Monday, October 29, 2012

Eli Gets EMail

Eli, as the bunnies know, is not one to idly speculate especially concerning what people have done or not.  The Rabett simply asks, so last week he sent an Email to the IPCC

Greetings,

As I am sure you are by now aware, blogs are buzzing about the certificates that were issued by the IPcc to leading authors memorializing their contributions to the IPCC;s Nobel Prize.  Having seen endless speculation, as well as comments from the Nobel Organization, it occurred to me that it was possible that the IPCC had asked the Noble Organization whether distributing such certificates was allowed.  I would appreciate an answer to the following two questions

Did the IPCC ask permission or authorization to reproduce the awards as certificates to Lead Authors?

If so was there a response and what was it?

Best
and this morning the EMail box was filled
Dear Bunny

Thank you for your email of Sunday 28 October 2012 enquiring about the certificates issued by the IPCC to authors to mark their contributions to the IPCC's Nobel Prize. In December 2007 the permanent secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad, clarified these questions in an email to one of our authors, copied to Dr Pachauri. Chairman of the IPCC. He wrote that the committee would issue no medal or diploma to individual contributors to IPCC reports and it was up to the IPCC to decide what it would do to recognize the various contributors.

On this basis, the IPCC Chair, the Secretary of the IPCC and IPCC Co-chairs decided in 2007 to present personalized certificates “for contributing to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC” to experts that had contributed substantially to the preparation of IPCC Reports, namely coordinating lead authors, lead authors, review editors, Bureau members, staff of the technical support units and staff of the secretariat from the IPCC’s inception in 1988 until the award of the prize in 2007. 
Yours sincerely
IPCC Secretariat

32 comments:

Gator said...

Interesting... I wrote to Prof. G Lundestad asking about this kerfuffle. To my surprise he actually responded with a short note. He was surprisingly blase about his email given that he scolded Mann for speaking inaccurately about being a Nobel laureate but seemed to not care a whit that he had accused Mann of making up the IPCC certificate.

EliRabett said...

Gator, care to post the response so Eli can move it up to the post and hopefully this thing can be nailed down.

Anonymous said...

Exactly it is a thank you card. And for Mann to claim to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is false.

carrot eater said...

I don't get why this is something that anybody cares about.

Did Mann ever actually claim to personally be a nobel laureate, or did he just display that certificate?

Tom Curtis said...

Mann does not claim to be a Noble Laureate on his website. Rather he claims to have "contributed ... to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize", which is the wording on his certificate. However, in the formal "complaint" used in proceedings, his lawyer claims on Mann's behalf that the Noble Peace Prize was awarded to "Dr Mann and his colleagues. That is inaccurate, and represents (almost certainly) a misunderstanding either by Mann or his lawyer.

guthrie said...

Maybe someone should email Mann and tell him his legal team are mispeaking on his behalf?

dhogaza said...

""Dr Mann and his colleagues"

As opposed to the IPPC due to the work done by Dr. Mann and his colleagues.

Like this is going to prove that climate science really is a fraud and comments to that effect aren't libel.

dhogaza said...

"That is inaccurate, and represents (almost certainly) a misunderstanding either by Mann or his lawyer."

Most likely sloppy wording on the part of a lawyer who realizes it has absolutely no bearing on the lawsuit, and who in his or her wildest imagination is incapable of understanding the kind of people who would make an issue of it.

There may well be a positive side-effect, the lawyers are probably even more convinced now they're dealing with people who aren't just libelous assholes but totally wacko as well.

Rattus Norvegicus said...

Tom, and everyone else, should look at paragraph 17 in the complaint. Even paragraph 2 (the one most people complain about) only involves a bit of fluffing.

And I think it is important to remember that Lundestedt's statement was in reply to an inquiry by the NRO. You don't think they might have misrepresented what Mann stated? Just a little bit?

dhogaza said...

"Tom, and everyone else, should look at paragraph 17 in the complaint. Even paragraph 2 (the one most people complain about) only involves a bit of fluffing."

Typically, high-end lawyers know what they're doing, and what's important, and what's not. This quibbling is not - in the context of the lawsuit.

It's just a set-up for the "another court/investigation has whitewashed Mann because they're all part of the same conspiracy" bullshit that we've seen before ...

TLITB said...

@Tom Curtis said...
"Mann does not claim to be a Noble Laureate on his website. Rather he claims to have "contributed ... to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize", which is the wording on his certificate."

I think it is worse than that Tom. Some have claimed (with screen shots) to have noticed a very recent change to Mann's Bio page that seem focused on editing some specific words i.e.

It was:

"…and in 2007 shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors."

But as you note is now:

"He contributed, with other IPCC authors, to the award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize."

However it seems someone may need to tell American Association of University Professors, who still has a copy on their site with the old wording ;)

http://www.aaup.org/NR/rdonlyres/868A43C4-3E08-4E72-9CC9-6CB233279434/0/Mannbiosketcht.pdf

Meanwhile if we need a handy reference this is an itemise of what Mann's Lawyers have clamied for their client: ;)

Par. 2 "…Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize"
Par. 5 "…Dr. Mann shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the other IPCC authors…"
Par 17. "…a Nobel prize recipient."

Sou said...

I can't believe the fuss about this. If not for IPCC authors the IPCC would never have produced anything let alone been given a Nobel peace prize. It's got nothing to do with science in any case. And precious little to do with peace IMO.

Now let's start on not just the fuzzy wording but outright lies and smears told by Morano, Bast, Watts, McIntyre and all the other pathetic little deniers who dish them up daily.

Anonymous said...

Come on! I mean it's not like he's claimed to be a member of the House of Lords or anything like that.

Lars Karlsson said...

And it's not like he got a Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment

Anonymous said...

- Claim your share of the IPCC peace price to which you actually contributed: a sin punishable with public execution!
- Claim over and over again to be a member of the House of Lords when you're not (and to have a cure for HIV and a whole range of other diseases): get your own column at WUWT and fly around the globe on behalf of the coal and oil industry!

Double standards anyone?

TLITB said...

@Lars Karlsson said...
"And it's not like he got a Nobel prize pin, made of gold recovered from a physics experiment"

I think I see what you are saying. The Monckton / Mann equivalency?

Excellent point! A bit cruel though. ;)

Anonymous said...

TLITB, you can wave your flag of distraction around as much as you like, but it won't alter the facts of defamation in the suit that Mann has lodged.

Watch that space.


Bernard J. Hyphen-Anonymous XVII, Esq.

Anonymous said...

All you need to know about denial can be seen in this discussion. It is about drawing attention away from the science. That's all the deniers have, because they sure don't have any credible science.

In an ideal world Mann wouldn't have had to file the lawsuit, because that too distracts from the science. But there is a limit to how much abuse anyone can be asked to take for standing up for the truth.

Anonymous said...

Excellent point! A bit cruel though. ;)

Except for the fact that the hockey stick was embraced by Gore in the film which helped win him a Nobel Prize. Monckton on the other hand is totally rejected by the House of Lords. Not equal by any stretch of the imagination

Anonymous said...

It seems to me that Morano is confusing the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel prizes for specific fields. The Peace Prize is frequently awarded to teams whereas the other prizes are awarded only to named individuals.

Regards, Millicent

Jeffrey Davis said...

For the sake of argument, accept every claim our deniers make, are they then claiming that a vain man can't be libeled? If so, why do we have libel laws when only Jesus could have standing to sue. Or is the attempt to embarrass Mann just another way to kick someone they don't like? I'm having a very hard time understanding the relevance of the whole Nobel issue.

J Bowers said...

"I'm having a very hard time understanding the relevance of the whole Nobel issue."

They think applying PR propaganda tactics to legal cases will have the same effect on a court of law as it does on FOX News pundits and their critically challenged followers. Old habits are hard to break.

Gator said...

Dear ----,



I was asked a personal question and replied to that question. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar cases that are not brought to our attention.



Geir Lundestad

Director, Professor

The Norwegian Nobel Institute



Phone: +47 22129300



Henrik Ibsens gt. 51

NO-0255 Oslo

Norway



From: ---- [mailto:----]
Sent: 27. oktober 2012 19:13
To: Geir Lundestad
Subject: Nobel Peace Prize, IPCC and Michael Mann



Hello Professor Lundestad,
I have seen a statement on some blogs that has been attributed to you.

"Geir Lundestad, Director, Professor, of 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."

This has appeared, for example, in a press release sent out by Marc Morano.

Since it is clear that the certificate being discussed is in fact a certificate sent by the IPCC to Michael Mann, perhaps you could clarify your email to whomever you sent it too... or send out some other sort of public announcement clarifying the situation. It is clear that the IPCC won the Nobel prize, not the individual authors. However, the IPCC sent out certificates to lead authors and others who it felt contributed to the work that earned the prize.

It would be nice to clarify this since Lord Monkton has been claiming for years to be a Nobel prize winner for the same IPCC work (he claims to have submitted some comments on some of the work.) Yet I have never seen an official pronouncement from the anyone connected to the Nobel committee criticizing Lord Monkton for these claims. It seems to undermine the whole awarding of that prize to publicly criticize a scientist who actually made a substantial contribution to the work, yet remain silent about an obvious crank who has been trying to destroy confidence in the work for which the prize was awarded.

Sincerely,
----
California, USA

Anonymous said...

I have noticed different levels of self-congratulation on the part of 2007 IPCC authors, ranging from self-deprecating jokes about receiving the Nobel, to people who take it very seriously. I think the former approach is appropriate, but I always thought the latter approach a bit obnoxious, even from researchers that I like and respect. From what I hear of Mann, I wouldn't be surprised if he also fell on the latter end of that scale.

Monckton, on the other hand, is a total blowhard about everything, and it is telling that WUWT didn't blink an eye about his melting his own gold pin award for the Nobel when he just submitted expert review comments. (Not to mention all the contrarians who list "IPCC Expert Reviewer" as one of their credentials, like Monckton, Morner, Richard Courtney, etc.)

-MMM

TLITB said...

@Gator said...

"... yet remain silent about an obvious crank who has been trying to destroy confidence in the work for which the prize was awarded."

Judging by Lundestad's response I suspect he gets a lot of these enquiries and it's not something he likely keeps detailed tabs on.

You might be interested to know Lundestad gave near exactly the same response about Monckton's claim a couple of years ago when asked.

http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/lord-monckton-nobel-prize/

Holly Stick said...

I think what the deniers hope is to be able to claim that Mann lied about this so they can say that whatever else he says also cannot be trusted.

He may have been fuzzy about how his part in the IPCC's Nobel Peace Prize should be described. It's not reasonable to make a huge fuss about it, I think.

Gator said...

TLTIB -- Ha, good find about Monkton and Lundestad.

Fair enough making a statement about Mann not personally winning the Nobel Prize. But going on to accuse him of making up a fake document is going to far.

At the end of the day, it's all just distraction from the real issues.

dhogaza said...

"He may have been fuzzy about how his part in the IPCC's Nobel Peace Prize should be described"

Most normal people would be ...

Ask yourself ... how would Willard Watts have reacted to the news that he'd been indirectly honored along with RPSr, McI, etc? Just look at how he puffed himself the first time he was listed as a co-auther by RPJr (on a paper with like 30+ non-entities listed)!

Holly Stick said...

No doubt he would had trumpeted it all over his crappy blog. Instead the idiots there are busy arguing that AGW had nothing to do with the storm, that it wasn't really such a bad storm after all, and other nonsense. So what if it killed more than 100 people, they say it was only category 1 when it hit the US so it wasn't really that bad.

J Bowers said...

"So what if it killed more than 100 people,"

You could probably have added a zero or two to that number if it hadn't been for those immorally funded NWS, HRC and NOAA giving plenty of warning.

dhogaza said...

"You could probably have added a zero or two to that number if it hadn't been for those immorally funded NWS, HRC and NOAA giving plenty of warning."

Don't forget the upcoming loss of satellite coverage as existing weather satellites reach their end of life and replacements aren't yet ready to go ...

Anonymous said...

Michael Mann’s hockey stick is the quintessential icon of AGW. It played an important role in Al Gore’s “Inconvenient Truth.” His research is some of the most important input received by the IPPC.

Having grown up in a right wing family I understand how important it is to kill the messenger. It’s the most effective arrow in their quiver. Taking statements out of context is also an important weapon. I learned from my experience that hypocrisy exists in every issue and from every side. It’s just that right wing hypocrisy is some much more rank.
128B nvolaru