This just in. Here’s a potential bombshell for the Mann:
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Popcorn futures* continue their unprecedented climb:
UPDATE: Sunday 10/28 Mark Steyn writes an uproariously funny but at the same time stinging evisceration of Dr. Mann on his private website titled The fraudulent Nobel Laureate
This part says it all, I’d make it “Quote of the Week”, but then I don’t want to fragment this thread:
When a man sues for damage to his reputation and grossly inflates that reputation in the very court filings, that says something about his credibility.
He also links to this thoughtful essay by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.
Mann’s embellishment has placed him in a situation where his claims are being countered by the Nobel organization itself.
*There are no popcorn futures markets, the graph is based on a corn future market graph, just for fun
Read Steyn’s latest here: The fraudulent Nobel Laureate
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Mark Steyn takes note of the airbrushing going on in Mike’s Nobel Trick:
A week ago, Michael Mann accused us of damaging his reputation – and seems to have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. A week ago, he was a “Nobel prize recipient”. Now he’s not. Great work, Mike!
Dr. Judith Curry sends some advice in her week in review:
“JC message to Michael Mann: Mark Steyn is [a] formidable opponent. I suspect that this is not going to turn out well for you.”
Read more at JudithCurry.com
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FLASH: 10/26 7:30AM The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate”, says he can’t claim he won it (the Nobel prize itself).
See below. – ALSO National Review makes phone call to Nobel committee, audio and transcript below.
NOTE: This is a top sticky post for awhile since the interest is high. New stories appear below this one. UPDATE – legal complaint added, plus a new opinion piece by Chris Horner regarding claims of exoneration has been added – see below the “continue reading” line. UPDATE2: Steyn responds, see below.
UPDATE 3: Steyn responds even further, saying:
“Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé.”
Details (and a photo to back up Steyn) below.
UPDATE4: CEI officially responds to the lawsuit, and Steyn mocks Mann even more with a priceless zinger, see below.
In related news, popcorn futures explode go nuclear.
More details to follow.
From Michael Mann’s Facebook page.
Lawsuit filed against The National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute 10/22/12
Today, the case of Dr. Michael E. Mann vs. The National Review and The Competitive Enterprise Institute was filed in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. Dr. Mann, a Professor and Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, has instituted this lawsuit against the two organizations, along with two of their authors, based upon their false and defamatory statements accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Dr. Mann is being represented by John B. Williams of the law firm of Cozen O’Connor in Washington, D.C. (http://www.cozen.com/attorney_detail.asp?d=1&atid=1406).
Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. In 2007, along with Vice President Al Gore and his colleagues of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having “created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming.”
Nevertheless, the defendants assert that global warming is a “hoax,” and have accused Dr. Mann of improperly manipulating the data to reach his conclusions.
In response to these types of accusations, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and seven other organizations have conducted investigations into Dr. Mann’s work, finding any and all allegations of academic fraud to be baseless. Every investigation—and every replication of Mann’s work—has concluded that his research and conclusions were properly conducted and fairly presented.
Despite their knowledge of the results of these many investigations, the defendants have nevertheless accused Dr. Mann of academic fraud and have maliciously attacked his personal reputation with the knowingly false comparison to a child molester. The conduct of the defendants is outrageous, and Dr. Mann will be seeking judgment for both compensatory and punitive damages.
Journalists interested in further information regarding the filing of this lawsuit may contact Dr. Mann’s attorney at 202-912-4848, or jbwilliams@cozen.com.
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I’m sure Mark Steyn is thrilled with the prospect of now being able to do additional commentary on this side show. I can’t wait for depositions and discovery.
UPDATES:
Here is the legal complaint: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/michael-mann-complaint.pdf
Chris Horner has this opinion piece now which explains his opinion on why Dr. Michael Mann was never fully investigated and thus never exonerated.
Mark Steyn responds with: I’ll have more to say about this when I’ve stopped laughing.
Mark Steyn writes in a further update:
Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve just read the official indictment or whatever you call it against NR, and he makes the claim that he has been “awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in the complaint itself (page 2, paragraph 2).
Over the years, I’ve been sued and threatened with suits in various countries around the world but I’ve never before seen a plaintiff make such a transparently false assertion right up front in the biographical resumé.
And I’ve got the photo of Dr. Mann’s award (shown from his office window) to back up what Steyn says here.
Note it says “for contributing to” not awarded to.
Be careful, don’t choke on your popcorn while laughing.
UPDATE4:
CEI has released it’s official statement on the lawsuit on their website here: http://cei.org/news-releases/climate-scientist-sues-cei
The say:
One of our attorneys, Bruce D. Brown of Baker Hostetler, expertly laid out the legal arguments against Mann’s defamation claim. In short, Dr. Mann is a public figure, and under libel law he would need to meet an exceedingly high standard to prevail. Given the support that Simberg’s criticisms rest on, that standard simply can’t be met. As for Simberg’s Sandusky metaphor, it was purely that—a metaphor.
They are also inviting readers to comment on the CEI Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/CompetitiveEnterpriseInstitute/posts/428205930566869
Meanwhile, Mark Steyn whips out an example of his rapier wit over Mann’s “Nobel Prize” claims (see photo above) writing:
On the one hand, Michael Mann’s own web page:
He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors in 2007.
On the other, the Nobel committee:
Only persons named explicitly in the citation may claim to share a Nobel Prize.
So we’re being sued for loss of reputation by a fake Nobel laureate. Hilarious.
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FLASH The Nobel committee responds to Mann’s “certificate” From Tom Richard at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner
I contacted the The Norwegian Nobel Institute to find out if Mann was indeed a Nobel Laureate, winner, etc…
…snip…
Geir Lundestad, Director, Professor, or The Norwegian Nobel Institute emailed me back with the following:
1) Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2) He did not receive any personal certificate. He has taken the diploma awarded in 2007 to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and to Al Gore) and made his own text underneath this authentic-looking diploma.
3) The text underneath the diploma is entirely his own. We issued only the diploma to the IPCC as such. No individuals on the IPCC side received anything in 2007.
(NOTE: on point 3, another example here (PDF) suggests that the IPCC added that text, not Mann – Anthony)
Lundestad goes on to say that, “Unfortunately we often experience that members of organizations that have indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize issue various forms of personal diplomas to indicate that they personally have received the Nobel Peace Prize. They have not.”
Full story at Climate Change Dispatch and at The Examiner
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ALSO: From NRO’s “The Corner” a call to the Nobel committee by Charles C. W. Cooke:
TRANSCRIPT
Cooke: Hello there, do you speak English?
Nobel Committee: Yes, can I help you?
Cooke: I’m a writer. I’m wondering if I could ask you about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize?
Nobel Committee: Oh, could you speak a little bit louder. It’s difficult for me to hear.
Cooke: Sorry. I’m trying to look for some information about previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Nobel Committee: Which one?
Cooke: I was wondering, has Dr. Michael Mann ever won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Nobel Committee: No, no. He has never won the Nobel prize.
Cooke: He’s never won it?
Nobel Committee: No.
Cooke: Oh, it says on his-
Nobel Committee: The organization won it. It’s not a personal prize to people belonging to an organization.
Cooke: Okay. So if I were to write that he’d won it, that would be incorrect?
Nobel Committee: That is incorrect, yes. Is it you that sent me an email today? I got an e-mail from our Stockholm office regarding Michael Mann.
Cooke: Oh. No, I didn’t send you an e-mail.
Nobel Committee: Oh. So what’s your name?
Cooke: My name is Charles Cooke.
Nobel Committee: And you work for?
Cooke: I write for National Review.
Nobel Committee: Okay, because I’ve got something from Boston and NY Mental Examiner that asked about the same thing.
Cooke: Oh, okay. Well maybe this is a big question. Okay, but he hasn’t won it. That is the answer.
Nobel Committee: No, he has not won it at all.
Cooke: Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
Nobel Committee: Thank you. You’re welcome. Bye bye.
The bottom line is that ‘climate science’ is all about gravy trains and Mann is one of its drivers (first class).
‘Climate Science’ is one of the greatest gravy trains ever developed my man. Hundreds of thousands of people have a vested interest in ensuring it is not derailed. So expect scores, maybe hundreds, of ‘expert witnesses’ from the pal review process to be called to vindicate Mann and perjure themselves by saying they know him to be an honest, upright, and competent scientist.
Claiming to be a Nobel winner encapsulates what climate scientists are all about.
At first the claim seems true but then you look at the detail. First, by just using Nobel winner for a scientist, it makes the observer think Science Nobel, when in fact it was a Peace Prize. Then you find out that he was only part of a group who won the prize and by the Nobel organisation’s own rules a group recipient can’t claim to be a prize winner. Similarly, as a person living in the EU, I can’t claim to be a Nobel winner just because we’ve all been awarded one for not getting into any fights recently (which is a huge whopper as we’ve been in any number of wars, just not with each other, unless you count football hooligans, at which point the peace claim melts away).
Climate science is the big headline, then misdirection of the public, no attention to detail and finally a lack of accuracy underpinning the claim. If this follows normal climate science practice then Mann will quietly remove the claim and try to pretend it was never important or that it was the mistake of someone else.
Now we’ve established that the statement about the Nobel Peace Prize in Mann’s complaint is factual perhaps we could discuss the actual complaint itself? ie. that the statements made by NR & CEI were false, malicious, defamatory, wilful & caused injury to his reputation. And please stick to facts this time. Try reading the document, it might help.
“Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve just read the official indictment or whatever you call it against NR, and he makes the claim that he has been “awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” in the complaint itself (page 2, paragraph 2).”
I guess everyone in the EU can claim they have won the Nobel Peace Prize now also.
I didn’t know M. Mann liked Shrimp. That would explain a lot.
http://i48.tinypic.com/vhxkxk.jpg
Dear Tim.
you wrote:
“The Prize was given to Al Gore and the IPCC. Mann is listed as a Lead Author of one of the four core documents from the IPCC – ‘The Scientific Basis’ here http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/ – Lead Authors
J.R. Christy, R.A. Clarke, G.V. Gruza, J. Jouzel, M.E. Mann, J. Oerlemans, M.J. Salinger, S.-W. Wang
Therefore the statement “Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” is correct.
See http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/
The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change”
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1. ipcc_tar stands for the TAR or the THIRD report and yes man was an author.
2. Mann was not an author for the 4th.
3. The award was given by the Nobel commitee to Al Gore and the IPCC
4. Mann is not a member of the IPCC
5. Nobel rules stipulate that no more than 3 people can be given the same award.
The IPCC decided to give a commendation to every who worked on the report.
Its an IPCC commendation for helping THEM win the prize money
Authors are not members of the IPCC nor are they paid by the IPCC. There services are donated.
Tim,
“Therefore the statement “Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” is correct.” Your conclusion is exactly opposite to the reality.
The prize was awarded to the IPCC, not to any individuals, core author, janitor, canteen lady, or whatever.
The IPCC itself has said that the scientists working for it are not to claim that they have been awarded with a Nobel Prize, stating also that it considers the number who contributed to be up to 10000 people. The Nobel organisation has also clearly stated that employees or other agents of an organisation that is awarded a Nobel Prize are not permitted under any circumstances to claim that they shared or were awarded the prize.
Mann claims on his website to have shared the 2007 Peace Prize – in direct opposition to the Nobel Rules and to the comments of the IPCC. HIs certificate of involvement (one of about 2000) came from the IPCC and not the Nobel organisation.
It cant really be any clearer. When Mann says he shared the Nobel Prize his statement is untrue.
Steven,
The IPCC is a scientific body.
Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis. This included Mann (I didn’t say the 4th I said one of the four).
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml#.UIkF8IV9mWU
The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Therefore “Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize” is correct in my view.
To all,
Perhaps we could now discuss the actual complaint itself? ie. that the statements made by NR & CEI were false, malicious, defamatory, wilful & caused injury to his reputation. This is the substantive issue. Try reading the document before you comment, it might help.
Big thanks to all you posters, I haven’t laughed so much in ages!
Tim says:
October 25, 2012 at 2:37 am
“Thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis.”
Spin. Thousands of the participants were bureaucrats, NGO people etc.
“Voluntary Basis” – what SPIN. These are taxpayer funded people who were free to devote some of their taxpayer-funded time for the pr0paganda exercise that is the IPCC report, without having to ask the taxpayer who is forced to fund them.
Friends:
I have stopped pulling Phil’s chain. This post is much more important. It explains the truth of “hide the decline”. This matter alone is sufficient to exonerate Steyn and the NRO from the “fr@ud” part of Mann’s law suite.
I remind that I explained ‘Hide the decline’ at October 24, 2012 at 7:47 am.
Phil. always takes any opportunity to defend warmist delusions so at October 24, 2012 at 10:01 am he wrote to deny my clear, succinct and factual account.
My post said
Phil’s seeming refutation said
and
This provided a problem. ‘Hide the decline’ is especially important to the legal case under discussion. The facts are clear, but Phil had distorted them. Importantly, Phil’s record on WUWT shows he will distort his own words rather than admit he has made an error. And – as he often is – he was plain wrong. So, I provided a series of responses to Phil. My responses were of the ‘Phil type’; i.e. they said little but goaded a response.
Now, at this point Phil’s series of posts leave no ‘wriggle room’. There is no possibility of his rationally claiming he said or intended other than he has written about ‘hide the decline’.
I now write to demonstrate that
Mann DID ‘hide the decline’in his 1998 paper which provided the ‘hockey stick’ graph. The paper was published in Nature and was co-authored with Bradley & Hughes. Indeed, that use of ‘hide the decline’ is why the ‘Team’ called ‘hide the decline’ “Mike’s Nature trick”.
The matter is fully investigated by Steve McIntyre on his blog and – importantly – so is a later extension of ‘hide the decline’ which can be read at
http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/01/hide-the-decline-plus/
WUWT drew attention to – and discussed – the extension to hide the decline in an article by Anthony Watts titled
“hide the decline” – worse than we thought.
I strongly commend reading that WUWT summation which is at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/hide-the-decline-worse-than-we-thought/
It quotes from Steve McIntyre’s explanation saying
Yes, Briffa also used “Mike’s Nature trick”. But it was MICHAEL MANN’s Nature trick which is the fr@ud in the ‘hockey stick’ graph.
Richard
Glenn says:
October 23, 2012 at 10:57 am
“I’m one of those non-scientists who tries to follow this issue here, and elsewhere in the media. However, I find myself at a loss when actually trying to critique say Mann’s work. I don’t feel comfortable criticizing his alleged misuse of principal components analysis or the fact that MacIntyre apparently replicated his model and found that it produces hockeystick predictions from any dataset. They seem to have incredibly aggressive and complex defenses against all that.”
Here’s an easy to understand experiment by Lucia that explains how scientists can trick themselves into cherry picking without even noticing. (Using methods similar to Mann’s decentered PCA)
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/tricking-yourself-into-cherry-picking/
I’m curious. For those, like Tim, who agree that Dr Mann is a Nobel Prize winner — where do you come down on the question of whether or not Monckton is a “Lord”?
For that matter, I seem to recall Steve McIntyre was, briefly, an IPCC AR reviewer. Does Mr McIntyre also enjoy rights to claim a share of this Nobel Prize?
Tim:
At October 25, 2012 at 2:37 am you write
So, your “view” says I am a holder of the Nobel Peace Prize together with Michael Mann.
I AM NOT AND NOR IS HE.
And you say
We have read read it but your words suggest you have not.
The words which are the cause of Mann’s complaint at Steyn and the NRO are true, accurate, not defamatory, and only an idiot could think they are malicious. They do no harm to Mann’s “reputation”.
Richard
The IPCC is a scientific body?
Pouncer says:
October 25, 2012 at 3:33 am
I’m curious. For those, like Tim, who agree that Dr Mann is a Nobel Prize winner — where do you come down on the question of whether or not Monckton is a “Lord”?
Pouncer. I’ve seen this claim made often and usually by left wing advocacy groups or individuals wishing to discredit Lord Monkton with regard to his views on climate change.
He is absolutely a Lord. His Title is 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley ( Lordships a comprised of Dukes, Marquesses, Earls, Viscounts and Barons and Ladyships their female equivalents ).
These titles form part of the peerage of the UK and Great Britain. All people holding a peerage are entitle to the title of Lord or Lady.
I think much of the confusion comes from America where they misunderstand the House of Lords. The HoL is an upper house, much like the US Senate. Before the HoL act 1999 ( reform act ) alll hereditary peers were assured a seat in the HoL which led to 1300+ of them all having influence over parliament and their bills. Given the strong bias towards the right-wing upper class in the peerage system that led to trouble for any Labour Gov. trying to get bills passed without being vetoed.
Subsequently after 1999 hereditary peers were no longer given a default seat in the house. Can you imagine US senators having a place in the senate just because their father and ancestors did?
The house of Lords is a political body, part of the UK parliamentary system and Lord Monkton is not a member of that as he no longer qualifies as he inherited his title after the reform act ( this is what he disputes as he saw the act as unfair, unconstitutional maybe? That’s not for me to go into he’s more than capable of speaking about that himself and much more eloquently than I.)
There can be no dispute that he is a Lord. He has a hereditary life peerage that he will pass on and it will remain in his family ad infinitum or until the rules change or a revolution happens ( I would not put it past the people here the way the students & liberals behave these days )
To refresh my memory, I took a look back at the “Hide the Decline Plus” article at ClimateAudit from 1 Dec 2011. The first comment was “I can’t imagine any rational, disinterested body – say, a civil jury – buying an argument that this was accidental or careless or just bad math.”
Prescient.
Richard,
I have no idea who you are so cannot comment on your role, nor did I say that Mann was a ‘holder’. However I have read the document, I am not an idiot, the words in the reports are clearly untrue, inaccurate and as such, defamatory.
The EU was recently (and laughably) awarded the peace prize.
Just how many people in Europe then can now walk round saying ‘they’ have been awarded the prize? Mann saying ‘he’ had been awarded the prize is a joke.
It does perhaps give a clue to the man’s vanity and self serving actions.
His ego is monumental.
Heheheh!!!
Mann is delusional – the IPCC commendation looks a lot like the certificates my kids got for doing something well at nursery school.
Max Hugoson says:
October 23, 2012 at 1:46 pm
MM is suing STYNE for an INDIRECT QUOTE that he used from someone else. HELP ME HELP ME HELP ME…I’m giddy. Can you IMAGINE what “Judge Judy” would do with this one?
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Loooool , My wife is a fan of the show so in the interests of domestic peace I`ve had to sit through a few episodes , I just pictured Judge Judy`s dreaded “You really are an idiot aren`t You ” stare directed at Mike Mann , and Him twitching and writhing under the impact of it .
Do I get to say I was “awarded” the Nobel Peace Prize too? I certainly contributed to global warming in the eyes of Mr. Mann. Without my diligent efforts he could never have pointed out how horrible I am, thus he could never contribute to the hysteria over the whole “problem”. Seems I’m very integral to his whole scheme, doesn’t it. I will place my certificate next to the 16 Trillion dollars worth of Carbon Credits I bought from another Nobel winner.
Tim, my logic tells me Mann is NOT a Nobel Prize winner; where is your logic?
(You seem to skip this inconvenient truth by stating “Try reading the document before you comment, it might help.” but I recommend YOU read the comments by richardcourtney, RB, and Steven Mosher above. Why, even the IPCC would take issue with Mann’s claim.)
Richard
The European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace prize last week. So if Michael Mann can say he was awarded the Nobel as part of the organisation that received the award surely both you and I are now holders of the Nobel peace prize due to our involvement in the European Union (reluctantly or otherwise)
I understand there is a cash prize involved, so will be looking into how I will get my share. A nice plaque would be good as well
Tonyb
Nobel winner