not remain at 8 per cent as they predicted, and not because the stimulus package failed to produce jobs. It did produce jobs, and now that the stimulus money has run out, we see unemployment ticking up sharply.
——————
barry,
You can go to ATI’s website and demand it. Is there a problem with you doing that?
It seems a straight forward path for you.
John
————-
Jesse Fell,
We will each independently judge whether the public money that Obama’s administration inappropriately gifted to Mann will be “leading to better understanding of climate change” or “be of benefit to all of us of this planet” or “better use to which stimulus money could be put”. Neither you nor the ‘consensus’ nor ‘settled science’ will have any authority to overrule individual judgments. Individuals will make judgments and through open, transparent and manifold discourse the pieces of science that conform to stark reality will be sifted out from the IPCC bias toward CAGW.
If Mann’s documented behavior is consistent with his future behavior then I see wasted money on science products similar to his inept hockey stick science.
The Obama administration’s inappropriate gift to Mann will continue to be evaluated as the evidence of corruption in climate science continues to expand.
John
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! 😛
barry says;
September 17, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Werner, I’m really not interested in rehashing old MWP arguments.>>>
REPLY: Having jumped into the thread on that issue, and your position promptly being shot full of holes, suddenly you want to jump back out. LOL
barry says;
many of the warm periods on the various graphs (which conveniently pop up when you roll over them) happen at different times, some as much as 500 years apart.>>>
REPLY: Yes barry, because when something happens on this teeny tiny planet of ours it happens instantaeously over the whole world. NOT!
barrr says;
However, This thread is about the UVA emails>>>
REPLY: Yup. Fire off a misleading remark, and then change the subject. Can you hear the sound of bugles calling the retreat?
Jesse Fell; Historical evidence is also part of the hockey stick. So if you throw away your hockey stick, you have to give up on your medieval warming period. >>>
Reply: Total and complete bull. The “hockey stick” was first presented by Mann as a result of a computer program that sifted through the data and assigned higher weights to hockey shaped data. It was demonstrated that no matter what data it was given, it produced a hockey stick graph, and the demonstration was done for a CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE. Since then Mann has produced a study based on just seven trees, with 50% of the weighting from ONE tree, and constructed a hockey stick graph from that. Mann and Jones used tree ring data to construct the hockey stick graph for IPCC AR4, but to make it into a hockey stick, they had to discard some of the data and replace it with different data.
This isn’t an all or nothing argument. It is about the proper use of the available data. NONE of it has to be thrown out. The ONLY thing that need be thrown out is selecting the data that supports the hockey stick story and discarding the overwhelming mass of data that is more credible, more accurate, and which discredits the hockey stick story.
Jesse Fell;
Personally, I believe that there was a medieval warming period — but since it appears to have been confined to the lands around the north Atlantic, and maybe the west coast of norther Africa>>>
REPLY: What, exactly, would “confine” it? Did the wind stop blowing? Ocean currents stop moving? Did convection halt? Was there a really big wall built around the area we don’t know about? Take a gander through the 110 peer reviewed papers I linked to. There are papers from Alaska, Venezuala, Bahamas….
Jesse Fell;
So Greenland may have been grassy during the MWP, but they weren’t growing grapes there.>>>
REPLY: No where in this thread did anyone claim they did. Its really easy to win points in a debate when you discredit things nobody actually said. Odd that you aren’t able to so easily score points on things that people ACTUALLY said, isn’t it?
Jesse Fell:
I am not advocating giving up either the hockey stick or belief in a medieval warming period. I’m merely pointing out that both are based on the same types of evidence, and that if you reject hockey sticks because of the nature of the evidence on which they are based, you must also give up your belief in a medieval warming period.>>>
REPLY: Total rubbish. The hockey stick is based on SELECTED evidence while contrary evidence which overwhelmingly discredits the hockey stick and supports the MWP has been either ignored or DELETED. You are arguing that because Jones and Mann excluded any data which disagreed with them, that ALL the data should be thrown out. The opposite is true. It should ALL be included, and it should ALL be accurately evaluated. Why are you so eager to throw it ALL out because a tiny part of it was shown to be innacurate and misleading? What have you to fear by including proper analysis of ALL the data? Hmmm?
Jesse Fell;
Michael Mann is conducting research that is leading to better understanding of climate change, something that will be of benefit to all of us of this planet.>>>
REPLY: Why then, he should be eager to disclose his data and his methods, should he not? Of course if he’s wrong, and we make major economic decisions based on his work, then we’re courting disaster. Other than that, there’s no reason to double check his work, is there? Well other than the fake computer program and the study based 50% on a single tree I mean….
davidmhoffer,
Personally, I think that Michael Mann should release his emails — and endure the distortions that will be based on them. It’s the lesser of the evils that he faces.
I would imagine, however, that he was burned by the CRU affair, and didn’t want to go through that kind of misery again.
But, you seem to know almost everything that there is to know about what went into the making of Mann’s hockey stick. If you know all that, it must be public knowledge. If that is the case, what is there left for Michael Mann to disclose? If we don’t know what algorithms and parameters and whatnot Mann is using, however, how can you be making these detailed claims — such as, that he excluded data that he knew would not give the result he wanted?
By the way, all the CRU data, and the computers programs used to analyze it, have been made public, and gone over and over by by many people, including some who were not friendly toward the CRU to begin with. They have found the data to be robust, and the computer program to be reasonable and free of gimmicks.
As for grapes in Vinland — I brought that up because I thought it was interesting, even if of small importance. Sorry it annoyed you.
.
Jesse Fell,
Science requires transparency. But thirteen years after MBH98, Mann still hasn’t released the requested data and methodologies, etc. Nature was forced to issue a Correction to MBH98 based largely on Steve McIntyre’s relentless sleuthing. It was McIntyre and McKitrick who produced solid evidence that MBH98 is nothing but junk science.
Michael Mann must know for certain that his papers are junk science. Therefore, he fights their release. Michael Mann has been shown conclusively to be a climate charlatan. Why would you defend him? Why would anyone defend him?
Smokey,
Michael Mann has been vindicated by every investigation into this conduct and scientific methods that has been done, including one by the National Science Foundation. Penn State concluded its investigation with the following words: “An Investigatory Committee of faculty members with impeccable credentials” has unanimously “determined that Dr. Michael E. Mann did not engage in, nor did he participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or other scholarly activities.”
Edward Wegman, who was not initially well-disposed toward Mann, conducted an analysis that found Mann’s methods and results to be overall sound.
Steve McIntyre found a mistake in Mann’s data, which Mann acknowledged, and which did not require him to turn his hockey stick into a pool cue.
It’s worth noting that Mann’s is not the only hockey stick going. There are others, using different sets of proxy data, and variations on Mann’s methodologies. The result is always a hockey stick.
Jesse Fell;
There are others, using different sets of proxy data, and variations on Mann’s methodologies. The result is always a hockey stick.>>>
How does “no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years ” (Phile Jones) equate to a hockey stick? You know the Phile Jones I am talking about? The one who is responsible for the very CRU data that you insist is robust?
Jesse Fell;
Edward Wegman, who was not initially well-disposed toward Mann, conducted an analysis that found Mann’s methods and results to be overall sound.>>>
That sir, is the most absurd distortion of the Wegman report thjat I have ever encountered.
Jesse Fell;
But, you seem to know almost everything that there is to know about what went into the making of Mann’s hockey stick. If you know all that, it must be public knowledge.>>>
Nope, I don’t, and never claimed that I did. I’ve cited that which is public knowledge. The debunking of Mann’s hockey stick computer program was done by McIntyre and McKitrick and they demonstrated the fraudulent misrepresentation of the data that the program produced to the Wegman commission. That commission’s report, which cite as supporting Mann, actually trashed him and did so with thorough justification. They allowed only that despite the completely fraudulent nature of Mann’s hockey stick program, that AGW was likely real.
To suggest that Wegman supported Mann’s science in any way is just as fraudulent.
To your comment however, I’m have no idea if I know “everything” or not. I know what is already public.
ITS WHAT WE DON’T KNOW AND THAT MANN IS GOING TO EXTROARDINARY LENGTHS TO ENSURE THAT WE NEVER KNOW THAT IS OF INTEREST.
If everything to know is already knwon, what is he fighting to keep secret? |If there is data or other evidence supportive of his cause, would he not be eager to disclose it and refute his critics once and for all?
It is obvious that he is hiding something, something that he doesn’t want the public to know about. WE THE PUBLIC WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS AND WHY HE IS SO DESPERATE TO HIDE IT.
Given Mann’s track record that IS in the public domain, we have every reason to demand the balance of it, despite of (in fact, in part BECAUSE of) those like you who attempt to turn the public record upside down.
Jesse Fell says:
September 18, 2011 at 6:04 am
Mycroft,
I am not advocating giving up either the hockey stick or belief in a medieval warming period.
I’m merely pointing out that both are based on the same types of evidence, and that if you reject hockey sticks because of the nature of the evidence on which they are based, you must also give up your belief in a medieval warming period. And, I repeat, I am not in favor of giving up either.
The hockey stick is a made up bastardised version of cherry picked data
The MWP was/is fact that has been documented in detail from those times
Take a look see here for the extent of the MWP not just a NW European event
http://pages.science-skeptical.de/MWP/MedievalWarmPeriod1024x768.html
davidmhoffer,
How were McIntyre and McKitrick able to debunk Mann’s hockey stick computer program if this is one of the things that Mann is hiding — and I would assume that it would be the principal thing to hide, if he were not on the up and up?
The Wegman commission “allowed only that despite the completely fraudulent nature of Mann’s hockey stick program, that AGW was likely real.” So, if AGW is likely real, how can it matter whether Mann’s hockey stick program is fraudulent? And, in what way could the program be fraudulent, if it came to conclusions that those accusing it of fraudulent admit to be likely true?
davidmhoffer,
Here’s what Phil Jones said about warming:
BBC: Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming
Phil Jones: Yes, but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period 1995 to 2009. This trend (0.12C per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95% significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.
BBC: How confident are you that warming has taken place and that humans are mainly responsible?
Phil Jones: I’m 100% confident that the climate has warmed. As to the second question, I would go along with IPCC Chapter 9 – there’s evidence that most of the warming since the 1950s is due to human activity.
John Whitman,
I did that as soon as I read Chesser’s quote a few weeks ago. I did it a second time just recently. I also twice mentioned that I had written to ATI in this thread, before you posted. I asked the question – “Am I the only one to have done so?”
Apparently so. No one else here seems to be interested in actually looking at the material. No one is interested in demanding ATI release the unprotected emails. How about you?