The chickens are hatching

Kenneth Cuccinelli

It’s good to see some of the mischief perpetrated by climate change deniers put to rest. In the last few days we have heard the Virginia Supreme Court in the US has ruled that the State’s Attorney General, Kenneth Cuccinelli, doesn’t have the right to subpoena emails of climate scientist Michael E. Mann.

Cuccinelli was claiming that Mann was guilty of scientific fraud. Specifically he defrauded taxpayers by using manipulated data to obtain government grants. Cuccinelli’s court action amounted to a fishing expedition to try an obtain evidence. In fact it was all part of the McCarthyist persecution tactic used by climate change deniers in an attempt to intimidate climate scientists and suppress their scientific findings.

Michael Mann testifying before Congress in a previous witch-hunt

Michael Mann has made a brief statement on the ruling:

I’m pleased that this particular episode is over. Its sad, though, that so much money and resources had to be wasted on Cuccinelli’s witch hunt against me and the University of Virginia, when it could have been invested, for example, in measures to protect Virginia’s coast line from the damaging effects of sea level rise it is already seeing.

One would have hoped that the fact alone that the Inspector General of the National Science Foundation last year looked into the allegations by Cuccinelli and other climate change deniers against me, and found that there was absolutely no basis to them, would have ended the attacks against me. But as I describe in my just published book “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars“, they are part of something much larger—a coordinated assault against the scientific community by powerful vested interests who simply want to stick their heads in the sand and deny the problem of human-caused climate change, rather than engage in the good faith debate about what to do about it.

via Michael E. Mann.

This reminds me, we still have a local legal ruling to look forward to. Our local climate change deniers have appealed to the High Court to rule that the New Zealand temperature record published by NIWA is effectively fraudulent. I understand this case will be heard soon and look forward to them also getting their comeuppance.

Meanwhile, some humour about these little attacks on science.

Pesky Scientists? Call the Science Pest Experts!!

See also

Kenneth Cuccinelli, Virginia Attorney General, Can’t Subpoena Climate Scientist’s Emails, Court Says

Virginia Supreme Court Tosses Out AG Cuccinelli Inquisition on Michael Mann

Virginia Supremes Throw out Deniers

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