We accused MIT’s Kerry Emanuel of failing to disclose a financial conflict of interest in a recent Nature study.
According to the Yale Daily News article, “Hurricane damage to surge“:
Since releasing the study, Emanuel has been criticized by a number of climate bloggers, including Steve Milloy, a commentator for Fox News and founder and publisher of junkscience.com, for failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest. Emanuel is a board member of the AlphaCat Fund, a subsidiary of the Bermuda-based Validus Managers Ltd. that invests in reinsurance transactions and catastrophe bonds.
Emanuel called the allegation a “baseless charge” and said that “there is no conflict of interest” because the board has not discussed climate change. Milloy did not respond to a request for comment from the News.
As far as Emanuel’s response, he should have disclosed his various insurance company connections (all of them), and at least permit the Nature editors to decide the matter.
Are we really to believe that the “board has not discussed climate change,” especially with the alarmist Emanuel sitting on it?
Then again, how do we even know what Emanuel’s arrangements, practices and modes of action are with his insurance companies? Perhaps his board seat is a device for getting around being classified as a consultant.
If this situation had involved a researcher, the pharmaceutical industry and a major medical journal, the researcher would have been publicly flogged and shamed.
And how many other climate researchers have Emanuel-type conflicts?
BTW, the Yale Daily News effort to contact us got caught by our spam filter.
Related Reading:
Maybe he is accurate in saying that the reinsurers did not “discuss” climate change. A wink is as good as a nudge to a blind man…
Interesting that you got spammed by Yale, which is generously funded by Al Gore to study global warming and its shocking effects.
Well, if you’re not subject to standard ethics requirements, then I guess you’re exonerated. Still, seems a bit like “Look! A Milloyl!! / Nothing to see here.”
What part of the “avoidance of the appearance of impropriety” does he (and the Boards he sits on) not understand?