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By Michael Sluss
CHARLOTTESVILLE
University of Virginia lawyers asked a judge Friday to deny Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli's demand for documents related to the work of a former U.Va. climate scientist, arguing that it represents a "stunning assault" on academic freedom.
The courtroom clash was the latest round in a legal battle that began when Cuccinelli issued a "civil investigative demand" to the university as part of an investigation targeting former professor Michael Mann, a climate scientist who now works at Penn State University. The university initially indicated it would comply with Cuccinelli's demand but ultimately filed a court petition to fight the order.
After hearing arguments, Judge Paul Peatross said Friday that he will issue a ruling within 10 days.
Cuccinelli's demand for e-mails and other correspondence from the university has triggered a backlash from academics who consider the tactic an assault on academic freedom. Some have accused the attorney general of waging an ideological battle as part of a broader challenge to the science behind global warming.
The attorney general's office has indicated it is investigating "possible violations" of the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act by Mann in obtaining five research grants while at U.Va., where Mann worked from 1999 to 2005. The demand, similar to a subpoena, seeks documents related to the grants as well as e-mails and other correspondence between Mann and certain research scientists and between Mann and university research assistants, secretaries and administrative staff.
Chuck Rosenberg, a Washington attorney retained by the university, argued Friday that Cuccinelli did not specifically allege conduct that raised the prospect of fraud.
Deputy Attorney General Wesley Russell said his office wants to determine whether Mann included information based on "manipulated data" to apply for research grants. Cuccinelli, a U.Va. alumnus, has tied his demand for documents to a controversy created last year when e-mails stolen from a British university were used by global warming skeptics to argue that climate change research had been exaggerated.
Mann is one of the authors of the so-called "hockey stick" graph that depicts sharply rising global temperatures in the last century. One of the stolen e-mails referenced a "statistical trick" in his research. Inquiries have produced no findings that he manipulated data.
The university asserted in court papers that Cuccinelli's demand is "certain to send a chill" through the state's colleges. Russell said accepting that argument is "essentially licensing university researchers to engage in fraud."
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Scientists need to tow the line
Scientists need to tow the line and make sure that their research falls within the bounds of politically and religiously authorized dogma. Look only to the past for guidance. Galileo's championing of Copernicanism was controversial within his lifetime, when a large majority of philosophers and astronomers still subscribed to the geocentric view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe. After 1610, when he began publicly supporting the heliocentric view, which placed the Sun at the centre of the universe, he met with bitter opposition from some philosophers and clerics, and two of the latter eventually denounced him to the Roman Inquisition early in 1615. In February 1616, although he had been cleared of any offence, the Catholic Church nevertheless condemned heliocentrism as "false and contrary to Scripture",[10] and Galileo was warned to abandon his support for it—which he promised to do. When he later defended his views in his most famous work, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, published in 1632, he was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy," forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
UVA Climate Data Suit
If the research funding was stopped, the global warming problem would disappear.
The hottest year on record
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data showing that, from January to July, the average global temperature was 58.1 degrees. That was 1.22 degrees over the average from the 20th century, and making this the hottest year on record. Russia just experienced its hottest summer on record with temperatures 14 degrees above normal causing fires and droughts that destroyed 25% of their wheat crop. An iceberg four times the size of Manhattan just broke off of a glacier in Greenland. Scientists at MIT estimate that we will increase global temperatures 4-7 degrees by the end of this century. We are warming the earth, my friends, and the coal and oil companies will do anything to keep this awareness from the American people.
Don't bother
Don't bother trying to debate Chris33. You might as well debate your fax machine.
academics from the
academics from the University of Illinois, conducted a survey consisting of an online questionnaire of nine questions. The scientists approached were listed in the 2007 edition of the American Geological Institute's Directory of Geoscience Departments.
Two questions were key: Have mean global temperatures risen compared to pre-1800s levels, and has human activity been a significant factor in changing mean global temperatures?
About 90 percent of the scientists agreed with the first question and 82 percent the second.
The strongest consensus on the causes of global warming came from climatologists who are active in climate research, with 97 percent agreeing humans play a role.
"compared to pre-1800s levels" Gee, let me think
Have temperatures increased compared to what is historically known as the "Little Ice Age?" That would be a yes. Temperatures generally rise as Ice Ages end. Even little ones.
The better question would have been "are temperatures higher now than in any pre-industrial era?" They simply aren't. Both the Roman Warm period (appx 100BC to 400AD) and the Medieval Warm Period (appx 800 to 1200AD) were significantly warmer than today, and were so for centuries.
Must have been all those chariot emissions.
In addition, the evidence is
In addition, the evidence is that although PARTS of the globe were warmer during the so-called Medieval Warming Period, the temperature increase was NOT global in nature. Simply put, there is no evidence that temperatures GLOBALLY were warmer back then than they are today.
In parts of the North Atlantic, southern Greenland, the Eurasian Arctic, and parts of North America, temps likely WERE warmer back during the MWP. In other areas, however, temps were noticeably cooler--.central Eurasia, northwestern North America, and the tropical Pacific, for instance.
Remember, we are talking about GLOBAL warming, not just VIKING warming. Perhaps we should call it "Leif Ericson warming," after the Viking explorer who took advantage of warm temps to visit Canada.
I'd think you'd know better
I'd think you'd know better than this by now.
I'll remind you, once again: EVEN IF ONE TAKES MANN'S RESEARCH OUT OF CONSIDERATION, the conclusion remains the same: (1) several published studies--NOT Mann--supported by data confirm Mann's original conclusion that the last few decades are the hottest on record in the last 1300 years; and (2) the magnitude of temperature increase recently shows that the hockey stick is indeed NOT broken.
Several times you have been asked to come up with an explanation for the demonstrably sharp increase in magnitude, and all I have gotten is the online equivalent of silence [I was thinking of writing "crickets" instead of "silence", but why drag them into this? They didn't do anything wrong].
Where on the University of Illinois' website is this study
How many scientist where on that list?
How many scientist responded to the survey?
What does significant mean? If you are talking about a billion dollar account and there is an error of $20,000 then that is not significant. If you are talking about a hundred thousand dollar account then $20,000 is significant.
If you are talking about 1.22 degrees then how much of the 1.22 is man caused?
Were the mean temperatures in the 1800s measured with electronic sensors or by eyeball to reading the mercury in a thermometer?
How does an HONEST scientist say that the measurements by relatively primitive equipment from the 1800s equal to the precision electronic sensurs in use today?
I know you will not answer, but try to rational the insanity.
Let me guess...
Did this information come from reaganbushdebt.org or glenbeckisanazi.org?