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Virginia High Court Rejects Case Against Climatologist Michael Mann
ananyo writes "The Virgina Supreme Court on Friday tossed out an investigation by the state's conservative attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, into Michael Mann, the former University of Virginia climatologist whose work on the now-famous hockey-stick graph has become a lightning rod for climate skeptics. 'In a dense and conflicted 26-page ruling (PDF) covering a century and a half of case law — including references to kings as well as modern "functional incongruities" that divided the judges themselves — Virginia’s high court ruled that the university is not a "person" and thus is not subject to Cuccinelli’s demands under the state’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.' The 'climategate' scientist has been cleared of wrongdoing by a number of investigations."
Interesting-- so corporations are persons, according to the Supreme court, but universities aren't, according to the Virginia court.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Everybody's got an agenda.
There is no fact.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
--Phillip K. Dick.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Tell that to the computer you're using which depends on two centuries worth of scientific advancement. The goal of science is to account for bias and get closer to truth in spite of it, and it's obviously worked. The same system that brought you electromagnatism, antibiotics, and plastic has now brought you climate change. You can bet against them but history isn't on your side.
From the decision:
Government is above the law. All hail the king. Welcome to Braveheart.
"If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment." - a stupid sentiment, regardless of who said it.
Anyhow, your assertions have been investigated and found to be false.
I'm a lawyer, but not yours. I wouldn't represent someone who thinks taking legal advice from Slashdot is a good idea.
No sorry. This conservative witch hunt against this work has been clearly shown to be politically biased and non factual. Stop perpetrating the myth.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Interesting... so which Koch funded "institute" are you quoting?
You do know how easy it is to lie with statistics don't you? Oh right scientists can do no wrong in your world view and we should dispense with reproducibility of their claims
You are aware that right now six different independent groups are analyzing the temperature records, using ground, ocean, balloon, and satellite measurements, and getting very consistent results?
You are aware that an independent analysis, "BEST" (by U.C. Berkeley), was set up (and funded by, among other things, many skeptics) with the explicit purpose of doing an independent analysis without the purported "biases" that critical claim other temperature groups had.
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/10/climate-skeptics-perform-independent-analysis-finally-convinced-earth-is-getting-warmer.ars
Here's a quote from leading skeptic Anthony Watts about that BEST study (March 2011):
Guess what-- the results are still the same. The data showing the planet is warming is real.
http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111020/full/news.2011.607.html
How much "reproducability of their claims" do you want?
Satellite measurements, ground station measurements,ocean measurements, balloon-sonde measurements, microwave measurements-- very different techniques, same answers.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Unlike the pretenders to the throne, I am a real scientist. I can back my claims. I worked in hyperspectral satellite data acquisition at one point in my career and the relative IR impact of water, methane and CO2 is common knowledge. Maybe we should stop the water cycle instead of the carbon cycle (yes, that's a joke).
Water vapor H2O ~54 %
Carbon dioxide CO2 ~9%
Methane CH4 ~7 %
Ozone O3 ~5 %
Further From New Foundations for Classical Mechanics:
**BEGIN QUOTE**
Celestial Mechanics is the crowning glory of Newtonian mechanics. It has
revolutionized man’s concept of the Cosmos and his place within it. Its
spectacular successes in the 18th and 19th centuries established the unique
power of mathematical theory for precise explanation and prediction. In the
20th century it has been overshadowed by exciting developments in other
branches of physics. But the last three decades have seen a resurgence of
interest in celestial mechanics, because it is a basic conceptual tool for the
emerging Space Age.
The main concern of celestial mechanics (CM) is to account for the motion of
celestial bodies (stars, planets, satellites, etc.). The same theory applies to the
motion of artificial satellites and spacecraft, so the emerging science of space
flight, astromechanics, can be regarded as an offspring of celestial mechanics.
Space Age capabilities for precise measurements and management of vast
amounts of data has made CM more relevant than ever. Celestial mechanics
is used by observational astronomers for the prediction and explanation of
occultation and eclipse phenomena, by astrophysicists to model the evolution
of binary star systems, by cosmogonists to reconstruct the history of the Solar
System, and by geophysicists to refine models of the Earth and explain
geological data about the past.
To cite one specific example, it has recently
been established that major Ice Ages on Earth during the last million years
have occurred regularly with a period of 100,000 years, and this can be
explained with celestial mechanics as forced by oscillations in the Earth’s
eccentricity due to perturbations by other planets. Moreover, periodicities of
minor Ice Ages can be explained as forced by precession and nutation of the
Earth’s axis due to perturbation by the Sun and Moon.
**END QUOTE**
That's a weak argument -- essentially a mass scale argument from authority. The strong argument is that the data support the conclusion that the climate is warming and that much of that warming is due to human activity -- and no other possible cause has been shown to be sufficient to cause what has been observed.
THAT is why the smart money is on continued warming and on conservation or other measures to contain it.
No sorry, this is clearly a witch hunt.
Read here: http://spectator.org/blog/2010/05/17/top-mann-nemesis-hes-not-a-fra
it was an extremely odd audience reaction: McIntyre received a standing ovation upon his introduction, thanks to his dogged research and unrelenting demand for information and accountability, but then his blase' attitude about scientists' behavior -- particularly Mann's -- left most of the audience cold and some even angry. The applause for McIntyre was tepid upon the conclusion of his remarks.
Clearly the supporters of the audit are not interested in the truth, they are only interested in seeing Mann fail, regardless of the evidence. Get off your high 'this is fraudulent use of tax dollars!' horse and actually look at the evidence and conclusions - not what the crackpot right wing tells you to think.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
No. The scientists were being attacked because they dared to publish science results that some politicians didn't like. Those politicians were Republicans. You're entitled to your own opinions but not to make up your own facts.
Fascinating that you sometimes need to quote a guy who at one point hallucinated being taken over by the prophet Elijah to some people, because he makes more sense than their ramblings, Scary, actually, given how often I have to use your quote myself.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
But, but, making up their own facts is what their whole propaganda machine runs on! And they are too big to fail!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
It also gave us eugenics, Aether, the fixed universe, phrenology, and Fleischmann/Pons cold fusion.
Many scientific theories that are accepted as truth at the time turn out to be false, or are superceeded as science finds out more.
And sometimes, as in the case of phrenology and eugenics, people are harmed in the name of science.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Actually, no. McIntyre proved that there was a technical flaw in Mann's method of statistical analysis that could occasionally cause an artifactual upturn (or, with equal probability, a downturn) at the end, but despite analyzing a large number of noise data sets, he was not able to find even one case that generated an upturn that approached the magnitude of Mann's "hockey stick" analysis. So, correctly interpreted, McIntyre's results proved that it was highly unlikely that Mann's Hockey Stick curve could result from the artifact. So it is not surprising that numerous subsequent studies, using analyses not subject to this error, and also looking at other types of climate data, have confirmed that the hockey stick is correct.
So in the end, McIntyre's technical criticism of Mann's approach (which at worst involved a subtlety of statistical analysis that no reasonable scientist would have called a "fraud") turned out to be correct, but irrelevant to Mann's conclusion.
Watch this and ask if you still have a question. Nature of things, David Suzuki, 1 hr. We're 200 years into a 1000 year cycle of magnetic pol revrsal. This is why they keep having to change the numbers on runways periodically.
CERN reproduced the findings which does explain the climate. Then the CERN lab director put a gag order on the results. Look this all up for yourself.
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/ideas/climate/poles/
Need Mercedes parts ?
We're 200 years into a 1000 year cycle of magnetic pol revrsal.
You're off by a factor of 100. The average time between reversals is 100,000 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field
Peer review,
It is only as good as it's reviewers. A big part of what Cuccinelli was trying to determine was whether the research was in fact peer-reviewed or cronie-reviewed
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
How exactly is eugenics (as a science) a bad thing? As a science all it is is the observation that we humans have changed the evoluionary pressures on our own species, with the exensino that it is in ways that most likely will favor mutations that we don't really want. For example poor eyesight is no longer a negative evelutioary pressure so you can expect it to grow in the general population.
That is the science bit, what you are probably objecting to are the mass steriliztions in the US (if you are aware of them) or the influence those same ideas had on some of the Nazi justifications for the death camps. But the science is reposnible for neither, just as you can't blame the mass killings of the Khmer Rouge on the philophy of equality.
And if you think that eugenics (the science) has in any way been proven false, then you are completely mistaken.
Actually, the research of Michael Mann and many other climate scientists has concentrated very specifically on understanding cyclical patterns, volcanic eruptions and other natural processes that impact climate. One of the key challenges has been to figure out how to provide accurate and reliable temperature reconstructions going back a significantly long period of time (way before there were thermometers to perform direct measurements) in order to ferrit out the relative impact of cyclical patterns, single event effects (like volcanic eruptions) and anthropogenic effects on temperature. The primary method to do this has been to use proxy data derived from things such as tree rings, ice cores and the like. Because this data exists overlapping periods when direct temperature measurements could be taken the proxy data could be calibrated to within a certain error factor. The resulting findings have shown that even allowing for the effects of cyclical patterns and single occurance events the anthropogenic impact has been the dominate contributor over the last half century. Another thing to understand, and an issue even in this article is the incorrect use of the term "skeptic". These people are not skeptics (skeptics can be convinced in the presence of new data). These people are deniers who ignore data that disagrees with their world view. Scientists by their vary nature are skeptics and so to have this large of a consensus in the scientific community is even more of an indication of the validity of the conclusion that 1) the climate is warming by an unpresidented rate and 2) the dominant contributor is anthropogenic.
The university is probably a "person" whenever it wants to be, but isn't whenever it wants to be.
We're fighting a similar case in New Hampshire. A couple decades ago, the University of N.H. employed their legal "political subdivision" label in order to protect themselves against another party in a lawsuit. And the court duly recognized their status as a political subdivision of the State of New Hampshire.
So recently a group of activists tried to challenge the UNH's firearms policy by pointing to N.H. RSA 159:26, which states that no political subdivision of New Hampshire can regulate firearms; only the Legislature may do so. The university of course tried to argue they're not a political subdivision.
If the legal system here was even remotely non-corrupt, this would be a slam dunk. The principle employed here is called "collateral estoppel" in legal parlance. "You can't have it both ways" might be another way to describe it. Or "blatant hypocrisy."
Guess which way the Superior Court ruled.
Liberty in your lifetime
So... other than "experts" (nice fear quotes), who should they be listening to? The layman who doesn't know any better?
Don't just stand there, get that other dog!
The problem with environmentalism isn't the actual facts.
The problem is that once people try to use these facts to justify policies that will harm other people, the victims of those new policies will try to dispute the facts in order to discredit the policies that are harming them.
Yes, exactly: a good deal of the criticism that is purported to be skepticism of the science (and the scientists) is actually aimed at discrediting the policy implications.
The unexpected consequence is that, since it apparently much easier to cast doubt on the science than to rationally discuss policy, there has been almost no discussion of the proposed policies.
Of course, policy discussions are so full of boobytraps and ideological landmines in the US, that's not surprising.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I'd really like a citation for that little statistic in there...
Since you asked, most Americans don't grasp it yet, but the truth is that the global elite are absolutely obsessed with population control. In fact, there is a growing consensus among the global elite that they need to get rid of 80 to 90 percent of us. The number one commandment of the infamous Georgia Guidestones is this: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Unfortunately, a very high percentage of our global leaders actually believe in this stuff.
This philosophy is now regularly being reflected in official UN documents. For example, the March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief begins with the following statement:
This agenda showed up again when the United Nations Population Fund released its annual State of the World Population Report for 2009 entitled "Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate".
The population control agenda is also regularly showing up in our newspapers now. In a recent editorial for the New York Times entitled "The Earth Is Full", Thomas L. Friedman made the following statement:
But Friedman is quite moderate compared to many others. For example, James Lovelock stated in an interview with the Guardian earlier this year that "democracy must be put on hold" if the fight against global warming is going to be successful and that only "a few people with authority" should be permitted to rule the planet until the crisis is solved.
The Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola is openly calling for climate change deniers to be "re-educated", for a world government to be established and for humans to be forcibly sterilized and for the majority of humans to be killed.
This agenda is even being taught by professors at many top universities. Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at Austin Eric R. Pianka is a very prominent advocate of radical human population control. In an article entitled "What nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to know", Pianka said:
CNN Founder Ted Turner
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
It's hardly a technocracy. If it was, you would probably be facing the end of using petroleum products for producing energy tomorrow. As it is, governments do just enough to appear to be doing something.
But beyond that the question becomes "If the vast and overwhelming majority of researchers in a certain field say [i]X[/i] is happening", your response should be:
A. Wow, that sounds serious, what are the solutions?
or
B. That would cost a few billion a year, so fuck you.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
An appeal to authority is only fallacious when the authorities being invoked are not in fact authorities. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your dentist says that's what you have, that's a fallacious appeal to authority. If you defend a diagnosis of macular degeneration because your opthamologist says that's what you have, it is not fallacious.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Since you asked, most Americans don't grasp it yet, but the truth is that the global elite are absolutely obsessed with population control. In fact, there is a growing consensus among the global elite that they need to get rid of 80 to 90 percent of us. The number one commandment of the infamous Georgia Guidestones is this: "Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature." Unfortunately, a very high percentage of our global leaders actually believe in this stuff.
OK, I'm no American, but I'll play...
First, let's keep the anonymous polemics out of this, eh?
This philosophy is now regularly being reflected in official UN documents. For example, the March 2009 U.N. Population Division policy brief begins with the following statement:
Not related to climate change, but let's read the report:
Fast population growth, fueled by high fertility, hinders the reduction of poverty and the achievement of other internationally agreed development goals. While fertility has declined throughout the developing world since the 1970s, most of the least developed countries still have total fertility levels above 5 children per woman.
5 children per women is definitely a fertility level that's unsustainable in Nigeria. Or even here in India. This is nothing new - those countries with stable governments have been more or less going in the direction of lower fertility rates for decades. See this Gapminder plot, for example. In any case, the report says nothing about global warming. It's about health and happiness, not warming.
This agenda showed up again when the United Nations Population Fund released its annual State of the World Population Report for 2009 entitled Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate".
That would be this one
The interesting thing is, this isn't really talking about eliminating 80% of the population of the world. Both reports talk about fertility rates, family planning and improved health. The second one is a little hyperbolic about climate change, but nevertheless, it's not a call to cull 80% of the world's population.
The population control agenda is also regularly showing up in our newspapers now. In a recent editorial for the New York Times entitled "The Earth Is Full", Thomas L. Friedman made the following statement:
Freedom doesn't mean liberation from reality. The universe actually doesn't give one sweet fuck about your freedoms.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I call bullshit on the parent. The complete failure to mention that water is saturated in the atmosphere, that any excess condenses out as rain, as well as pretending climate scientists ignore water vapour contribution, when every climate model in existence includes it as a positive feedback dependent on temperature, tells me that he either pretends to have higher qualifications in the field than he does, or he knows full and well that he is being deliberately misleading or lying through his teeth. In particular his "joke" absolutely stinks of the usual "lol climate scientists are so stupid" nonsense we hear all the time.
Water is the main greenhouse gas in the earth's atmosphere, but it does not mean that the CHANGE in climate can be explained by water vapour, nor does it imply that carbon dioxide is irrelevant. The amount of water held by the air is largely dependent on temperature. If it gets hotter, more evaporates from the oceans, if it gets colder more will fall out as rain. Carbon dioxide on the other hand tends to stay in the atmosphere for a very long time, and is not absorbed by the oceans, plants or reactions with the earth's minerals at a rate quick enough to compensate for the vast quantities we put into the atmosphere.
Consequentially increasing CO2 concentrations will produce a warmer atmosphere, which in turn increases water concentration, which means the warming from a given amount of CO2 will be greater than you'd expect from CO2 alone.
ANY climate scientist worth his salt (or indeed anybody who even tried to learn about the topic ) would be well aware of this fact, yet the parent appears to either not know about it, or deliberately refraining to point it out in order to make a stupid joke. He's either incompetent or dishonest.
"As it is, governments do just enough to appear to be doing something." How it is that this is not a Sir Humphrey Appleby quote astounds me!
Perhaps one of these quotes could work in its place:
"Two kinds of government chair correspond with the two kinds of minister: one sort folds up instantly and the other sort goes round and round in circles."
"'The Government's position' means 'the best explanation of past events that cannot be disproved by available facts'."
"In government, many people have the power to stop things happening but almost nobody has the power to make things happen. The system has the engine of a lawn mower and the brakes of a Rolls Royce."
"A Civil Service computer strike would bring government to a standstill if it were not for the fact that it is already."
***
Topically speaking, I've notice the biggest problem to accepting a scientific understanding comes in the form of two anti-science options: 1) A scientifically sounding think tank or lobbyist's research seems directly in conflict with reality but fits well other people's preferred realities and 2) All scientific understanding is really an indoctrination technique, and only the ignorant can see reality.
Of course, neither is particularly exclusive in any field.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Like totally dude. Legislation based upon physical reality is what the man wants. Question the paradigm.
Oh I get it. When a scientist isn't held criminally liable for conducting scientific research, then we are in a "technocracy". If this were a "democracy" then Michael Mann would be arrested because he made a graph that, while broadly accurate, got some people upset.
I'd find it funny if it weren't so depressing. The denialists of the human influence on climate use these two talking points over and over, not even understanding enough science (or more likely, not caring about truth as opposed to winning economically) that they are simultaneously contradictory!
Point 1) Water, not CO2, is the dominant greenhouse forcing!!!
Point 2) All those evil computer models that them hoaxing climate modelers put out are lying, because they stuff in these mumbo-jumbo complex feedforwards to the sensitivity computed by God's-honest-truth-Bolztzmann, in order to make the problem "alarming" instead of insignificant.
In scientific truth, yes water is a major greenhouse effect. And that's just the point of those supposedly 'mumbo-jumbo' feedfowards---it's the fact that as air warms up, it can absorb more water vapor, and yes this extra water vapor (clear, not clouds) certainly does ADD to the greenhouse effect. D'oh!
So the more you push #1 (which is true), the more you justify including the feedfowards which result in the mainstream estimate of climate sensitivity which points to a serious problem in the future. In fact it's misleading NOT to include these feedfowards.
And your own technique is a very common one,
You are right. Debunking is a common technique.
my assertion and defense of the very groups and powerful, wealthy people advocating depopulation makes your own agenda questionable to an objective observer.
I'm really curious what you would guess my agenda is...
No, seriously. Let me know.
the first quote starts on the bottom of page 21,
Now that gives it the missing context. See, you put it into a context of depopulation, but the entire chapter is about population growth, and on p. 22 it puts the necessary depth into the debate by pointing out that the relationship is varied and in some countries the per-capita emissions are even falling.
If you read the entire report - or just a few chapters - it doesn't seem to support your claim that some mysterious global elite is planning to kill most of the world population in the slightest. It's a calm review of what we know about the relationship between various factors such as population, consumption, transporation, energy consumption, etc.
As for Ted Turner's quote, it (along with the entire context and his views) was first published in an interview given in 1996 to the magazine of the American conservation organisation The Audubon Society
The reference is all over the net. The Audubon Magazine website itself doesn't seem to know about it: http://www.audubonmagazine.org/search/node/ted%20turner
Quotes get made up all the time, and once enough people are quoting it, everyone thinks it's real. There are a nice number of examples for this effect, and too few journalists who actually check the sources. In fact, one of the pet /. topics has an example: The estimate for losses to movie "piracy" are such a thing. Someone once made up a number, and that number has been quoted and re-quoted ever since, with everyone referencing someone else who only got it somewhere else, until it has so many references that it seems real.
I'm serious, I've tried to find it. Now the funny thing is - I'm not alone. Search for "interview" in the comments here:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ted-turner-bashes-tea-party-calling-them-mean-spirited/
Someone else is asking some other one else the same question I am - and gets no reply.
So, in the language of the IntarWeb: "Pics or it didn't happen".
And yes, the burden of proof lies with you. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I am highly sceptical, but I can be convinced. I took a few months to make up my mind about 9/11, for example. I used to doubt that ECHOLON was real, but as more and more evidence has surfaced that I was wrong, I've come around.
But depopulation on a massive scale? And advocated by the very people who have the most to lose from any major socio-political change? That's a crackpot theory and those spreading it are frauds and liars. And I say that in these clear words because I'm not on TV like Pen & Teller and thus I can say what I believe.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org