LAST FRIDAY, The Cavalier Daily published an article (ATI obtains Mann’s research, Aug. 26) stating that the University had, in accordance with a Freedom of Information Act request, submitted to the American Tradition Institute a large number of emails and other documents from former Environmental Sciences Prof. Michael Mann. There is a fundamentally important backdrop to this story, however, that should have been addressed by the editorial staff and mentioned in the article.
While a professor at the University, Prof. Mann published a climate reconstruction based on various proxies that revealed an alarming and unprecedented rise in global temperature following the start of the Industrial Revolution. His so-called hockey stick graph provided a visceral piece of evidence supporting the hypothesis that emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil-fuel combustion and other human activities are warming our planet. Subsequent investigations based on completely independent data have yielded climate reconstructions that are consistent with the results of Prof. Mann’s pioneering research. This mounting body of evidence coupled with computer simulations of earth’s future climate demonstrate with a high degree of confidence that anthropogenic global warming is occurring.
For various reasons, ideologically conservative and well-funded groups such as ATI are dedicated to preventing societal efforts to slow climate change. Since there are currently no credible scientific arguments demonstrating that human activity is not warming the planet, one of their primary tactics is to attack scientists who conduct such research as part of a larger effort to confuse the public and corrupt the legislative process.
For example, in the “climate-gate” scandal, a handful of sentences in hacked emails from Prof. Mann were taken out of context to imply that he had falsified research results. Such groups widely touted this calculated misrepresentation as their “a-ha” moment. Much to their dismay, however, subsequent independent investigations by Penn State University, the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Sciences cleared Prof. Mann of any wrongdoing.
We suggest that The Cavalier Daily stand up and call a spade a spade. This FOIA request by ATI is part of an ongoing and well-orchestrated attempt to disparage climate researchers including Prof. Mann and to discredit the very large body of scientific evidence showing that human activities are warming our planet. The socieoeconomic and geopolicital implications for future generations are profound.
Amato Evan is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences. William Keene is a research professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences.
“For various reasons, ideologically conservative and well-funded groups such as ATI are dedicated to preventing societal efforts to slow climate change.”
I just a guy out here, and not particularly well funded. The reason that this scientifically educated writer wants to block “societal efforts to slow climate change,” is that such efforts are little more than a scam to fund third world governments through “carbon taxes.” Have you ever heard any good liberal suggest that such taxes should be revenue neutral?
And I guess “global warming” (Isn’t that what Mann’s “hockey stick” was about?) has been so thoroughly discreditied that the author here had to be careful to use the new mantra of “climate change.”
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Hot debate. What do you think?
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LOL: “…the new mantra of “climate change”".
At easy way to spot the uninformed: what does the “CC” in IPCC stand for. And when was it set up?
Answers: Climate Change and 1988 http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_history.shtml
Another denier talking point bites the dust (like they all do).
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MN/NJ also says “Have you ever heard any good liberal suggest that such taxes should be revenue neutral?”
Haven’t you heard of Hansen’s “tax and revenue” proposal? In brief every citizen gets refunded an equal share of the tax on fossil fuels.
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Yes, global warming has been so discredited that the latest Science Foundation Survey finds 98% of scientists in the field, a vast majority of whom receive no industry or non-profit funding, still believe it. The scientific consensus has gotten stronger, the political war on science has made sure you don’t know this.
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All the data, documentation, and software tools required for a technically/mathematically adept individual to perform his/her own independent verification of Mann’s work are freely available on the web. In particular, all of Michael Mann’s “hockey-stick” data and code have been freely available for *years*.
The only things required to check Mann’s work are: A cheap laptop with an Internet connection, and enough technical competence to understand Mann’s papers/documentation and work with freely-available development/data-analysis software tools like G++, R, Scilab, etc..
If the ATI folks weren’t such a bunch of lazy, incompetent (and dishonest) hacks, they would have taken advantage of all that freely available data and software to generate their own temperature reconstructions. They would then have seen for themselves that Mann’s results really are legitimate.
But instead of performing a legitimate investigation of Mann’s science, they have been trying to “sniff Mann’s underwear” by filing frivolous, harassing, and intrusive FOI requests.
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People who have nothing to hide generally do not spend $500,000 (and counting trying to keep things hidden. If Mr. Mann’s data and methodology were air tight, he and UVA would have thrown it back at Cuccinelli and the ATI with glee and had a party on the Lawn when they made fools of both.
Instead, UVA is trying to somehow reverse over a century of open debate and discussion regarding science and the process of peer review of Salk, Currie and Pasteur. As it was with their dishonest and corrupt student health care information (which they have recently been forced to take down), their partisan political agenda is what was trumping scientific honesty.
Now they find themselves faring rather badly in both ill advised battles. We’ll see what is found in what prof. Mann and UVA wanted to keep secret. The Attorney General will also get his way with that, as well he should in the interest of academic accountability and the use of public funds.
In both cases, there are still some UVA students and alumni left at who are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.
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“People who have nothing to hide generally do not spend $500,000 (and counting trying to keep things hidden. If Mr. Mann’s data and methodology were air tight, he and UVA would have thrown it back at Cuccinelli and the ATI with glee and had a party on the Lawn when they made fools of both.”
Mann made all of his data/methodology freely available on-line years ago!
But Cuccinelli/ATI aren’t looking for data/methodology. They are looking for any emails where Mann expressed frustration with dishonest, lazy deniers like you, emails that they could then quote out of context, creationist-style.
The problem isn’t with Mann/UVA; it’s with you deniers who are too lazy/dishonest/incompetent to make an honest effort to figure out what to do with the data and code that Mann threw out at you *years ago*.
Sean, if you want to get to the bottom of Mann’s work, get off your lazy backside and learn the math/science needed to understand what Mann did. If you can’t figure out the basics of Mann’s methodology, don’t blame Mann — blame yourself for being so lazy and incompetent.
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Your childish namecalling merely reflects your desperation at this point. Something tells me that there are more than a few folks at UVA Enviro Sci who are rather worried about what will be found by ATI and the AG. We already have the smoking gun of Mann’s and his colleagues East Anglia emails, after all. I don’t know what they will find. But I do know that people with nothing to hide don’t try so hard to keep things hidden. Any layman can grasp the scientific tradition of peer review and openness regarding both data and methodology. You and yours will not be reversing it.
As for your hopes that myself and my colleagues are lazy or incompetent, I’m afraid that our recent successes in making UVA capitulate to our demands have not been very discouraging to us. And we are making UVA famous both nationally and internationally now. There are additional Human Rights and Scientific Honesty Initiatives that will appear at additional universities this Fall in the US. And I met last week with student leaders in Antwerp, Belgium also. None of them had heard of UVA before, but there will now be additional Initiatives delivered to the Universities of Leuven, Ghent, and Leiden. The name will stay the same, and we’re even thinking about keeping the Jefferson graphic and quote – albeit with new faces. Our UVA Initiative is being translated into Dutch, Flemish, and French as we speak.
Indeed, UVA is becoming globally famous!
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Dear Sean,
You have nothing to hide, so please publish all your emails since forever here.
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Human Rights and Scientific Honesty Initiative: according to the statement here: http://www.uvalies.org/initiative the initiative is actually an anti-abortion movement.
Isn’t it rather hypocritical that their name mentions Scientific Honesty but doesn’t reflect their aim?
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Sean said:”We already have the smoking gun of Mann’s and his colleagues East Anglia emails, after all. ”
Er what smoking gun? Don’t you mean damp squib?
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Folks, note that Sean and his fellow political hacks have completely ignored the fact that all of the data and code needed to check Mann’s work have been in the public domain for years.
The problem for Sean and Co is, they are all too incompetent to figure out what to do with that information. So they are trying to divert attention from that inconvenient fact with their dishonest “fishing expedition”. They have nothing but dishonest motives for wanting all of Mann’s email messages.
And as for my “childish” name-calling that Sean so objects to — all I can say is, calling Sean an incompetent hack is no more childish than calling John Gotti a criminal.
Sean, you are an incompetent party hack — so deal with it.
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Myself, Kelsey, and Siobhan receIved no taxpayer funds for researching and compiling what we cited in the Initiative. Indeed, neither any of us, or anyone in the Med School or elsewhere who helped us last winter was paid a penny. Ever. Over winter break last year, we were on three different continents sending lots of emails – but not one of them ever suggested that we should delete or ignore some data or studies that might refute our claims that UVA has deliberately misinformed its students regarding serious threats to their health. In fact, we linked to graphs that showed showed peer reviewed studies that went both ways. But as was the case with the tobacco industry in the 80′s, they show that a few studies one way cannot refute reverse the vast majority of others that go the other way.
You’d think that this would be pretty obvious, but I will repeat it anyway. If we did our research without any public funds, we need not divulge our private communications. Our document speaks for itself, and neither UVA nor anyone else has been able to poke any holes in it over 6 months now. So while UVA’s lawyers and the ES department continue to lose their ill advised battle despite being half a million bucks in, we’re just as steadily winning ours with a budget of $0.00.
UVA has been at war with science thanks to their partisan political agenda, and their chickens are finally coming home to roost now in multiple arenas. The state has a right to investigate POTENTIAL fraud against taxpayers by academic institutions. Our managing board for the Initiative is non partisan, but includes a UVA alum who is quite active in the democratic party. We’ve even turned down money from a very conservative, republican organization. We don’t need any money. So how many conservatives or republicans do you think UVA Enviro Science has? LOL.
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Folks, I followed the “Sean” link, and it confirmed my suspicions.
Here’s a telling excerpt from the “Sean”-linked document:
Additionally, women are not warned that abortions have been shown to cause breast cancer in numerous peer reviewed scientific studies.
Now folks, what is an antiabortion activist doing on a discussion thread related to climate science?
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Sean, sure you don’t need to divulge your private e-mails, but, as you say, if you’ve got nothing to hide, why won’t you?
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http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/BreastCancer/MoreInformation/is-abortion-linked-to-breast-cancer
I think the anti-abortion/climate sceptic link is cherrypicking: from the above link, Research has confirmed that study type is likely to play a role in what is found. A review of the previous studies on this issue (see the next paragraph), covering tens of thousands of women, showed that women followed in prospective studies (which are less prone to recall bias) had no increased breast cancer risk if they had had an abortion. Case-control studies, which are prone to recall bias, pointed to a slight increase in risk.
Perhaps Sean would like to tell us which category his studies fall into.
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UVA’s war on science involves violating the principle of informed consent regarding cervical cancer, liver cancer, heart disease, birth defects, preterm birth, and – yes – breast cancer. Notice how these very partisan political activists using a university department as a bully pulpit operate..
First, they completely ignore the fact that their university is at war with science in all these areas – even when it is pointed out to them. Lying to women about breast cancer is of no consequence to them, because their political agenda has a historical fondness with that tradition. If they were the impartial arbiters of scientific truth that they want you to believe that they are, they would be astounded and angry that Mr. Jefferson’s university has allowed itself to behave this way. But as you can see, they are AOK with it instead. Breast cancer rates have gone from one in 24 to one in 8 women getting it? So what? Preterm birth rate up 36%? Who cares? Obama gives great speeches.
Second, they zero in one the one topic that we stated quite clearly is a plausible link that is still hotly debated – the abortion/breast cancer link. UVA deliberately misinforms its students about breast cancer risks three different ways. 2 of the three are not debated at all. The pill causing it, and not aborting a first full term pregnancy and the protection that affords women thereafter. Yet it is only the third that they want to talk about, because there was an NCI meeting back in 2003 that decided that the 10 studies that did not show the link were more important than the 29 that did. That’s right.. 10>29. And they took the extraordinary measure of making the vote a secret one. (Sound familiar?) Here is the graph we linked to showing the studies:
http://polycarp.org/overviewabortionbreastcancer.htm
hmm….. Does anyone see something there that would suggest that it is at least a PLAUSIBLE risk? But since UVA chooses not to inform its patients about the two proven risks, I guess it’s not surprising that they choose to hide plausible risks from them also. And nobody in UVA Enviro SCIENCE seems to have the slightest problem with that. Interesting, huh?
The same is NOT the case in the UVA Medical School. That didn’t make one of their Dean’s very happy, so she sent them a threatening email telling them that they had better remove their names from our document. This is how corrupt these people are, folks.
Anyone who wants to be seen as a champion of reason, science, and honesty must first apply that across the board. As for me personally, I think it is pretty obvious that the earth’s climate has gotten warmer the last 20 years. But the folks who are insisting that is due to human activity and carbon emissions can’t seem to prove it. Indeed, it’s a very hard thing to prove given the size of the planet’s atmosphere. Prof. Mann’s research might indeed be air tight, and spot on. I don’t know if it is or isn’t – and I haven’t said so. But it sure doesn’t give folks a lot of confidence when all of a sudden so much of what happened when it was being studied and compiled is now supposed to be kept secret.
But the fact remains that they clearly become very disinterested in the topic of scientific honesty if their political agenda is threatened rather than promoted by it. That much is obvious.
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I shared an apartment last year with an Enviro Science undergrad, and I was friendly with an ES grad student also. One night down in a corner bar, she introduced me to 7 of her her ES grad school colleagues, telling them I was a “skeptic,” and saying “get him.” They were a friendly bunch at first, so I was up for a little beer swilling debate.
I began by asking them why we had a global warming the first half of the 19th. Century, and to answer me without pulling out their iPhones. (ever wonder why people who think we’re using too much energy all have iPhones??) Five of the seven of them – all the guys – said that the earth did NOT get warmer 1800-1850. (buzzer sounds) The two gals agreed with me that it did. One of them said she did not know why, and the other said that it was due to “a volcanic eruption in Indonesia.”
Phones still ensconced in all our pockets, I reminded her that Krakatoa exploded long after 1850 – and that that led to a cooling, not a warming. Once we pulled out our phones and confirmed the dismal performance of the ES department’s best and brightest, a few of the guys started getting angry. The women took it is stride. When I said that I didn’t think that the case had been proven that human activity has caused recent temperature increases, one of the women agreed with me. This made one of the already embarrassed guys even angrier, and he started pretty much dressing her down and berating her for being some sort of heretic.
The fun clearly over, I was reminded that I was meeting someone downtown. I paid my tab and left, bidding them adieu with that poor gal standing up for herself and suggesting that the guy giving her hell needed to back off. Even my roomate agreed that UVA’s ES department really needed to lift the quality of its game.
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Yea Sean! Thank goodness there are still some young people who aren’t falling for the global warming propaganda.
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“Young” is a relative term..
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