Another court victory for Michael Mann and climate science

There's been another victory for science and climate scientists everywhere. In case you missed it, Michael Mann is suing for defamation, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals has just now removed yet another obstacle some of the alleged defamers put in his way.

Acting with reckless disregard

The decision is worth reading. One of the key paragraphs is, as Professor Mann wrote on his Facebook page:

" [The defendants' statement that] Dr. Mann has engaged in misconduct has been so definitively discredited, a reasonable jury could, if it so chooses, doubt the veracity of appellants’ claimed honest belief in that very notion. A jury could find, by clear and convincing evidence, that appellants “in fact entertained serious doubts” or had a “high degree of awareness” that the accusations that Dr. Mann engaged in scientific misconduct, fraud, and deception, were false, and, as a result, acted “with reckless disregard” for the statements’ truth when they were published." (p. 101)

Michael Mann is suing the following for defamation based on articles appearing on websites: Mark Steyn, The Competitive Enterprise Institute, Rand Simberg, and The National Review, Inc. All but Mark Steyn tried to get the case tossed under Anti-SLAPP Act. They tried this in a trial court and lost, so took it to the Appeals Court, where Michael Mann prevailed again.

The way is now cleared for Professor Mann to pursue his case for defamation.

This week governments try for a sane response while some in the climate world went a little bit mad

Today is the day when COP21 is hoping to finalise the climate change agreement. The meeting was extended by a day, with many people remaining hopeful that a meaningful agreement will be reached. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put out a press release saying that while there were still some important issues to be resolved, there has been considerable progress.

The latest draft can be downloaded here. As at the time of writing, it's Draft 2. (You can compare it with Draft 1 to see the progress in negotiations. Where the brackets have been removed it signifies agreement was reached on that point.)

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UPDATE: I've just seen that the final text has been agreed. I'll let you know as soon as it's available - or you can keep an eye on the UN website. There's a press conference scheduled for 11:30 am CET today - Saturday (Europe time).

Sou 2:23 pm AEDT 12 December 2015

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This week there was real silliness from deniers and from people campaigning to stop climate change.

Vicious attacks on Michael Mann: More smears from Mark Steyn and Anthony Watts' lynch mob

Today Anthony Watts is promoting Mark Steyn's last ditch attempt to discredit one of the world's leading climate scientists. Professor Michael Mann is Distinguished Professor of Meteorology and Director, Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. Mark Steyn is an ex-smut columnist turned smut blogger, who arguably viciously defamed Professor Michael Mann (any others?) and is now being sued by Professor Mann. Anthony Watts is a blogger who promotes climate conspiracy theories of the ugly kind, and falsely accuses scientists of fraud and more.

Note: I've added an addendum about the contents of the book below. [Sou 7:52 pm 13 August 2015]

The Hockey Stick

In 1998 a paper by Professors Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes was published in Nature - hereafter called MBH98. The paper had the title: "Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries".  In that paper was a figure that was to become a symbol of global warming, even getting a name - the hockey stick. Below is Figure 5b, the Hockey Stick, from MBH98:

Figure 5 Time reconstructions (solid lines) along with raw data (dashed lines). ... b, for Northern Hemisphere mean temperature (NH) in 8C. In both cases, the zero line corresponds to the 1902–80 calibration mean of the quantity. For b raw data are shown up to 1995 and positive and negative 2j uncertainty limits are shown by the light dotted lines surrounding the solid reconstruction, calculated as described in the Methods section. Source: MBH98.

Judith Curry and George Brandis on Free Speech

I don't have much to say about the fact that Judith Curry seems to have embraced Mark Steyn (archived here), who is being sued for defamation. Judith says with her usual carefully ambiguous wording that: Mark Steyn has written a remarkable defense of free speech.

All I will say is that I do not want to live in a society that allows people to tell lies about others to such an extent that it ruins their professional or personal reputation.  That's why most societies have laws protecting people from this.

Freedom of speech came at a big cost to past generations and there are some societies where it still doesn't exist.  Those people who gave their lives for it would be turning in their graves to know how it's being abused by some people today.  The right to free speech also carries responsibility.  (I'm all for freedom and I do think it's important to distinguish between giving offence and causing unwarranted and undeserved harm.  That distinction seems to be blurred in the mind of some of the most vocal people who complain they aren't permitted to freely libel and slander others, but take offence when other people exercise their right to free speech and criticise them in turn).

I'll also refer to the attitude to free speech that I encountered on Hot Copper, which describes this situation.  In my view it's probably not that different to that of some of the loudest yobbos yelling for the freedom to say whatever they want whenever they want and where ever they want, regardless of the veracity or consequences.  But when someone else rightly corrects what they say, they shriek that their free speech is being hampered and political debate is being "shut down".

Excuse me?  Didn't I just read you speaking freely (though illogically, certainly politically), Senator Brandis?

Here's the list of items George Brandis wants discussed at Question Time in Parliament (nearly forgot the /sarc tag):

• Debate the pros and cons of gravity.
• Is earth really flat?
• When did life on earth begin - 4,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago or 11,000 years ago?
• Are germs really that important for human health?
• Tobacco smoking and health benefits.

Taxpayer-funded fake sceptics - public confession time

Seems that not only will Australian taxpayers be forking out for adaptation and recuperation instead of mitigation, now we're paying science deniers.  The Institute for Public Affairs - arguably Australia's number one climate science denial machine, gets subsidised by taxpayers in all sorts of ways.

It's used the taxpayer-funded ABC as its own personal free publisher and public relations organisation.  It gets a free pass on paying taxes.  And anyone who sends it money gets a tax deduction for doing so.

This, mind you, is a right wing lobby group that rants and raves about government overspending, government subsidies and urges small government.  You'd think the last thing it would be doing is wasting our hard earned tax dollars.  But no.  Apparently it's a matter of "do what we say not what we do".  They survive with the help of taxpayer's contributions and tax breaks.

Now it's got a new scam going.  On the back of a who's who of science denying shysters, the IPC is threatening offering to publish for all the world to see, the names of anyone dumb enough to send them $400 or more to chop down trees to make door stops - or loo paper if you're extra tough.

It looks as if they can't get a publisher to pay for their trashy book so they have to resort to panhandling. You can read all about it here at Renew Economy.

I can't wait to see who are the most disreputable among the Establishment, who are willing to tattoo their names on the backside of such disreputable ratbags as Andrew Bolt, James Delingpole, Donna Laframboise, Mark Steyn,  Nigel Lawson. "Jo Nova", Jennifer Marohasy, Richard Lindzen, Anthony Watts, Ian Plimer, Bob Carter and other climate science deniers from Australia and around the world.

Anthony Watts trips over his feet (in mouth) in his haste to stomp on Michael Mann

Anthony Watts of WUWT is full of blunders today.  First some science-related blunders now a legal blunder. As readers know from previously, US law is not something I'm familiar with but it reads to me as if poor old Anthony has got it wrong again. (Confirmed!)

Anthony wrote gleefully, popcorn in the popper (archived here):

What a great Christmas present for Mike. It is back to square one for him with his lawsuit over what he views as libel by Mark Steyn and CEI.

Poor old Anthony is going to be dreadfully disappointed.  He thinks that the appeals court overturned the previous court ruling.  But it didn't.  Anthony wrote:

Since the previous ruling this summer that said the lawsuit could go ahead was nothing less than a bad legal joke: ...Mann-Steyn lawsuit judge inverts the defendants actions, botches ruling…that ruling has now been nullified by a higher appeals court ruling, Mann’s case will now have to start over.  This new ruling seems pretty blunt. They basically accepted the ACLU amicus brief as fact, saying:

ORDERED, sua sponte, that the Clerk shall file the ACLU’s lodged amicus curiae response as its response.

The appeal was granted with no caveats or exceptions, suggesting that the appeals court views the decision by that wacky judge Natalia M. Combs Greene (now retired) this summer as being very badly flawed, much like the hockey stick itself.

Anthony's wrong.  The appeals court didn't overturn anything let alone "with no caveats or exceptions".  No appeal was granted. On the contrary, some appeals were dismissed. Nor did it accept any amicus curiae as fact.  It only ordered that various amici curiae be filed.

From the The Court of Appeals Order - it  "considered" various bits and pieces relating to Michael Manns lawsuit against Mark Steyn and various parties.  It ruled that:

• The ACLU's amicus curiae be filed
• The amicus curiae submitted by Reporters for Freedom of the Press (whoever they may be - they are supporting the appellant, Mark Steyn) and umpteen others, and the supplement to it be filed
• Michael Mann's opposition to the appeal and Mark Steyn's response to the opposition be filed
• The appeals by Mark Steyn etc be dismissed because Michael Mann amended his complaint, so the appeals are moot.  They've subsequently lodged new appeals which remain pending.
• The dismissal of the appeals doesn't prevent the appellants from lodging new appeals.

Anthony Watts is acting like a goose again!

I'd say there is nothing to see there.  It's nothing more than legal housekeeping. Anthony Watts is acting like a goose (again).