Climate change deniers wallets threatened

Apparently climate scientist Michael Mann has threatened legal action* against Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) over their  video “Hide the Decline.” This used the comment from the “climategate” emails to portray a dishonest and slanderous picture of Mann. The video has been heavily promoted by climate change deniers and conservative  groups, news outlets and blogs internationally. Several conservative NZ bloggers promoted the video.

So far I have only seen the M4GW press release which is somewhat cavalier. However, they have taken the video down from YouTube. When asked why he removed the video, M4GW’s Elmer Beauregard said “Right now, the last thing I need is a lawsuit. I can barely afford my electric bill.” The fact that they have replaced it with another revised one, “Hide the Decline 2,” suggests they had something to fear from Mann’s “cease and desist” order.

The real climate change swindle?

The issue of global climate change seems to polarise people. I was amazed how strongly some of the participants in a recent discussion expressed their views. Especially in the criticism of the current understanding of human contributions to climate change.

The willingness of some people to reject scientific findings, and even to slander the scientists for their discoveries, concerns me. However, I will return to this subject in a later post.

For now I just want to raise the necessity of proper assessment of evidence when confronted with this sort of discussion.