Just in time – Mike Mann’s letter to the Wall Street Journal is published, just as I upload my new “Hockey Stick” themed video – below. Some days everything just clicks into place….
Every snowflake is unique, but attacks on climate science all seem the same. I should know. I’ve been one of the climate contrarians’ preferred targets for years.
A recent op-ed on this page by blogger and climate-change denier James Delingpole attacked the “hockey stick” graph my co-authors and I published more than a decade ago with well-worn, discredited arguments (“Climategate 2.0,” Nov. 28).
Our original work showed that average temperatures today are higher than they have been for at least the past 1,000 years. Since then, dozens of analyses from other scientists based on different data and methods have all affirmed and extended our original findings.
Contrarians have nonetheless painted a misleading picture of climate science as a house of cards teetering on the edge of a hockey stick. In reality, my research is just one piece in a vast puzzle scientists have painstakingly assembled over the past 200 years establishing the reality of human-caused climate change.
Does that mean that everyone should have to drive an electric car and adopt a polar bear? Of course not. Policy decisions must balance matters of economics, international diplomacy and ethics in a way that is informed, rather than prescribed, by science.
In 2006, then-Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R., N.Y.) asked the National Academy of Sciences to look into studies like the hockey stick. It affirmed our conclusions.
Many fossil-fuel interests and their allies are following the same attack-the-science strategy that tobacco companies adopted to delay smoking regulation. Climate scientists can also find kinship with Dr. Herbert Needleman, who identified a link between lead contamination and impaired childhood brain development in the 1970s. The lead industry accused him of misconduct. Later, the National Institutes of Health exonerated him.
Climate science must be some “socialist conspiracy” when the WSJ is giving Michael Mann a platform 🙂
“Every snowflake is unique, but attacks on climate science all seem the same.”
Underscoring Michael Mann’s point, the denial rapid response army overwhelmed the reader comments with recycled attacks.
It’s a pity Peter had no space to report some other bits of Mann’s letter, for example Recent reports of police expenditures suggest they may be devoting far fewer resources to it than other similar investigations.
This is a true gem as those “recent reports” are due to…FOIA requests! Never mind…if Mann has its way with his emails, we’ll never see reports of police expenditures ever again.
ps perhaps people are right in admiring Mann, he’s everything and its opposite at the same time, in the same letter.
What, Mann is not allowed to track public information because he was a victim of FOIA harassment, is that your brilliant point, Maurizio Morabito (omnologos) ??
Even if your claim that Mann used a FOIA request to get information is true, the fact that you can’t tell the difference between a proper use of such a request, and the overuse of such a request in order to harass a scientist for craven political purposes, doesn’t say much for your ‘omnicompetency’ but sure is illuminative of your spiteful denialist advocacy.
Roger – you’re still struggling with Google Search. A pity isn’t it. In the meanwhile it wasn’t Mann the one sensitive FOI requests to the police (perish the thought!). What is truly funny is the juxtaposition of Mann using FOI extracted info to criticize the police, with Mann refusing to release any of his emails for any reason. I say, the guy is misinformed and too ready for a fight.
“Sending” not “sensitive”
And you miss the point once again.
Roger – let me know if you need instructions on how to google “omnology”. Albeit of you do it’s unlikely you’ll understand the concept.