Andrew Revkin reports today on the engagement of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) to the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund created by Professor Scott Mandia, aka “Supermandia” as he sees himself in the photo below.
I was really rather surprised that Revkin covered this nonsense, particularly since the “fund” is primarily about Mandia’s adoration of Dr. Michael Mann, and his desire that his public emails from the University of Virgina not be exposed to scrutiny by the State Attorney General of Virginia to determine if he used research funds properly or not. PEER has made a number of public pronouncements defending Mann and claims that scientific integrity would be damaged if the attorney general is allowed to view those emails written on the public dime.
This probably explains why Mandia needs to wear hip waders as part of his costume.
The University of Virginia reportedly has spent upwards of a million dollars keeping those emails on double secret probation, so it would seem the old adage of “where there’s smoke there’s fire” might truly apply here.
In Revkin’s Q&A e-mail interview with Jeff Ruch (video interview), the longtime executive director of PEER, it emerges that they have some pretty odd thinking on FOI as it applies to universities:
Q: Finally, when the issue is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), there’s a murky line between what is fishing and what isn’t. Many FOIA requests of green groups over the years could be cast as such. This is one reason the Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, has walked a fine line in its statements on abuse of FOIA. Should a researcher using a state university e-mail address and working under federal grants be entitled to presume his/her correspondence is “private” (as described below)?A: The central issue is whether the subject of the inquiry is public business. Generally, scientific articles submitted in the author’s name with a disclaimer that the work does not represent the institution falls outside what is official business. Our main concern is that industry-funded groups and law firms are seeking to criminalize the peer review process by obtaining internal editorial comments of reviewers as a means to impeach or impugn scientists.The grants themselves and the grant reports are public but a federal grant does not transform a university lab into an executive branch agency – which is the ambit of FOIA.
By the way, as an adjunct to our whistleblower practice, PEER makes extensive use of FOIA to force disclosure of matters other wise buried in agency cubicles. A good example of one our science-based FOIA [requesets] is this.
Bishop Hill writes of this passage:
“…seeking to criminalize the peer review process by obtaining internal editorial comments of reviewers as a means to impeach or impugn scientists”? Huh?
It can’t be said often enough. If you want public money you have to accept public oversight.
I agree. It seems the issue here is simple; they want the money, but they don’t want to answer any questions about how that money is used.
This is part of the “entitlement mindset” that has pervaded public employees in recent years, and it is becoming tiresome. Sunlight on the process is the only way accountability can be maintained.
Jeremy said: “I mean, if a university is taking 44% out of every grant, that essentially INFLATES the grant money required to do anything with expensive equipment. ”
The actual percentage varies according to different factors… as of 2010, here’s the official UNR overhead, now referred to as F&A…
http://www.unr.edu/ospa/forms/policies/UNR%20OSP%20Policy/Policy_on_FA_Waivers.pdf
I sat in numerous meetings where diverting or avoiding the F&A was discussed in order to justify getting a piece of equipment, or how to “pad” the grant to make sure that there was 100% of the money needed to procure it. It was a HUGE bone of contention by both the Principle Investigators (PI) and the university administration where the money went and how much the U got from the profit pie.
(VPR is Vice President of Research. He makes a LOT of money.)
When I first read this, in my head I automatically put a decimal point between the “4’s”. That amount of overhead is staggering. Before I saw this, I vaguely assumed it might be 10 cents on the dollar, but WOW!! I mean, if you have a research project that uses a bomb range, OK, but a guy smacking a keyboard in the corner of his office???
I can’t wait for FOIA to release #Climategate 3.0…pass the popcorn.
WUWT mentioned on The Blaze.
“Engineering is the only profession I trust anymore. Reality is forced on them almost every moment of their professional lives.”
Thanks for that, it’s now my new Slashdot sig.
It seems the issue here is simple; they want the money, but they don’t want to answer any questions about how that money is used.
———-
I don’t think it is simple at all. I get the impression that initial relations were cordial but that climate scientists came to believe that their interrogators were not acting in good faith.
If climate scientists came to believe that any information they provided was going to be misinterpreted either accidentally or on purpose and misrepresented to others with the intent of discrediting their work or themselves personally, then you can obviously expect considerable resistance.
Consider the climategate emails for example. Much effort had been expended to attach interpretations to these emails to justify preconceived positions. No effort at all has been expended to identify emails which contradict these preconceived notions. The latter strategy would get closer to the truth. So the intent of the whole exercise is clear.
R S Brown says
Let’s keep the record straight here, folks.
The University of Virginia did not, I repeat NOT spend
one million dollars of the University’s or tax or tuition generated
dollars to keep those emails on double secret probation.
———-
I was wondering about. Whenever someone in climate skeptic land starts to speak breathlessly about trillions or billions or millions of dollars, accompanied of course by lots of hamming it up moral outrage, I get the urge to do some fact checking.
When I do that I find that it’s made up.
So what evidence are you basing your claim on?
Theo Goodwin says
The law today is clear as a bell. Your employer owns all of your communications that were made while you were on the job or using employer equipment.
———
I find this hides a paradox. On the one hand everyone knows that Americans are crazy about freedom. But it’s a weird kind of freedom, since it seems you can, in effect, sell it to your employer.
It seems for example that some of your right wing capitalism obsessed politicians are highly antagonistic to the idea that workers should have some degree of freedom and favor the good ole autocratic style.
Personally I favor the work hard, do your best for the company, but I still have a life style. So the law should be changed so employees have some degree of a personal life at work, including personal emails.
PaddikJ says: January 25, 2012 at 1:21 pm
PiperPaul says: January 25, 2012 at 8:00 pm
“Engineering is the only profession I trust anymore. Reality is forced on them almost every moment of their professional lives.”
Thanks for that, it’s now my new Slashdot sig.
HUH
Nov 2010 – January 2011 Floods in Queensland, Royal Commission called 17 Jan 2011
The media interchanges terms between …… dam engineers ……… flood engineers …… dam managers …………………….
23 Jan 2012 What the floods inquiry didn’t hear: Wivenhoe ‘breached the manual’
‘‘A RAFT of official internal documents produced by senior public servants during Brisbane’s devastating flood in January last year show the Wivenhoe Dam was mismanaged in a serious breach of its manual for two crucial days.’
24 Jan 2012 Missed again: unearthed emails point to Wivenhoe Dam breach
‘AN email exchange between two of Queensland’s most senior water officials seems to confirm that the wrong strategy was being used to manage Wivenhoe Dam, just one day before massive releases of water that flooded Brisbane.
The emails were found yesterday in a large document not put on public display by the royal commission-style inquiry into the dam’s management, and are understood to have gone unnoticed until now.’
26 Jan 2012Wivenhoe Dam boss took Anna Bligh floods job
‘A TOP public servant was seconded to a senior new job advising Premier Anna Bligh on the floods inquiry after he had provided documents to the inquiry that suggested flood engineers were using the wrong strategy to operate Wivenhoe Dam.’
26 Jan 2012 Anna Bligh vows to uncover dam truth after backlash over election delay
‘QUEENSLAND Premier Anna Bligh has called for the full force of the law to apply to anyone found to have covered up mismanagement of Wivenhoe Dam in the days before last year’s devastating Brisbane floods.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/elections/anna-bligh-vows-to-uncover-dam-truth-after-backlash-over-election-delay/story-fnbsqt8f-1226253902294
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/flood-inquiry-muddies-the-waters/story-e6freoof-1226253868712
Dam bursts on new evidence as Queensland flood inquiry is recalled
Whiff of a cover-up changes politics
It is surprising that the 1997 Central Valley, Californian floods, (9 deaths, US$1.6 billion, 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed) and noted by the Environmental Defense Fund and Friends of Rivers, was not read or discussed by experts of NGO or those in the employ of the Queensland [Qld] govt, Australia.
Damage bill for the Brisbane, capital city of Queensland http://www.floodcommission.qld.gov.au/__data/assets/file/0007/2032/Merthyr_Village_Shopping_Centre.pdf and Ipswich city approx AUS$5 billion. For the State of Qld much more $ due to loss of primary industry (eg coal, agriculture) and transport/export of produce etc.
Total loss of human life: 35 source: http://www.shine.com.au/pages/floodinsurance.aspx
http://www.floodcommission.qld.gov.au/media/extra-hearings-for-floods-commission-of-inquiry
Perhaps the lungfish and proxy control measures on development, population and sprawl was more interesting?
International Rivers Network
http://www.internationalrivers.org/files/WRR.V12.N1.pdf
http://www.edo.org.au/edoqld/edoqld/new/Bulletin%20Jul-Sept%2009.pdf
‘Up to 150 rare lungfish are being swept to their deaths through Wivenhoe Dam’s gates every time authorities release water, scientists say…..’
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/wivenhoe-lungfish-woes-follow-traveston-warnings-20101027-173z0.html
‘Dr Kind said the lungfish would have been trying to breathe in an “oxygen film” on top of the saltwater but said it should recover.’
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/dinosaur-fish-found-in-brekky-creek-20101027-173au.html
Am I supposed to believe the fishing boots worn in the photo (with the cape) are supposed to fend off the rising tides, or to be used when mucking around in the cesspool of climate data caused by all sorts of unthinkable adjustments, omissions, substitutions, fudges and folly?
No wonder these guys don’t like FOIA! (The law or the whistleblower–it doesn’t matter!)
I go you one better. Any work that isn’t open and honest should not be used in the scientific argument for policy choices, laws or regulations.
Doesn’t matter if it’s publicly or privately funded. If it can’t be replicated by independent parties, then it’s simply a gratuitous assertion, which can be gratuitously ignored.
Damn good thinking.
It’s easy to think of charities that are more worthwhile than PEER. How about the Catholic Priests Legal Defense Fund? /sarc
Seriously though, this does not pass the sniff test. It raises another potential topic for investigation: Are public employees being pressured by their supervisors into contributing to PEER? PEERgate, anyone?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jan/23/climate-sceptic-lawson-thinktank-funding?CMP=EMCENVEML1631
now isnt this cute(sarc)
I followed the link from the item to see whos picking up the tab for this..takes you to a rather evasive site that does get funding from Millenium dev funds..rather a LOT of funds too.
they seem to want to use FOI to fight prior FOI???
stalling tactics…so obviously they DO have a lot to hide. or why bother?
LazyTeenager says:
January 25, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Sorry, Lazy, your limp justification for the obfuscation by these scientists does not convince. The initial “cordiality” turned to “resistance” the moment that they discovered that those requesting the data were scientifically and mathematically competent and clever. Also consider that one can still be an accredited warmist without being an apologist for the scientific hooliganism revealed in the Climategate emails. Even Monbiat decried the Climategate machinations and Muller criticized the “hide the decline” trick.
I don’t think so, laddie. Unless you’re the kind of person who thinks it’s perfectly OK to hack you’re neighbor’s broadband connection, ’cause, you know, you NEED it.
Companies provide computers, fax machines, printers, plotters and all the infrastructure that makes them go to further the company’s business interests. If you personally don’t pay for it, how on earth are you entitled to use it for personal reasons? You want pesonal e-mail at work? Buy a Droid or similar smart phone and have fun at lunch. Yes, at lunch, because if you’re sending personal tweets, texts, e-mails or whatever on the company’s time you’re stealing a different resource, the productive time they pay you for. Man, talk about an entitlement mindset.
Classic, what a di-ckhead.
Love the hockey stick.
Sorry, but, really this is a joke, right?
If it is true, please god “Help me”