Eli Gets EVEN MORE Email

Dear Bunnies, when we last left this blog, the intrepid Gator was writing to Prof. Geir Lundestad Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute

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 Monckton 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.

 to which the reply was

Dear Gator,

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.

Now some, not Eli to be sure, would have left it at that, especially since a humble lab bunny toiling away for the  Rabett Research Bureau had established that the same reply was give to Lord Moncton's claims of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore.  But, and you knew there was a but, Eli thought it would be worthwhile follow up, given the response of the IPCC Secretariat on this matter

Subject:  IPCC reply on THEIR issuance of copies of the Nobel Diploma to significant contributors

Dear Prof. Lundestad

I would like to bring to your attention an Email that I received a few days ago from the IPCC Secretariat with respect to THEIR issuing of certificates memorializing the organizations' Nobel Prize Award ------------------------------------ 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.  IPCC Secretariat ----------------------------------- I note that your response to inquiries about the copy of the diploma shown by Prof. Mann are reported to have included the phrases

------------------------
"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."
----------------------

If, in fact that was your response, the IPCC Email shows that the text underneath the copy of the diploma was NOT added by Prof. Mann, but rather provided by the IPCC after some consultation with you as representative of the Nobel Institute, to acknowledge the work of those who contributed substantially to its work.  For that reason, you as representative of the Nobel Institute must decide if a public modification of that specific phrase is needed.  While I can understand the reasons for your being, shall we say, somewhat testy on the matter, I would hope that you agree that being precise as possible also is important.

What is clear is that Prof. Mann did not on his own add his own text under the copy of the diploma that was provided by the IPCC.  If this is an issue for the Nobel Institute, perhaps a more formal policy would be needed

Prof. Lundstad replied

I take note of what you write and that the IPCC issued the diploma in question. It still stands that Mr. Mann is not a personal Nobel laureate.

Geir Lundestad
Director, Professor
The Norwegian Nobel Institute

Prof. Rabett thanks Prof. Lundestad for his patience in this matter and hops on.