Saturday, January 19, 2013

Eli Has Been Asked

to comment on Mann vs. National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  Well actually John and Eli have pretty much stated the facts of the case, and Eli believes that even with the increased cost of popcorn due to climate change induced crop failure it is well worth the entertainment value. 

Yesterday's release of Michael Mann's response to NR and CEI requests for dismissal under the DC anti-SLAPP statue give no reason to change a bunny's mind. (Link to follow)

The response brings to the fore that there are two separate causes of action, first the odious comparison to Jerry Sandusky which has occupied the forefront of discussion, is cited for causing emotional distress, but, perhaps more importantly are claims of defamation

  • Defendant Simberg’s statement, published by CEI on Openmarket.org, that Dr. Mann
    had engaged in “data manipulation,” “academic and scientific misconduct,” and was
    “the posterboy of the corrupt and disgraced climate science echo chamber.” Compl. ¶
    48.
  • Defendant Steyn’s statement, published by NRO on National Review Online, that Dr.
    Mann “was the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the
    very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.” Compl. ¶ 60.
  • Mr. Lowry’s statement, published by NRO on National Review Online, calling Dr.
    Mann’s research “intellectually bogus.” Compl. ¶ 72.
  • Defendant CEI’s press release, adopting and republishing the above statement by Mr.
    Lowry calling Dr. Mann’s research “intellectually bogus.”
Given their long history pursuing Mann, NR and CEI are going to have an interesting time claiming they didn't mean it.  In this regard, Mann's lawyers point to the many investigations, importantly to one in particular, claims by CEI contesting the basis of the EPA's greenhouse gas endangerment finding that lead to an investigation by the EPA
As EPA’s review and analysis shows, the petitioners routinely take these private e-mail communications out of context and assert they are ‘‘smoking gun’’ evidence of wrongdoing and scientific manipulation of data. EPA’s careful examination of the e-mails and their context shows that the petitioners’ claims are exaggerated, are often contradicted by other evidence, and are not a material or reliable basis to question the validity and credibility of the body of science underlying the Administrator’s Endangerment Finding or the Administrator’s decision process articulated in the Findings themselves Petitioners’ assumptions and subjective assertions regarding what the e-mails purport to show about the state of climate change science are clearly inadequate pieces of evidence to challenge the voluminous and well documented body of science that is the technical foundation of the Administrator’s Endangerment Finding.
Although CEI appealed this to the DC Circuit, which rejected their appeal.  This considerably weakens their arguments because you  cannot bring a matter before the courts and then reject the court's decision (note:  a petition for en banc review was denied in December but there still may be a further appeal to the Supreme Court) 

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it wrong that I am garnering such pleasure from Mann's harpooning of these (alleged) libellers?

And why do I have this persistent image in my mind of a hot kitchen?


Bernard J.

MikeBromley said...

Mann the Saint....???

Anonymous said...

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/14/science-dr-mojib-latif-global-warming-cooling/
“I don’t know what to do. They just make these things up.”
said Latif.
Mike thought of something to do.

----
btw, don't search on "don't" unless you have the right apostrophe code.

Pete Dunkelberg

Hank Roberts said...

grammar question:

"Although CEI appealed this to the DC Circuit, which rejected their appeal. This considerably weakens their arguments"

does this mean

because CEI appealed to the DC Circuit, which rejected their appeal, this considerably weakens ...?

Barton Paul Levenson said...

Mann the saint? No. Mann the citizen? Yes. God bless you, Dr. Mann, and I hope you kick NR's and CEI's collective asterisk. God knows they have it coming.

Martin Lack said...

However, when the NR and CEI lose their case they will just add The US Judiciary to the list of co-conspirators responsible for this climate change hoax... Or maybe, just maybe, they will sense that it is time to accept that the Earth really is not flat.

Anonymous said...

Most of these guys are die hard space cadets, and their analogs on the congressional and senate committees don't really care what the truth is as long as they get their so called space program and their respective bacon for the homies. So, I've given them the truth on a golden platter that conveniently gives them an out on their previous nutty beliefs and still gives them what they really want, so it will be interesting to see when what's his name convenes the hearing if they take the hint and the bait, and the free pork meal, or not.

Anonymous said...

lol.

We shall see what the court does.

Many bunnies are not going to be happy.

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

Barrister bunnies should note that the opening salvo in the Tabloid Wars was fired by Watts, who fired off the Weekly World News 80 Foot Dinosaur cover in Seth Borenstein's general direction a couple of fridays ago.

As you can see at the bottom of this page.

Elby the Beserk said...

BEST's Richard Muller slaughters Mann's Hockey Stick, here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BQpciw8suk

Anonymous said...

Somebody has forgotten that the denialist community has officially disowned Muller. He's gone from BEST to worst.

toto said...

Hmmm....

I don't like the idea that calling something "intellectually bogus", no matter how unjustified, should be an actionable statement.

Hank Roberts said...

Elby links to what Muller said before Muller did his own analysis and changed his mind.

Elby could change his mind too, or Elby could decide that Muller's joined the conspiracy.

What will Elby do?

Let's see: facts, or fantasy. Facts, or fantasy.

What will Elby choose?

guthrie said...

Elby will choose fantasy.

Hank Roberts said...

Fantasy for Elby, prepackaged:
http://watchingthedeniers.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/richard-muller-covert-agent-for-the-climate-conspiracy-the-sceptic-response-to-mullers-best-paper/

John Mashey said...

Just for fun, for those unfamiliar with National Review and CEI, I offer a few tidbits from the many at Legacy Tobacco Documents Library.

NR (a little old, 1985, but amusing):
publisher begs help from Jesse Helms in getting tobacco advertising back.

CEI (2000):

CEI PResident Fred Smith begs RJ Reynolds for money, telling them of all the good work CEI has done.

Anonymous said...

There is a new BEST paper out


"A New Estimate of the Average
Earth Surface Land Temperature
Spanning 1753 to 2011"

http://www.scitechnol.com/GIGS/GIGS-1-101.pdf

Anonymous said...

I wonder if "Elby" notices how hockey sticky the BEST graph is.

Rib Smokin' bunny

Exusian said...

Rib Smokin', I'm afraid pattern recognition requires a functioning brain.

Anonymous said...

Asked to comment by who Eli? Let me take a wild guess...

While I'd be the last person to defend CEI or NR, you need to understand that it's time to stop defending Mann. He brings a lot of this stuff upon himself with his generally arrogant attitude, spouts a lot of "fossil fuel" conspiracy BS (with no evidence) to fan the flames and distract people from his shoddy science, and his recent rebuke in Nature Geosci by 23 prominent tree ring researchers shows just how much really knowledgeable people in the field think of the quality of his work.

Probably best not to defend anyone in this mud slinging contest.