Irony: Michael Mann to rant about skeptics being outside 'scholarly venues'

Climategate’s Michael Mann plans to rant at next week’s Geological Society of America meeting about skeptics not being part of scholarly debate. But wait a minute, didn’t Mann conspire to bring about that very situation?

Here’s the abstract for Mann’s presentation:

CLIMATE SCIENTISTS IN THE PUBLIC ARENA: WHO’S GOT OUR BACKS?

MANN, Michael E., Dept. of Meteorology and Earth and Environ. Systems Institute, Penn State University, Walker Building, University Park, PA 16827, mann@psu.edu

Climate scientists have an important role to play in informing the public discourse on human-caused climate change. Our scientific expertise provides us a unique, informed perspective, and despite recent high profile attacks against climate science, the public still affords climate scientists the greatest trust to deliver an honest, unbiased assessment of the potential threats posed by climate changes. Yet, as with all areas of science where powerful special interests perceive themselves as threatened by the findings of science, scientists enter the public fray at our peril.

Our efforts to communicate the science are opposed by a well-funded, highly organized disinformation effort that aims to confuse the public about the nature of our scientific understanding. In recent years, the disinformation campaign has demonstrated a willingness to attack individual, climate scientists as a means of achieving a broader end: discrediting climate science itself. These attacks are rarely fought in legitimate scientific circles such as the peer-reviewed scientific literature or other scholarly venues, but rather through rhetorical efforts delivered by nonscientists, using ideologically aligned media outlets, special interest groups, and politicians.

Scientists are massively out-funded and outmanned in this battle, and will lose if leading scientific institutions and organizations remain on the sidelines. I will discuss this dilemma, drawing upon my own experiences in the public arena of climate change. [Emphasis added]

But as the Commonwealth Foundation pointed out from the Climategate e-mails, when papers are published in the peer-review literature critical of Dr. Mann’s work, he strikes out at the journals and/or journal editors themselves. In the e-mail excerpt below, Mann tells colleagues that the peer-review journal Climate Research has been “hijacked” by skeptical scientists:

The Soon & Baliunas paper couldn’t have cleared a ‘legitimate’ peer review process anywhere. That leaves only one possibility–that the peer-review process at Climate Research has been hijacked by a few skeptics on the editorial board. And it isn’t just De Frietas, unfortunately I think this group also includes a member of my own de- partment… The skeptics appear to have staged a ‘coup’ at “Climate Research” (it was a mediocre journal to begin with, but now its a mediocre journal with a definite ‘purpose’).

Mann then spearheads effort to boycott the peer-reviewed journal Climate Research for publishing a series of papers who results he doesn’t agree with:

It seems to me that this “Kinne” character’s [Dr. Otto Kinne is the president of the foundation which publishes the journal Climate Research among other titles] words are disingenuous, and he probably supports what De Freitas is trying to do. It seems clear we have to go above him. I think that the community should, as Mike H has previously suggested in this eventuality, terminate its involvement with this journal at all levels–reviewing, editing, and submitting, and leave it to wither way into oblivion and disrepute

Mann also was prepared to target Geophysical Research Letters for daring to publish criticism of his work:

What a shame that would be. It’s one thing to lose “Climate Research”. We can’t afford to lose GRL. I think it would be useful if people begin to record their experiences w/ both Saiers and potentially Mackwell (I don’t know him–he would seem to be complicit w/what is going on here).

If there is a clear body of evidence that something is amiss, it could be taken through the proper channels. I don’t that the entire AGU hierarchy has yet been compromised!

And it’s always tough to participate in scholarly venues when you’re pointedly denied access. here Mann rants about Steve McIntyre:

I would immediately delete anything you receive from this fraud…. I would NOT RESPOND to this guy. As you know, only bad things can come of that. The last thing this guy cares about is honest debate–he is funded by the same people as Singer, Michaels, etc.

Mann’s peers are aware of his efforts to exclude ideas he disagrees with. Check out this e-mail from Dr. Ray Bradley to Dr. Keith Briffa:

As for [Dr. Mann’s] thinking that it is “Better that nothing appear, than something unnacceptable to us” …..as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individiual articles or not….

There’s probably more to be said, but you get the idea. Mann has worked to exclude skeptics from “scholarly venues” and then has the chutzpah to criticize them for it.