This is getting old. Completing yet another investigation of the co-author of a seminal study of the 1,000-year temperature record (commonly referred to as the “Hockey Stick”), the National Science Foundation Inspector General concluded: “Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed.” But don’t waste your breath telling that to global warming denialist Rick Perry, oil-money governor of Texas and would-be president.
See Joe Romm, Climate Progress: Climate Secret: NSF Quietly Closes Out Inspector General Investigation with Complete Vindication of Michael Mann
Two things we know with extremely high confidence:
1. Recent warming is unprecedented in magnitude and speed and cause (so the temperature history looks like a Hockey Stick).
2. Michael Mann, the lead author on the original Hockey Stick paper, is one of the nation’s top climatologists and a source of first-rate analysis.
We know these things because both the Hockey Stick and Mann have been independently investigated and vindicated more times than any other facet of climate science or any other climate scientist.
Also Richard Littlemore, DeSmogBlog: National Science Foundation vindicates Michael Mann
Mann’s work has been ‘vindicated’ against allegations of research misconduct by seven investigations — or is it eight now, I’m losing track.
An accumulating body of science literature, by multiple investigators using a variety of methodologies, is in general accord with the findings of the original Hockey Stick study (published back in the 20th century!) and adds, step by step, to advancing understanding of long-term global temperature trends.
But don’t expect this to deter or silence the global warming denial machine for even a day. NSF must be in on the ‘warmist’ conspiracy, right? It’s all about scamming for research dollars, right? Nobody should believe anything these scientists say, because they’re just making this up, right? Because they have no integrity, right? Just about every day we are seeing highly-credentialed climate science experts stepping forward to disavow human-caused global warming, right?
Well, no. The climate science community is not the contingent in 21st century America that has problems in the integrity department. If you want to go looking for integrity problems, take a look at the current political and economic ‘leadership’ of the country. I have been examining the science-politics nexus for a few decades now and it is clear to me that the problems are almost entirely on the political side of the fence, in a U.S. political culture that seems to hold no one accountable for blatant lying, ignorant rhetoric, and a willingnesss even to trash the science community just to gain a tactical advantage in furthering a corporate-power and radical right-wing agenda.
A current case in point is the Texas governor and presidential candidate Rick Perry, who promises to bring a degree of blunt-minded, mean-spirited, corporate cronyism to the White House that would make George W. Bush seem like Pericles by comparison (to steal someone else’s line). Thus, here’s an example (chosen not at random) of the sort of thing he tosses off in passing, as part of a steady stream of shrewd-but-ignorant falsification — from the UK Guardian, August 18:
Rick Perry accuses scientists of ‘manipulating’ climate data
… I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly or even daily scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change. Yes our climate’s changed, they’ve been changing ever since the earth was born. But I do not buy into a group of scientists who have in some cases found to be manipulating this information. …
I lived in Texas for 17 years. I observed Texas politics closely for a long time and it is not a pretty sight. There’s so much I could say about this, but for the moment I’ll stop and get this piece posted.
Also check out this in Salon:
The bully the GOP has been waiting for
… Perry also has what appears to be a genuine mean streak. More than anything, Republicans who see a waffling centrist like President Obama as a “socialist” dictator yearn to punish somebody.
Perry may be exactly the bully they seek. Even executing a seemingly innocent man — almost everybody who’s looked into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham thinks so — and then openly tampering with a commission charged with investigating the case, makes him a hero to some.
“It takes balls to execute an innocent man,” one hairy-chested patriot famously told a focus group. I think that guy sends me weekly emails.
True, Perry has manifest liabilities. If Michele Bachmann can’t make an issue of his ill-fated executive order requiring sixth-grade Texas girls to be vaccinated against sexually transmitted diseases, she’s got no business running. His scheme to build privately owned toll roads across Texas by giving out-of-state corporations the power to seize property by eminent domain represented the kind of crony capitalism that gave Mussolini a bad name.
Perry’s sectarian religiosity and loose talk about Texas seceding might not play among Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania voters whose ancestors fought to save the union. Calling Social Security an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme would doom most candidates, although it’s the kind of big talk that thrills them down at the Tea Party corral….
NSF Inspector General’s report
Earlier posts:
A review of the climate science stolen email controversy, with a few lessons for the future
Michael Mann in Washington Post op-ed: “Get the anti-science bent out of politics”