Days after it emerged that the University of Virginia has hired a law firm to consider its options regarding the state's attorney general's investigation of climatologist Michael Mann, 800 of the state's scientists and academics have written a letter to Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli opposing the probe:
From a website called The Hook they report:
Now, it appears, he may be preparing a legal assault on an embattled proponent of global warming theory who used to teach at the University of Virginia, Michael Mann.
In papers sent to UVA April 23, Cuccinelli’s office commands the university to produce a sweeping swath of documents relating to Mann’s receipt of nearly half a million dollars in state grant-funded climate research conducted while Mann— now director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State— was at UVA between 1999 and 2005.
If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.
“Since it’s public money, there’s enough controversy to look in to the possible manipulation of data,” says Dr. Charles Battig, president of the nonprofit Piedmont Chapter Virginia Scientists and Engineers for Energy and Environment, a group that doubts the underpinnings of climate change theory.
Mann is one of the lead authors of the controversial “hockey stick graph,” which contends that global temperatures have experienced a sudden and unprecedented upward spike (like the shape of a hockey stick).
The AAAS has issued a letter commenting on this probe and they state:
In April 2010, the Attorney General of Virginia, Kenneth Cuccinelli, launched an investigation of climate researcher Professor Michael Mann, currently the Director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Mr. Cuccinelli’s investigation, unless based on a much more substantial body of evidence than is apparent, could inappropriately inhibit the free exchange of scientific findings and ideas and thus limit the progress of science. The investigation, under Virginia’s Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, seeks very detailed information about five grants for climate change research in which Professor Mann was involved while serving on the University of Virginia faculty from 1999-2005....In the majority of cases, scientific is agreements are unrelated to any kind of fraud and are considered a legitimate and normal part of the process of scientific progress. The scientific community takes seriously their responsibility for policing scientific misconduct, and extensive procedures exist to ensure the credibility of the research enterprise. Unless founded on some openly discussed evidence of potential misconduct, investigations such as that targeting Professor Mann could have a long-lasting and chilling effect on a broad spectrum of research fields that are critical to a range of national interests from public health to national security to the environment. Unless more clearly justified, Attorney General Cuccinelli’s apparently political action should be withdrawn.
In some ways this is akin to the David Baltimore case and Congressman Dingell back in the 1990s. Yet it is fundamentally different. In that case there was no significant compelling interest on the part of the public. The Mann data is being used as the basis for major shifts in money from the public to the Government and the basis of this shift should be aired because it perforce of Mann's actions has been drawn into the public discussion of the making of our laws. One can see that these actions may actually be justified albeit a bit heavy handed. State funds were used to perform work whose results will cause major public policy changes and should be aired. The problem will be who will air what and when.
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