By Chris Horner, ATI
Michael Mann made his way back to the Commonwealth of Virginia yesterday to watch his U.S. lawyer reprise the dark conspiracy theories previously weaved throughout his Canadian lawsuit against Tim Ball for repeating the old joke about “belong[ing] in the State Pen, not Penn State”.
The forum was a hearing in the American Tradition Institute’s Freedom of Information Act (VA) case against the University of Virginia (UVa) for certain records sent to or from Mann accounts while he was at UVa. That period is when the chatter about deleting records to circumvent FOI laws and other wagon-circling took place among the self-appointed “Hockey Team”.
That sort of paranoia sounded even worse in the spoken word that it reads in a brief. The judge gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head when my colleague David Schnare wondered aloud, when his turn came, about responding to all of the ad hominem. Enough already, this gesture seemed to say.
The Court allowed Mann to enter as an intervenor in this dispute, from the bench and without explanation. So there’s little we can offer there except that, when all is considered, this does provide the Court with the path of fewest problems (though hardly none, if Mann’s record in pleadings and argument is any basis to judge by; possibly some allies will try and delay matters yet again when we next proceed).
Given Mann’s argument was almost entirely limited to a vast right-wing conspiracy if one involving some names I’d never even heard of and in an apparently studious avoidance of the applicable law, we can only surmise the rationale for this move was grounded in equities found elsewhere than that curious display.
ATI opposed Mann’s motion to intervene simply because he offered no principled basis to intervene. We will appeal therefore with an eye toward settling the question as to what rights, or other considerations, justify a faculty member’s intervention in a FOIA case. For now we welcome Mann to this case to defend the content of his emails in a public forum. Presumably, just more conspiracy theorizing won’t suffice anymore.
We then proceeded to UVa’s effort to reopen the Protective Order, seeking to substitute themselves for us as the party reviewing and selecting exemplar emails from the cache they now admit to possessing. That it would be reopened was pro forma after Mann was deemed to have interests at stake, if what these interests are was left unstated.
The Court noted the distrust between the parties, particularly ours of UVa after all of what they have done, and so did not allow UVA to assume that role. This was despite that in advance they and Mann had agreed to jointly stipulate to this (his lawyer’s rather odd, earlier argument notwithstanding, see below).
But, as we argued, UVa’s utterly terrible record on this matter does not inspire confidence that a fair review and representative sample is to be had from them. Their ill-fit for the newly adopted pose of independent arbiter is somewhat betrayed by their legal bills fighting the AG’s Civil Investigative Demand now heading toward a million dollars. Then there is the enormous pressure from their faculty and pressure groups — which they finally copped to, after arguing previously in pleadings that this was all in our heads. Speaking of its track record.
And, finally, UVa has essentially the same interest as Mann at stake and is no more a suitable arbiter than Mann himself (per Mann, that’s “embarrassment”). To say UVa is aggressively focused on limiting the damage of what occurred in its program, with still not a finger toward self-policing lifted to date, is also something of an understatement.
So we have until a scheduled December 20 hearing to agree to a third party reviewer, cost and methodology. If we cannot agree the court will impose a process.
Toward that end, Mann’s attorney informed the Court that, well, Mann is the only person on the planet capable of understanding the content and meaning of emails he sent and received, thereby not only raising questions about his correspondents but making his future objections as to reviewers something less than entirely relevant or credible.
Cost is to be split at worst three ways, one presumes. Mann is surely going to be raising money for this. So, we won’t be shy, either. We can’t match the cool million the University of Virginia is pouring into their effort to make the embarrassment the revelations in ClimateGate emails to and from Mann’s UVa accounts has caused them go away. But every little bit helps.
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Isn’t this FOI thing all a big waste of time? MBH98 and 99 have been superseded by many other reconstructions, even from data and groups not associated with Mann and colleagues, and the results aren’t that much different.
What good is supposed to came from this brouhaha again? I’ve lost sight of the point.
Anyway, here’s the link to the 3000+ pages of declassified material again
http://www.atinstitute.org/law-ctr/hosted-foia-documents/
Happy reading.
Carrick > I don’t understand why Michael Mann can’t be completely open with his emails…
That will be why you, our host Watts, Chris Horner of the ATI, etc etc. all maintain a publiclly-accessible archive of all the emails… oh wait, you mean they don’t?
So how about you stop playing silly games? We all know that no-one wants all their emails to be released, nor does anyone want all their private data to be released.
William Connolley,
I said current. Your source is from back in 2007 [where the co-chairman of WG-4, Ottmar Edenhofer, stated:
“…one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.” By the IPCC’s own admission they have an anti-science agenda]. Since then, the IPCC has issued publications as recently as this year. Show us a current IPCC publication that contains this graph.
> Smokey says: I said current. Your source is from back in 2007
Err, yes. AR4 was published in 2007, and is the current IPCC report. They work on an approximately 5 year cycle. AR5 is under preparation. See http://www.ipcc.ch/.
> the co-chairman of WG-4
There is no IPCC WG-4. http://www.ipcc.ch/working_groups/working_groups.shtml described WG I, II and III. As to your quote: it is sourceless. If you have no source, it is not credible.
If people are having trouble seeing the emails on their browsers, move the mouse to the bottom of the page and see if a download option pops up. If still no luck, here are links to three Word files with the lot of them (I hope, never used this site before). The links will last 90 days.
http://www.filefactory.com/file/cfc22f1/n/Mann_emails_1.docx
http://www.filefactory.com/file/cfc220c/n/Mann_emails_2.docx
http://www.filefactory.com/file/cfc220f/n/Mann_emails_3.docx
(Mods, would it be a good idea to post a Word version of the documents @ur momisugly WUWT? Then you could get many eyes on them.)
William M. Connolley says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:13 pm
………:That will be why you, our host Watts, Chris Horner of the ATI, etc etc. all maintain a publiclly-accessible archive of all the emails… oh wait, you mean they don’t?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Nice try….Bit of a difference when there is hundreds of thousands of tax-paid grants being issued.
William M. Connolley says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:13 pm
So how about you stop playing silly games? We all know that no-one wants all their emails to be released, nor does anyone want all their private data to be released.
Yet prostitutes are expected to show all… When you insist on being in the limelight and taxes pay – YOU ARE OWNED.
You make it sound like we care whether he had a private affair with some undergrad.
Henry Galt says:
November 3, 2011 at 12:24 pm
A rat, a stoat and a rabbit walk into a bar …
______________________________
…in California. Mother Nature saved the day with a massive earthquake and tsunami. Mankind was saved. And everyone lived happily ever after.
Smokey, you’ve moved the goalposts into the next county. AR4 is the current report. AR5 is not due out until 2013.
Smokey, if Mann 1999 is going to be shown in any modern document it’s obviously going to be shown in a “spaghetti graph” alongside all the other work that has been done since. This is obvious. I can’t fathom why you expect older work to be given prominence over newer work. If anything common sense dictates to expect the opposite – that newer work is given prominence over older.
I have no idea what publications you think the IPCC has published this year. For a test of good faith how about you list the publications you are thinking of. They better have paleoclimate relevant sections considering your argument…
I don’t get your point, Smokey. There are many charts and graphs that were published in TAR that weren’t carried forward as new work emerged. Science progresses. There’s no reason for IPCC to keep publishing the same material. Your complaint is based on a very daft notion. MBH99 is referenced in AR4.
If you’re saying the IPCC has published something on millennial reconstructions since 2007, link it here. We’ll see what progress has been made.
Norway rat,
AR-4 was the last IPCC publication to use Mann’s falsified chart. If I’m wrong, post a current publication.
• • •
Wm Connolley says:
“There is no IPCC WG-4. http://www.ipcc.ch/working_groups/working_groups.shtml described WG I, II and III. As to your quote: it is sourceless. If you have no source, it is not credible.”
UN/IPCC WG-4 citations:
click1
click2
Regarding your comment that my quote is sourceless, I simply didn’t bother linking the source; and there are other sources. See, you can’t alter comments here at the internet’s “Best Science” site like you do with your despicable, mendacious and cowardly censorship of opposing views at Wikipedia. It is you who lacks any credibility.
“William M. Connolley says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:13 pm
So how about you stop playing silly games? We all know that no-one wants all their emails to be released, nor does anyone want all their private data to be released.”
Talking of silly games, how about you stop pretending that any of the emails or data at issue are Mann’s emails or private data – they are owned by the institution and are accessible by FOI. When one accepts public funding one must also accept that they become accountable to the public in respect of how their (the public’s) money is being spent.
If you don’t want data or emails that you have produced to be subject to FOI legislation then don’t accept public funding. It really is that simple.
dbs,
Hey thanks.
What would the world do without some of those bar jokes about a stoat, rabbit and rat . . . . it would be arguably less. . . . . something.
Take care.
John
DavidE says:
November 3, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Louis Hooffstetter:
Congtatulations! You’ve correctly identified the original source of the fraudulent “analysis” that Wegman parroted to Congress — McIntyre and McKittrick.
McIntyre is a retired mining engineer, and may or may not have known their “analysis” was cooked; McKittrick, though, had to be aware that their “random sample” was a fraud. What they did wasn’t an “error” — but clearly a deliberate choice to misrepresent.>>>
Amazing. You just get to make up your own facts plus your own history?
Spend some time on Climate Audit where you’ll find all the in depth detailed and DOCUMENTED analysis of just who did what when. The only way a claim such as your holds up is if people are too lazy to check for themselves. That you continue to spout purile nonsense in defense of Mann on the assumtion that you can fool at least some of the people THIS time says much about you. Care to come out from that mask of anonymity and make that accusation directly to McIntyre and McKittrick?
For all of you defending Mr Mann.
If the tables were reversed – do you actually think he’d defend you?
And can you ask him why are economic stimulus funds [ $541,184 ] being given to a university for scientific research?
William M. Connolley says:
November 3, 2011 at 4:13 pm
So how about you stop playing silly games? We all know that no-one wants all their emails to be released, nor does anyone want all their private data to be released.
_________________________
I worked in a lab and sent work related e-mails. I EXPECTED my e-mails to be read by others.
Anyone who sends e-mail while at work and does not expect them to be public is absolutely NUTS!
http://nl.blr-news.com/c.asp?791502&dcc2fc3b01d1fc49&9 (This is from a 2009 e-mail so link may not work)
An excellent example of the “right to privacy” mess is Monsanto who contracts out to private investigation firms like Pinkerton. The agents trespass on farmers fields collecting samples. Based on these samples Monsanto has sued thousands of farmers. From the court’s point of view Monsanto can take the samples because there is “no expectation of privacy” in a field of corn or soy beans.
The FOIA was enacted in 1966. Any one who is working in a government setting or with publicly funded grant money is a complete fool not to be aware he may be subject to an FOIA ESPECIALLY when working in a high profile area.
Climate Scientist should therefore have “no expectation of privacy” just like farmers have learned to have “no expectation of privacy” when PETA shows up with pictures of the old pet pony in the paddock out behind the house and brings charges of “Animal Abuse” (Happened to my neighbor who was a go 1/2 mile off the road)
kim ; ) says:
November 3, 2011 at 5:12 pm
—————–
kim ; ) ,
Maybe a Mannian reverse catharsis like:
John
“So I reitererate, if you can generate a ‘Hockey Stick’ from random data, that is the very definition of “garbage in – garbage out”.”
So what is your “very definition” of “random data”? That’s not an idle question but the crux of the comments I made. Wegman, in his report to Congress, falsely stated that by “random data” he meant a simple red noise model, AR(1, .2):
“One of the most compelling illustrations that McIntyre and McKitrick have produced is created by feeding red noise [AR(1) with parameter = 0.2] into the MBH algorithm.”
Sure, that’s a straightforward kind of random data, but it wasn’t how McI got those hockey stick shapes. Wegman did not know this because he had just copied McIntyre’s code without understanding it, or even noticing that McI cryptically referred to “persistent red noise.” Which is not AR(1, .2) but then again it’s not a precise or even standard term, and for years McI was evasive about exactly what he meant so his work was impossible to replicate. The NAS folks (unlike Wegman) saw the problem but could only guess at the solution, I believe they used AR(1, .8), which is unrealistically high for these data, but it turns out McI had gone even farther and used a “fractional ARIMA” algorithm as his definition of “random data.” This fits many more parameters to the data, and by doing that borrows more of its structure.
The NAS folks did find a slight hockey-stick bias to Mann’s method, although not as strong as McI’s partly because they did not use his fractional ARIMA trick and partly because they did not use the other trick of showing a few examples out of 10,000 (half of which turned downwards, BTW) that had the highest “hockey stick index.” More importantly, however, the NAS review found that improving the statistical approach did not much change the main result. That’s been abundantly confirmed by other researchers using many different data and statistical methods. Replication is the acid test in science. The alternative reconstructions have differently curvy handles but they all show that hockey stick blade, because it’s real.
You can see that blade even in the new BEST land surface index, much to the surprise of that project’s lead scientist who apparently was sure he’d find something different.
I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFULL WIZARD OF OZ. DON’T LOOK BEHIND THE CURTAIN!
Who knew the rewrite would be this complicated?
Smokey @ur momisugly here
There is no WG4 in the IPCC. Your first link is to a group called Biofuel Watch, not the IPCC. In your second link the blogger gets the reference wrong – if you look at the link he provides for reference to his material, it says clearly ‘WG1’.
The reason you have linked to such weird and wacky sources to back up your claim that IPCC have a WG4 is that you cannot find it at the IPCC website. There is no IPCC WG4.
“If the tables were reversed – do you actually think he’d defend you?”
He might. From my brief interactions he seems like a decent guy, keeping a sense of humor about things even as he’s the target of all this hate.
Smokey,
I love arguing with you because you are so often blatantly wrong it is easy to destroy you.
In the case of AR4, that was the last IPCC publication (of which I am aware) to deal with the paleo record. The report(s) published this year are the SRREN (The renewable energy report which raised such a kerfuffle earlier this year) and the upcoming report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation”. Nope, no paleo review there… No other special reports issued since AR4 show up on the IPCC website.
As for your links to IPCC WG4 citations. I’m laughing. The first was to a project called COST which does not appear to be a UN or IPCC project, but rather a project looking at soil carbon budgets. The second is a blog post by someone who apparently made a typo in the headline, since the figure he links to is from AR4 WG I (as in one, not roman numeral IV with an invisible V).
Here is what the IPCC says about it’s organization:
http://ipcc.ch/working_groups/working_groups.shtml
Notice something? Only 3 working groups.
Link to COST’s about page:
http://www.cost.esf.org/about_cost
Nope, not UN or IPCC….
Gneiss says:
November 3, 2011 at 5:44 pm
“If the tables were reversed – do you actually think he’d defend you?”
He might. From my brief interactions he seems like a decent guy, keeping a sense of humor about things even as he’s the target of all this hate.>>>
David Ball quips that Mann should be in the State Penn in stead of Penn State and Mann sues him. That’s a sense of humor?
I find this fascinating.
It shows how the world has changed not least due to WUWT and Anthony: the more power to his elbow.
Here we have the once mighty Stoat himself, he of taking science by the throat, come as champion to defend a Mann. On this blog?
But then of course WUWT speaks truth to power and is open to honest debate: unlike the propaganda. Of course if Romm ever turns up here I will have a giddy turn.
Otherwise remember that the Weasel is Weasilly distinguished because the Stoat is Stoatally different. I entirely forget which changes its coat in the winter.
But there do seem to be a lot of turncoats around these days, Muller must be flip flapping his coat so fast as to have a serious draught up the rear end.
Kindest Regards