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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A lesson for NZ critics of climate science?

In September the NZ High Court is to consider a request by local critics of climate science to get NIWA to change its national temperature record. See A desperate plea to be noticed? and When asses go to law for details.

Michael Mann

Their legal action bears strong similarities with that taken by  Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli against the University of Virginia. He claims he was doing this to investigate fraud in US climate scientist Michael Mann’s research. The local critics had effectively charged NIWA scientists with misconduct or fraud – the manipulation of NZ temperature data by using adjustments which the critics claim were not required (see New Zealand’s denier-gate).

Cuccinelli’s case was effectively a “fishing expedition” as he had no evidence of fraud. The NZ critics similarly have no evidence of scientific misconduct (which of course hasn’t stopped them claiming this to the world).

A failed witch hunt

So perhaps the local plaintiffs should take some lessons from Cuccinelli’s case which the presiding judge has now set aside (see Judge quashes Cuccinelli subpoena of U-Va. records). He ruled that Cuccinelli had failed to state “reasons to believe” that Mann had committed fraud:

“The Court has read with care those pages and understands the controversy regarding Dr. Mann’s work on the issue of global warming. However, it is not clear what he did was misleading, false or fraudulent in obtaining funds from the Commonwealth of Virginia.”

Chances are a similar thing is going to happen in New Zealand.

Mann, of course, was pleased with the ruling in his case. He said:

“I’m very pleased that the judge has ruled in our favor. It is a victory not just for me and the university, but for all scientists who live in fear that they may be subject to a politically-motivated witch hunt when their research findings prove inconvenient to powerful vested interests.

“I’m looking forward now to trying to get back full time to the things I really care about: doing research and extending the forefront of our scientific understanding of the science of climate and climate change, teaching and advising students and postdoctoral scholars, and doing the best I can to communicate to the public important scientific findings.”

Climate desk has an audio of an interview with Michael Mann on this ruling.

Need to Know’s Alison Stewart spoke with Mann about the dangerous precedent the Cucinelli’s case could have set and about what he calls the climate change denial “industry.”

Download the file here.

Thanks to The Fire Judge Sets Aside Virginia Attorney General’s University of Virginia Document Demands

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