I got word tonight from David Ball, son of Dr. Tim Ball via Facebook messenger:
This morning the judge dismissed all charges in the lawsuit brought against Tim by BC Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. It is a great victory for free speech.
At the moment, I have no other details, but will update as I have them.
The case has been ongoing since 2011, and arguments were heard in court in the fall of 2017.
From an article in the NYT: https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/climate-scientist-sues-skeptic-for-libel/
Andrew Weaver, a climate modeler at the University of Victoria, filed the lawsuit against Tim Ball, a former professor of geography at the University of Winnipeg and a vocal critic of the science linking man-made emissions to global warming, over an article published by the Canada Free Press, a conservative Web site.
…
“I stand by the story,” said Dr. Ball, who was prominently featured as a climate change expert in the 2007 film “The Great Global Warming Swindle.”
The apology and retraction of the story by Canada Free Press “hung me out to dry,” Dr. Ball added, saying he was in the process of hiring a lawyer to fight the lawsuit.
The lawsuit against Dr. Ball is not the only libel action that Dr. Weaver is pursuing in Canadian courts. Last year, the scientist filed suit against The National Post, a conservative Canadian newspaper, for publishing articles that he alleged contained deliberate falsehoods designed to disparage and discredit him.
FULL DISCLOSURE: I was to be called as a witness in the trial, and did hours of preparatory work, but the case took a turn when Weaver did not call any witnesses on his behalf and I did not testify [on behalf of Ball]. The case was decided by a judge, who just today gave his verdict.
UPDATE1: here is the original lawsuit: Weaver-vs-Ball-lawsuit (PDF)
UPDATE2: Dr. Ball promises a report very soon. I’ll have it here as soon as possible.
UPDATE3: Here it is: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/14/tim-balls-victory-in-the-first-climate-lawsuit-judgment-the-backstory/
One for the good guys!
Hooray for Dr. Ball. My thought on why Weaver did not call any witnesses on his behalf is that the climate alarmists told him not to. They dont want to get into a debate about AGW in court because they know they will lose.
The debate needs to happen.
+1, and soon.
How does it go again? – those who can do, those who can’t teach, those to really can’t sue
damn auto correct – those who really can’t, sue
Ball should consider counter-suing to recover legal costs, and force Weaver to defend himself.
Perhaps sceptics should aggressively and rapidly go to court when sued to force the suers to make a case quickly. Judges don’t like people wasting court time by doing things like providing no witnesses. Dr Ball has a case for recovering ALL costs
It took seven years to make this decision, when it was clear Weaver never had a case to build on.
The legal process is the punishment.
Indeed the alarmist conspire to minimize climate debate as their own words and action repeatedly reveal
Weaver the deceiver concedes his position on Global non-warming.
Becase now Weaver the deciever is a politician now and holds the balance of power in the British Columbia Legislatue where he can cause multigenerational damage. Some 20 billion in potential oil and gas projects were walked away from after the last BC election. I believe it is double that now. And the greens are happy. They”ll give the people who worked or would have worked on those projects minimal Cheques from the climate fund.
OMG in the context of tbe judges actual ruling, this is the funniest thing I have read so far.
Oh what a tangled web we ‘Weaver’ when first we practice “as a deceiver.”
What a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive
And when the art we have perfected
We’re just the boys to get elected
– A.R.D. Fairbairn (New Zealand Poet)
Oh WUWT is on a roll this morning. I’m very happy for Dr Ball and more than pleased that my meagre donation to his legal fund has got the desired result. I’m sure Dr Ball could use some more help so if you can please do: http://drtimball.com/ and click the donate button.
Thanks to all who helped and cheered Dr Ball on. The tide has turned.
Does Weaver have to pay Tim’s legal fees?
Yes
Good!
Yes…but Tim will only get a fraction of his actual legal costs…such is the price of justice in Canadian civil court…
Double Plus Good!
Excellent! Hit them at their pockets.
Excellent!
LOL – that will bite.
But not fully. The law in Canada for civil actions is that “costs follow the event.” Usually this amounts to about fifty to ninety percent of the winning party’s actual legal costs. In Ball’s case, given the dismissal and without reading the order, it would likely be closer to the 90 percent.
However, one might speculate that Weaver has a sugar daddy that will pay the costs. After all, it’s had the desired effect – a chilling effect re the climate debate.
And, in the US, one wonders if the Mann-Steyn case has fallen into the black hole of the US legal system of perpetual delays?
That Tim prevailed and Weaver has to pay Tim’s legal fees is a Valentine Day flower in itself.
I was just going to ask. IIRC, the Canadian court system would (may?) require that. If so it will become a good reminder not to go after someone based only on flimsy evidence.
A Weaver’s Dreams vs Dr. Ball’s climate facts = nolo contendere
Excellent news.
Now for Micky Mann.
Now for Mark Steyn.
I hope the “Now for Mark Steyn “ comment was in support of him.
Costs in libel cases can be very expensive. In one recent well publicised case in the UK, the legal costs were well over £1 million. The case turned upon what was said by a politician to a policeman in a 10 second conversation outside the gates of Parliament. See:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/27/andrew-mitchell-plebgate-libel-case-legal-costs
But one issue here is who is paying these costs? Will this be the University, the Green Party? I would hazard a guess that it is not Dr Weaver personally.
The same issue arises in the M@nn case, where M@nn is being bankrolled by others and will not personally pick up the tab if he loses the case. These people have a way of evading liability/responsibility for their misdeeds, failed ‘science’ and failed predictions etc.
Except that these types of backers usually turn out to be vindictive, and they hate losing. They won’t soon forget how much their foot soldier cost them.
For those bankrollers at the top who pull the puppet strings – a drop in the bucket.
$560+ million in SOLYNDRA cash to use for legal fees?
Excellent ! I hope the dismissal is with costs !
Next will be Mann vs Steyn dismissed with prejudice.
Dr Weave, academic climate modeller and Green Party activist-politician. At he is least consistent as those are compatible and mutually supporting professions.
errr… “…he is at least consistent….”
Clear in context.
We know what you meant. 😉
First it’s “he is least consistent”, then it’s “he is at least consistent”. Try to be consistent 😉
I don’t know if it’s the same in Canada as in the UK where politicians are the least trusted group pf people. They are followed at a good distance by real estate agents, double-glazing salesman and used-car salesmen. It is consistent in that if you can’t trust Weaver as a politician, then you can’t trust him as a “climate modeller”. It’s lies all the way down to the bottom of the barrel where they reside.
It’s a bit unfair to politicians comparing them to climate modellers.
Politicians bankroll the climate modelers.
Toronto Sun, June 6, 2014
Commentary Re: Tim Ball – Andrew Weaver case.
‘Silencing critics instead of debating them’
http://www.torontosun.com/2014/06/06/silencing-critics-instead-of-debating-them/wcm/86c017b2-ecb8-4ef4-aad0-fdad6217c885
Great gig! Paid to produce B.S. Then paid to teach it to kids! Then paid again as a pol to sell stupid to the populace!
He chose his profession for multiple revenue streams.
Congratulations Dr. Ball. I hope this sends a message to all the green and leftist suppressors of Free Speech.
The only thing that would satisfy me is to see these clowns like Weaver serve some hard time for something or forfeit all their assets. It is appalling that Canadians tolerate these fascist tactics.
What great News! I trust that the dismissal is accompanied by very heavy costs against Andrew Weaver and the Green Party.
“It is a great victory for free speech” – not entirely – the court system used since 2011 to arrive at that conclusion. That burden on Tim Ball is in itself is a threat to free speech. The laws that open up for this misuse of the court system by climate alarmists and the inability of our court systems to resolve these issues promptly are in itself a serious threat to free speech.
As they say, the process is the punishment.
I would be interested to see the Judge’s ruling. And remarks, if any.
Weaver, Shukla, Mann… wanting to do science,
not by trial and error, but by Soviet-style show-trial.
Congratulations to Dr Ball, and condolences for all
the mental anguish they put him through.
And Pachauri, who derailed himself because he followed the compass between his legs.
It is often called Lawfare, and it is a disgusting tactic.
I suppose Dr Weaver will continue on this line while also claiming that he believes in democracy.
Wasn’t it Weaver who claimed an office break in caused the loss of science research documents ?
Well good for Dr. Ball . I can’t wait to see the 4 ” headlines announcing the victory for free speech .
As pointed out Weaver has moved into politics now . Makes sense .
I thought twas the Dog that ate his homework
Congratulations to Dr. Ball.
Indeed good news. Weaver is in a funny position. He controls British Columbia. But his grip is such that if he disapproves of Premier Horgan’s behavior, he is no longer in control. Therefore his grip on power is like wet tissue paper….fleeting and flaccid. He is the architect of his own impotence.
Well then, he had better buy a new suit. If he’s gonna be impotant, he’d better dress impotant
Great news! Dr. Ball is a man with an open and honest mind and an abundance of integrity and courage. Weaver – I refuse to call him “Dr.” – is the exact opposite.
Recall that Weaver weaved that obviously phoney break in of his office to deflect from Climategate.
Recall that Weaver’s climate model was one of the – the? – worst (most erroneous, on the high side of course)of them all.
Note that Weaver made his name in politicized pseudoscience (IPCC) and is now an unbearably arrogant and deceptive professional politician.
Next up: Mikey Mann the Hokey Stick Man.
You are correct about Weaver’s model prognostications. They are the second worst (least accurate) of them all. As you can guess, to keep the ‘model mean’ up, his and the other even worse one are ‘needed’. Thus his work, no matter how irrelevant, is supported by the those seeking to alarm the public. Without the two worst (least skillful) models, the model mean would be a lot lower, might provoke no alarm at all, and where then would they be? There are solutions to sell! The unconcerned won’t buy virtue signals when there are higher priorities.
Extreme,
That dreadful climate model, CANESM2, was created by Weaver and colleagues at the University of Victoria over a ten-year period at a cost of $tens of millions of taxpayers’ money. Weaver left UVic to enter British Columbia politics in 2012 as a Green party member. The Green party currently holds the balance of power in the B.C. legislature with only three seats as an ally of the governing socialist NDP party.
Cane? SM? What sort of weirdos are they???
By dismissing the lawsuit, the Court effectively disagreed with Weaver’s claim that Weaver was “competent and qualified to teach climate science in university.” (See page 5 of Weaver’s claim – https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/Weaver-Ball%20lawsuit.pdf )
Is it time to raise money for Dr Ball’s legal costs? No man should have to pay for free speech!
I donated a few years back but would be happy to do my little bit again
I donated a small amount to Ball in the last round and I’d also be happy to donate again if he still needs help!
+1. Same with me. Next I expect is that the Mann-slaughter begins. Dr Ball and Mark Steyn still have an axe to grind with that abominable Mann.
Crowd funding is a new weapon in fights such as this. Peter Ridd has shown the way. No longer can these highly funded organisations assume they can steamroll individuals with only personal funds to defend themselves.
So true; thankfully!
The purpose of filing such a lawsuit is to shut the critic up. Dr. Ball is retired on a small pension, and Weaver obviously thought he would be unable to afford to defend himself in court and would have to concede. Weaver and the other alarmists know full well they are wrong.
fantastic news. give thanks.
Mann has a suit pending, but failed to “show and tell” his hockey stick defense, and I don’t know if that will get Dr. Ball a win plus costs, but it should. Wonder if he’s talked his dad into buying an EV yet. Just sayin’.
Whaddya mean, Weaver switching to politics? That’s where he’s been for decades.
I’d love to see the judgement. Charges are dismissed in criminal cases. I thought this was a civil case.
Defamitory Libel is a crime in Canada but the charge would have been brought by the crown, not by Weaver.
It’s more common for civil matters to be settled out of court. Usually, the case is obvious enough that the parties agree to settle. What can happen, early in the proceedings, is that one party will bring a motion to the court asking that a case be dismissed because it is so obviously faulty that it would waste the court’s time to hear it.
So many possibilities …
Yes, in this case the suit was dismissed. But I too would be interested to discover just what the Judge’s reasoning was.
Hopefully, this is the beginning of the end for our provincial and federal brain dead carbon taxes. Our politicians and MSM journalists heads are so densely packed with AGW cr@p, when they open their mouths to speak a raging torrent of $hit comes out.
Weaver is in the same league as Michael Mann; both pseudo science charlatans. Ball won his case against Mann in the B.C. Supreme Court, now he wins against Weaver. We just have to wait for Mark Styen to win against Mann and his “tree ring circus”…
Michael Mann aka Driftwood Mickey…
It’s the right decision. Which tells us more about the changes occurring in the minds & attitudes of the judiciary than about the merits of the global warming scam.
The main outcome will be to embolden other judges to uphold the law against the climate bullies. That in turn will open the gates for prosecutions against those climate bullies who have been pushing the scam. As as there are so many more of them, as they are clearly earning a lot from pushing the scam and as they have been so utterly reckless in their statements, I can see those prosecutions turning into a veritable industry.
Congratulations Dr Tim ball. I wonder what Michael Mann is thinking right now?
They’ve discovered a 0.003Hz hum at the bottom of the ocean – it will be much the same.
We thought it was only .002 Hz. It’s worse than we thought!!
I have had a similar libel lawsuit from Greenpeace in Germany, where free speech (in my case a publication) is more restricted than in most other European countries. Besides the costs, the main problem is that it takes so much time from an individual (or small group) that it gets at the cost of reacting on actual news items. That is one of main objectives of these lawsuits. In Germany Greenpeace starts lawsuits against any journalist who dires to publish something negative about them. Quite effective to shut them all up…
All together, it ended not too bad: a fifty-fifty result, so we hadn’t to pay the “Streitwert” (what it was worth for Greenpeace), but still a lot of money for the court and defence lawyer…
Anyway, congratulations for Dr. Ball, one down, still one important to go…
Well done for taking them on. Greenspin in all it guises is a bully which might once had a moral purpose but that seems to have long disappeared and it seems all they do now is promote causes that benefit foreign governments.
Greenpeace are mendacious bullies. They are currently soliciting donations on the Guardian website with images of polar bears “endangered” by Global Warming, despite all the good work by Dr Susan Crockford showing exactly the contrary.
From your “chlorine-lover”-blog 1998
Chlorophiles lose…..
Parts of two points of the complaint were lost by Chlorophiles because they were unable to prove that Greenpeace deliberately misleads public opinion or deliberately spreads facts that do not reflect reality.
Another point was lost because it was a quotation that was judged by the Court to be an unacceptable opinion, even a lie. The quotation was produced in due format and properly documented. The statements were quoted from a newspaper and had been expressed by a Member of the European Parliament who was talking about the ‘green lobby’, not about Greenpeace.
A number of paragraphs of the essay described and mentioned statements and interviews made in video reports by the Icelandic producer Gudmundsson and by Danish Television. The Court of Hamburg ordered that all such statements and interviews be forbidden for further distribution by Ferdinand Engelbeen.
And finally, one point of the complaint was qualified by the Court as slander, according to the Court’s definition of the contested wording used in the essay. This concerns the word “mole”
and Chlorophiles win…
Greenpeace is a sect
This is an acceptable opinion, and this point of the complaint is therefore rejected (note 2)
Greenpeace has military-trained activists and creates disturbance
Concerning the wording “military-trained activists”, the Court says: “This declaration is indisputably true” (note 3)
Greenpeace’s argument “that one can publish exaggerations in a political controversy over ideas” is NOT VALID if they give false impressions
The Court made this comment in connection with the case of a photograph of a hydrocephalus child in a Greenpeace advert used in an anti-nuclear campaign (note 4).
It is a well-known fact that radiation cannot possibly be the cause of hydrocephality!
AND
Greenpeace spreads half-truths about PVC
feliksch,
Thanks for mentioning it… What we learned is that in Germany it is not allowed to quote someone, without warning that you don’t agree with that statement, even not if quoted literally and with the proper context. If you don’t warn, you are supposed to stand behind what is said and you personally have to prove that what you quote is right, not the original speaker/writer.
And a court seems to interpretate things very literally, like the “military trained activists”.
Further, it is near impossible to prove for a court that someone lies, that is intentionally telling untruths. You can prove that they tell untruths, but you don’t know if that isn’t by mistake. Only since that court case, we can prove that they lie if they repeat the same “mistakes”, as they now know by court that they are mistaken…
Anyway it took about three years of our time and that were not the most pleasant years.
But your deed was good. Consider being my hero.
http://home.scarlet.be/~ping5859/en/cases/en_gp_ham.html
Wow. Greenpeace is evil. Well, that was known to me so fsr already.