Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli's AGW Witch Hunt Continues 341
eldavojohn writes "A letter from Representative Edward Markey outlines Ken Cuccinelli's latest civil investigative demand targeting 39 people instead of just Michael Mann. You may recall that the original investigation was quashed by a judge, but the latest request demands records from people seemingly unrelated to Mann, including an Indian glaciologist. The Bad Astronomer calls Cuccinelli out in a similar manner and lists Cuccinelli's doubts about Mann's papers, including, 'Specifically, but without limitation, some of the conclusions of the papers demonstrate a complete lack of rigor regarding the statistical analysis of the alleged data, meaning that the result reported lacked statistical significance without a specific statement to that effect.' The school that hosted the research announced the new investigation, and the Union of Concerned Scientists accuses him of harassing scientists."
I Left Out The Best Part (Score:5, Interesting)
The litigation has so far cost the university $352,874.76, Wood said, adding that the fees have been paid for from private funds.
And that's just legal fees from the university's side of things, the state itself has its own costs to look at for the first investigation and I'm sure many people are spending hours handling this. So you might be wondering what the original research that Mann did cost the university? Answer: under $500,000. So with this latest round of litigation, the Attorney General -- who is championing this effort under the guise of protecting tax payer dollars -- will force the state of Virginia to pay up again.
When I submitted this, I was hoping to find some news of this latest round from the more conservative press (Fox News, Washington Times) instead of the more liberal (New York Times, Washington Post) but there's nothing from that side of the spectrum. I think a local paper put it best in an editorial entitled Cuccinelli Needs to Cut Our Losses [hamptonroads.com].
Re:What? Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
AGW = Anthropogenic Global Warming. In other words, climate change brought about by human activities.
The Virginia Attorney General is acting like a total douchebag because he can't give up his fight against AGW (could be because he *looks* like a total douchebag).
Re:No the way to do it (Score:3, Interesting)
I just don't understand how a movie (which I haven't seen, I guess, so I can't really judge) can be thousands of times worse than what Cuccinelli's doing. One is a bit of free speech that people are capable of ignoring if they desire. The other cannot be ignored, since it's couched in the auspices of the courts and the Office of the Attorney General - ignoring it may mean fines, contempt citations, obstruction of justice charges, etc.
What Cuccinelli's doing is thousands of times worse than the 10:10 movie.
If it is the "movie"(it was actually a commercial for a new "no pressure" campaign) I saw on youtube, then the 10:10 spots were advocating killing those who fail to conform to the forced reductions of greenhouse gases. Now if incitement to violence(actual, not couched in slang or idioms) isn't worse than a lawyer asking some questions, I'd love to know what planet you live on. But hey, only crazy right wingers are violent [huffingtonpost.com]
Don't bet against Cuccinelli (Score:4, Interesting)
The man's a brilliant lawyer. I've read a number of opinions he offered as AG. They are uniformly well argued, even when I wish the conclusions were otherwise. Worse, from the perspective of those who support Mann, Cuccinelli thoroughly analyzes the relevant law and doesn't misinterpret it to fit his preconceptions. Unlike former Virginia AG's, I didn't find a single example where I said, "No, that's obviously not what the law you just quoted means."
If Mann cut any corners, Cuccinelli will crucify him.
Re:Back to the actual Science... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's really hard to do validation without the source data... Also, it's really hard to do validation on extrapolations done by computer models. In addition, it's really hard to do validation on climate (which changes on a scale of 10s of thousands of years) with a few hundred years of decent data and only about 100 of good data.
That's why science is based on experiments that are repeatable, not on computer models. I wouldn't believe in nuclear power either if we didn't have several examples of working reactors. If someone just said, "based on my computer model, U235 should undergo fission in a controlled process", I wouldn't be the first in line to bet on it. The computer model may be correct, but it also might be incomplete or have a high degree of unaccounted for variables.
Re:Don't bet against Cuccinelli (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately for Mann the new case hinges on an issue of fact - the statistical validity of the analysis - that lies deep in Mann's territory. He has to demonstrate fraud on Mann's part, as fundimental requisite of the statute this brilliant lawyer somehow forgot when he filed his first case. There's years of evidence and hundreds of researchers, going back to the original peer review, which have viewed it as being made in good will. What's the plan here? Hire some pseuds and try to bullshit the audience into believing Mann's stats were not bad, but deliberately cooked? It's nonsense.
Re:I Left Out The Best Part (Score:2, Interesting)
You only have to look at McIntyre & McIntrick's generation of hockey-sticks with red noise to see that Mann doesn't have a fucking clue what he's doing (or if he's so clever, perhaps he does - which is even more worrying).
M&M's work has yet to be recreated by anyone not using their code. Not to mention that almost all other reconstruction, including those not even remotely using Mann's way of doing it basically come up with a hockey-stick. The only way to avoid it is to stop the graph in the 1930s (or earlier) or fudge the data.
Re:I Left Out The Best Part (Score:3, Interesting)
He is committing barratry [wikipedia.org] a misdemeanor under Virginia law (according to the Wiki article).
Re:WHOOSH - The 10:10 movie was comedy! (Score:3, Interesting)
Look, it's like this: people are going to die due to global warming. This is a fact. If we do not cut back on our CO2 emissions, more people will die.
Whether or not this is a certainty is debatable, but the chance of AGW resulting in loss of human life is magnitudes less than that of reducing dependence on foreign oil. Why?
Thermal Nuclear War.
Those oil-producing places aren't exactly the most stable politically, are they? Causing them to have less money will, certainly, lead to loss of life.
So you explode Ted, which you didn't necessarily have to do, and juxtapose that to the possibility that some humans are screwed either way. Whether we cut back or not, that's a highly unstable situation.
And it's still not funny.
Re:How do you know what is real? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Back to the actual Science... (Score:3, Interesting)
Which interestingly climate "scientists" are reluctant to make available.
Also, it's really hard to do validation on extrapolations done by computer models.
Without knowing exactly what the program does (which can require more than just the source code) you can't really tell much.
In addition, it's really hard to do validation on climate (which changes on a scale of 10s of thousands of years) with a few hundred years of decent data and only about 100 of good data.
Even the more recent data need not be good data. There are incidents like people making up temperatures in the Arctic rather than risk a polar bear eating them... There are also problems with using data gathered for a different purpose. Notably that from airports intended to be of use for aviation purposes. This is likely to be compounded when good and bad data (with different levels of precision) gets "homogenized".
That's why science is based on experiments that are repeatable, not on computer models. I wouldn't believe in nuclear power either if we didn't have several examples of working reactors. If someone just said, "based on my computer model, U235 should undergo fission in a controlled process", I wouldn't be the first in line to bet on it. The computer model may be correct, but it also might be incomplete or have a high degree of unaccounted for variables.
In practice U235 can undergo either controlled fission, uncontrolled fission or no fission dependent on a great many factors.
A car hitting a wall would probably be much easier to model than the climate system of a planet. (In practice you might need to also model solar fusion processes and planetary orbits.) Currently we still crash real cars containing the most human like mannequins we can come up with...
Re:How do you know what is real? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Chairman of the National Research Council also agreed with Wegman.
He did? Certainly not in this Q&A. The final question sums it all up: