Direct Action at Harvard
By Steve McIntyre
Attention has been drawn today to Mann’s request to other Team members for suggestions as to how to take direct action at Harvard against Soon and Baliunas. Not noticed thus far is that Kevin Trenberth reverted almost immediately with suggestions and that Mann followed up on these suggestions. Later, Soon’s supervisor has a small cameo when we (Ross and I) enter on the scene.
The email reported today (4032, 276) was dated 2003-07-23. It was by no means an isolated attempt.
On April 24, 2003 (email 1999), Mann complained to a very large email distribution list that Soon and Baliunas’ association with Harvard-Smithsonian added damaging prestige to their article:
This latest assault uses a compromised peer-review process as a vehicle for launching a scientific disinformation campaign (often viscious and ad hominem) under the guise of apparently legitimately reviewed science, allowing them to make use of the “Harvard” moniker in the process.
On May 14, 2003, (email 2524), Mann wrote to Trenberth and other “colleagues” alleging that Soon and Baliunas had “hijacked” Harvard’s public relations office. Mann requested contacts at Harvard:
Dear Colleagues,
Baliunas and co. appear to have successfully hijacked Harvard’s PR office on this. Any of you have contacts there you might be able to get some information from? Both of these appeared in the “Harvard Gazette”:
[1]http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/04-sun.html
[2]http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/01-weather.html
That provides the appearance of Harvard’s stamp of approval for unsound claims which have otherwise been ignored by any other mainstream media outlets (despite the repeated attempts of the authors and their promoters to get wider coverage, the story has generally only been picked up by right-wing online sites and Murdoch-owned newspapers).
Trenberth wrote back suggesting Dan Schrag and Paul Epstein.
On May 15, Mann wrote Epstein as follows (email 2524), claiming that there was an “investigation” into the practices of editor de Freitas.
Read the rest here at Climate Audit
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We need Rep. Stearns to ask some very pointed questions regarding the climategate issues now that it is quite evident what is going on and how it ties into the financial sector, (he is doing great work with the Solyndra fiasco and other ‘loan’ issues)… Here is Stearns in action regarding Hank Paulson (an avid warmest) and the bait and switch that happened during TARP. We all know that Goldman Sachs and others have a huge financial interest in this fraud and it needs to exposed for what it is. I cannot wait for the next installment of e-mails.
http://dailybail.com/home/the-hammer-gets-hit-by-a-tree.html
A bit about Mr. Paulson here:
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/01/12/hank-paulson-climate-regulate
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/01/13/hank-paulson-use-free-trade-to-fight-climate-change/
They do seem to like to toss around “right-wing” as a pejorative.
AGW advocates respond with this.
“Thirteen of the authors Baliunas and Soon cited in the paper refuted her interpretation of their work, and several editors of Climate Research resigned in protest at a flawed peer review process that allowed the publication.”
http://www.desmogblog.com/sallie-baliunas
I don’t know Dr. Soon, but I spent my undergraduate years in the same department as Dr. Sallie Baliunas. Even then, I (and everyone who knew her) realized that she was head and shoulders above her peers. We also knew that she was a good friend and sparkling personality, but for this, that’s irrelevant.
But what is not irrelevant is that she was uncompromising in her desire to follow the truth. Although it was decades ago now, I doubt that “socially conservative ideas” interested her for their own sake then and I doubt they do now. She *would* follow the data wherever it led, however, politics be damned. She was not apolitical, but Dr. Baliunas showed us what scientific integrity meant. She had it then, has it now, and any suggestion to the contrary, no matter how indirect, is simply ridiculous. That includes innuendo by Dr. Mann.
I can offer nothing but anecdotes to support this, but I can also muster a small army who will agree.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy#Smithsonian_controversy
Same playbook. I’m tellin ya. Tribalism is tribalism.
If the Smithsonian is involved that changes things because the the Smithsonian is a public institution. In the case above Rick Sternberg is a biologist employed by the Smithsonian and was the editor of a Smithsonian science journal. Sternberg let an article be published written by another scientist who was persona non-grata in the evolutionary biology bandwagon. The NCSE (National Center for Science Education) colluded with religion-hating parties at the Smithsonian to create a hostile work environment. The long and short in this case was a congressional inquiry which exonerated Sternberg who did nothing wrong and followed standard practice with the article in question.
Tribalism indeed.
Rob Crawford says:
November 29, 2011 at 10:30 am
“They do seem to like to toss around “right-wing” as a pejorative.”
Of course they do. This isn’t science. It’s the culture war. Career academics in natural sciences employed by universities are predominantly on the liberal side of the culture war. There are some honest brokers of course but the majority are culture warriors who will compromise science to further “The Cause”. I think tenure tends to attract Marxist sympathizers and the natural sciences tends to attract pagan earth worshippers. The result is manifestly evident.
The Harvard connection is interesting. Harvard is located in Cambridge MA where a communist friend had to register as a republican and work at the polls so elections could be held. The area leans so far left it has fallen over and Heaven help you if you do not fall in line with all of their thinking. Thinkers outside the box are met with threats and abuse (Based on several first hand experiences and one of the reasons I moved.)
The public image of the “Left” is all about concern for the poor and underdogs. This bit of reality shows Harvard is a bit different in its actions compared to its words.
Either way, it’s wrong! “Viscous” and “vicious” are the choices. Mann’s trying to have it both/all ways at once, as usual.
>:-P
joe says:
November 29, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I don’t know Dr. Soon, but I spent my undergraduate years in the same department as Dr. Sallie Baliunas. Even then, I (and everyone who knew her) realized that she was head and shoulders above her peers. We also knew that she was a good friend and sparkling personality, but for this, that’s irrelevant.
But what is not irrelevant is that she was uncompromising in her desire to follow the truth. Although it was decades ago now, I doubt that “socially conservative ideas” interested her for their own sake then and I doubt they do now. She *would* follow the data wherever it led, however, politics be damned. She was not apolitical, but Dr. Baliunas showed us what scientific integrity meant. She had it then, has it now, and any suggestion to the contrary, no matter how indirect, is simply ridiculous. That includes innuendo by Dr. Mann.
I can offer nothing but anecdotes to support this, but I can also muster a small army who will agree.
_______________________________________________________________
Thank you Joe for your fine words.
I too know Sallie and she is highly intelligent, totally honest and utterly decent.
Sallie has been subjected to harsh, dishonest criticism by certain parties who are acolytes of the global warming “cause”. These miscreants should be censured by their academic institutions and professional societies for opprobrious professional misconduct.
________________________________________________________________
I sincerely hope that class-action lawsuits are initiated soon, prior to possible expiry under statutes of limitations.
As the evidence mounts that the “global warming crisis”, was not only false, but fraudulent and the product of a conspiracy,
and
costs of corn and other staples rise due to nonsensical corn ethanol and similar schemes,
and
hunger increases in the world,
and
energy costs rise as utilities are forced to add worthless wind and solar power to the grid,
and
people in the UK and Western Europe have to choose between buying groceries and heating their homes
and
costs of funds squandered to “fight global warming” exceed one trillion dollars,
and
millions of children per year die from contaminated drinking water, due to lack of funding…
… perhaps there will be NO expiry of the right to sue under statutes of limitations.
One wonders if the legal departments at Penn State, U of Virginia and U of East Anglia are already preparing their defenses.
One can assume, based on past behavior, that emails are being deleted and files shredded, as we speak.