Although the data for December has not yet been added in, it
is clear that 2013 has turned out to be one
of the warmest years on record – for global
temperatures. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) has
ranked it the fourth warmest. This is additionally significant, as 2011 and 2012
had not been as warm overall. Temperatures may be on the rise once more.
Of course, unlike the naysayers who pretend that it isn’t
happening, one keeps an open mind and considers the data, and the science,
rather than saying it definitely is
warming, full stop. And in the field of science, one of the biggest hitters is
Michael Mann, which may explain why he is also a favourite target of those who
don’t want to listen. But here too, those saying it isn’t happening are not
faring well.
As
Mother Jones recalls, “In 2012—after writers for National
Review and a prominent conservative
think tank accused him of fraud and compared him to serial child molester Jerry
Sandusky—climate scientist Michael Mann took the bold step of filing a
defamation suit”. Mann’s chief accuser was Mark Steyn, “a prominent conservative pundit who
regularly fills in as host of Rush Limbaugh's radio show”.
James “saviour of
Western civilisation” Delingpole was
on the case like a shot: “I don't
think Mann is going to win his case, not for one fraction of a millisecond ... there's
about as much chance of his defending the integrity of his ludicrous, comedy ‘Hockey
Stick’ curve as there is of George Galloway winning the Random Stranger I'd
Feel Most Safe Sharing A Bed With While Completely Fast Asleep award”.
Well, Steyn has just tried to get Mann’s case thrown out,
and failed. So where is Del Boy now? Not commenting on Mann and Steyn, but
getting himself in hot water talking
guff about gender stereotypes, is what he’s at right now (Foz
Meadows’ dismantling of Del’s article for the Express – he’s going well downmarket there – makes for interesting reading).
One might expect Steyn to be getting more support if he’s in
the right, but he’s already parted company with the National Review, and the lawyers representing both of them have
withdrawn. Anthony Watts, like Delingpole, scoffs
at the idea of Mann winning his case, partly because of the high bar that
must be cleared to prove deliberate defamation, but all attempts to throw the
case out have failed.
That Delingpole is “looking
over there” instead of commenting on the Steyn case should surprise nobody:
the tactic used by Steyn has been copied by Del Boy, who has taken to comparing
wind power advocates to Jimmy Savile. The thought may have entered that
some on this side of the North Atlantic, whom Delingpole has routinely abused,
may turn out to be as unimpressed as Mann.
After all, making
paedophile comparisons for fun is bang out of order.
28 comments:
Am I the only one to find it odd that Steyn tried to have the case thrown out instead of embracing this as an opportunity to really show the world how crooked Mann was? Or maybe Steyn realises that the game is up. He and his partners really don't have any evidence of fraud other than their own allegations on the abysmal blogs they all inhabit.
The case should be thrown out because of the First Amendment. It is out of principle, not personal convenience, that Steyn et al. should have the case dismissed.
As for evidence, take a look at the last 15 years of data. Or talk to Richard Lindzen, Judith Curry, et al. I'm sure they have plenty of evidence.
The key here is "on record". I'm not surprised that this blogger left out the fact that this is only recorded back to 1880.
But don't let the alarmism get in the way of that fact.
Even worse, this blogger quotes the thorough dishonest Mother Jones statement that Steyn compared Mann to Sandusky with "... compared [Mann] to serial child molester Jerry Sandusky..."
In fact Steyn compared the whitewash of Sandusky with the whitewash of Mann, and this was expressly confirmed by Judge Weissberg in his recent decision.
Thanks again Mr. Internet for your ongoing demonstration that a lefty's first instinct is to lie, and he must be bludgeoned with the truth.
Comments may be published even if they are verging on the utterly batshit, and contain suggestions of violence.
Oh bless. The WUWT crowd has put in an appearance. However, I am sure that Mr Steyn will bring up the no doubt valid points you raise (sarcasm detectors on)at the trial.
You must be looking forward to it.
Ashie apparently knows little about the costs of litigation, or the concept of "waived arguments". One MUST, in the US legal system, at least attempt to get the case thrown out. If one fails to make the attempt in a timely fashion, one loses the arguments that would have the case dismissed.
Further, the failure of the judge to dismiss a case simply means that the judge cannot say now, as a matter of law and undisputed facts (the key word is "undisputed") that Steyn MUST win. In this respect, the judge is probably right about the “fraud” part. But I agree with “Anonymous”; it is impossible under First Amendment law to find that Mann is not a public figure. But I am not a lawyer.
However, I am a paleoclimatologist, so I know (as does everyone in the field) that Mann's hockey stick is wrong. Everyone also knows the reasons why Mann got it wrong (he made some very bad statistics mistakes). The Earth was a bit warmer in the Medieval as now, as well as in the Roman and Minoan warm periods. It was much warmer in the Pliocene. The models explain none of this. Thus, the science is most definitely not "settled".
Further, as a scientist, I am quite annoyed by (a) the politicization of the science (Gore has destroyed the self-correcting feature of real climate science, as indicated by the “nah nah nah nah” tone of the Zelo) and (b) the refusal by Mann to do what all of the rest of us must do, release his data. Which is why I am sending Steyn money to help him out. I will pay to learn how Mann got it so wrong. We already have seen how the University of East Anglia did (via Climategate).
None of this addresses the key point: If there is warming, is it caused by human activity. The Statists want to use climate science as a club to redistribute wealth and regulate behavior for reasons which have nothing to do with the climate. That is the real issue.
Meanwhile, January is going into the record books as the coldest month in America in 100 years according to the Daily Mail Newspaper, UK. Gee.
Thus displacing milder air elsewhere. And Australia is experiencing record high temperatures. It is known as *global* warming for a reason.
[The Daily Mail is not known for even-handed and accurate reporting. Falsehood and misinformation is much more its style]
Well, dear anonymous palaeoclimatologist, it should be very easy to prove what you say in court if everyone in the field knows it and can prove it. Yet another reason for the case to go ahead, no?
It should be a piece of cake for Steyn with "everyone in the field" to back him up.
Climategate....oh dear. Troll, troll, troll.
The last 17 years...I must be blind..Can't see the trend...
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2014/01/Hadcrut4-from-1997.jpg
"After all, making paedophile comparisons for fun is bang out of order."
Yeah, and making Holocaust denier comparisons for fun is not?
Seriously, do you want a world where the Koch brothers can tie anyone down with years of litigation because they were accused of "raping" the planet?
As a blogger how can you not see this tactic can be used to shut down or intimidate anyone who challenges the system, not just people you disagree with?
This post, as can be seen, does not use the words "denier" or "denial".
But even if it had used those words, using them without the word "Holocaust" does not make Holocaust denier comparisons.
Next!
I was referring to Mann's use of denier. And Steyn never used the word paedophile, or compared him to one if we adopt your standard.
As a follow-up I am surprised. As a Brit I thought you would share Steyn's disdain for Americans' love of litigation rather than rough and tumble debate. Even if you disdain his politics or personality,
"The Statists want to use climate science as a club to redistribute wealth and regulate behavior for reasons which have nothing to do with the climate. "
I love the way deniers can say this, and at the same time that AGW science is "Politicised."
The thing is, with then recent sun activity (you know - that big yellow ball in the sky that people like Mann think has no effect on climate) we are much more likely to see significant global cooling over the next century rather than warming. Get out your animal skins.
Oh your aim must have been spot on today Tim!
@PJ. I leave where I began. The sceptics/deniers(!) have for years described AGW as a fraud, a scam and a hoax. And the hockey stick has been attacked more than anything else. Finally you/they will all be able to pile into court with their evidence. I do not understand why the WUWT crowd will not size this opportunity with both hands. Maybe it's a bit more difficult to actually produce anything resembling evidence when more than a blog post is needed.
I really don’t know about AGW or ‘change’ or whatever. The statistics, field data to get a good read on the situation is very difficult, and the earth is not a static system.
But I do find it strange that ‘the Left’, to which this blogger obviously belongs, is whole hog for mass immigration. After all, there is no doubt that adding population to developed countries will increase carbon emissions. The Romanian worker who ups sticks and settles in the UK is consuming far more of everything, including fossil fuels, than in Romania. This goes double for migrants from the ‘developing’ world. And of course there are other, far more concrete deleterious environmental effects, such as the need to build hundreds of thousands to millions of new housing units.
I leave out the effects of mass immigration on the native-born (particularly white) working class (lower wages, neighborhoods turned completely alien), as it is obvious the Left has told them to sod-off decades ago.
Hey, I noticed a funny thing. You tend to have the warmest years on record, GLOBALLY, if you just skip winter!
The emails from CRU/Hadley were only half of the hack. The other half included a climate model in which the programmer did not understand the science, and Mann's Hockey Stick could ONLY be recreated by a vector in the OUTPUT of the program (i.e. a conclusion in search of an argument).
In one email sent to Mann and others, CRU director Philip Jones speaks of the "trick" of filling in gaps of data in order to hide evidence of temperature decline:
"I've just completed Mike's nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (i.e. from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline (in global temperatures)," the email read.
It was that attempt to "hide the decline" through the manipulation of data that helped bring down the global warming house of cards.
The graph created by professor Mann and his colleagues carefully selected and manipulated tree-ring data to supposedly prove that air temperatures had been stable for 900 years, then soared off the charts — in a pattern resembling a hockey stick — in the 20th century due to man-made greenhouse gases. Mann et al. performed the neat trick of making the Medieval Warm Period (about A.D. 800 to 1400) and the Little Ice Age (A.D. 1600 to 1850) statistically disappear.
The graph relied on data from trees on the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia. Here too the data were carefully selected. Data from just 12 trees from the 252 cores in the CRU Yamal data set were used.
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A larger data set of 34 tree cores from the vicinity showed no dramatic recent warming, and warmer temperatures in the Middle Ages. They were not included.
If by liberal, you mean "progressive", it is an oxymoron to use it in the same sentence as "independent". Progs push for liberty-reducing, soul-crushing dependence on the state. It isn't whether or not the climate is warmed by humans ( it isn't ), it's the hateful, religious fervor displayed by the usual suspects.
As I said yesterday, "Oh bless. The WUWT crowd has put in an appearance". And they've gone for it big time. I find it difficult to believe that they are all Zelo readers and just felt the urge to post on this particular topic. So well done to whoever publicised this. Tim's hits must have gone through the roof.
You might wish to speculate thus. I couldn't possibly comment.
A slight correction to the original post. The NOAA temperature data set ranked 2013 as the fourth warmest year, not the third. To avoid any possibility of cherry-picking, the complete rankings of the data sets for 2013 are as follows:
NOAA/NCDC: 4th warmest
HadCRUT4: 8th warmest
NASA GISS: 7th warmest
UAH: 7th warmest
RSS: 10th warmest
Re: Delingpole and Mann, Delingpole wrote a pretty funny column about 'warmers' such as Mann misrepresenting and exaggerating things 'deniers' say and Mann's initial response was to tweet that Delingpole had called for his death.
Saying that Mann shouldn't be in Pen State but the State pen, writing a column about the hyperbolic representations of the quips of deniers by warmers gets you sued and claimed that you called for someone's death. Leaving aside science, there's little question Mann is no expert on communication.
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