JunkScience.com has exposed Michael Mann’s creepy effort to recast himself as an “involuntary public figure” for purposes of his defamation lawsuit against Mark Steyn, National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
This series exposes Michael Mann’s “volunteering” to be a public figure in the global warming debate, prior to the hockey stick controversy hitting the mainstream news cycle (pegged at February 14, 2005).
Previous installments include:
Today’s installment is an interview of Mann televised by CBS Evening News on April 22, 1998.
The transcript is below.
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RESEARCHERS BELIEVE THE LATEST READ ON GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSE FOR CONCERN
April 22, 1998, CBS Evening News
DAN RATHER, anchor: But to hear some researchers here on the ground tell it tonight, the latest read on global warming is cause for concern now and for the future. So is Mother Earth really running a temperature? CBS’ John Roberts has the latest on this heated dispute.
JOHN ROBERTS reporting: At the University of Massachusetts, researcher Michael Mann has been studying history; specifically, climate history, all the way back to the Middle Ages. And what he’s announced today has added fuel to the fire in the debate over how what we burn may be affecting the environment.
Mr. MICHAEL MANN (Researcher, University of Massachusetts): We know that three years in this current decade–1990, 1995 and 1997–were warmer than any other single year back to at least AD 1400.
ROBERTS: Using natural thermometers, such as measurements of tree rings and ice cores, Mann says he has been able to calculate ancient temperatures to a fraction of a degree and found that the average yearly temperature is now two degrees Fahrenheit warmer than before the industrial revolution.
Mr. MANN: We believe we are seeing the effect of human beings on the climate of the 20th century.
ROBERTS: Scientists disagree on whether warming temperatures are part of a man-made problem or just a cycle of nature. Even Mann admits, he isn’t 100 percent certain.
Mr. MANN: This isn’t definitive proof, but it’s a very, very strong suggestion.
ROBERTS: While a 2-degree average rise in temperature might not seem like much, it’s having a profound effect. Last week it was announced a piece of the Antarctic ice shelf, the size of Washington, DC, broke off. In Alaska, where temperatures have risen 5 degrees in just the past two decades, the great Bering Glacier is slowly receding.
It will take years of research to determine exactly what’s behind this trend and what, if any, dangers it might pose. But one thing is certain, the heat is on. Global temperatures for the first three months of 1998 were the warmest on record. John Roberts, CBS News, New York.
The main point is that it wasn’t the CEI or National Review that put him in the spotlight. It’s not any professional journalist’s or blogger’s job to determine if the object of their attention who is a common and lingering presence in public discussion is a voluntary or involuntary public figure before they comment / criticize. The exception being if you put him there to tear him down.
It wasn’t CEI and NRO that put Mann and his ego up on a pedestal. It was Mann. But it’s everyone’s job to knock a person off their pedestal when they’re knowingly exaggerating and wrongfully pretending to be objective in service of agitation on behalf of their own opinion.
I’m pretty sure that Michael E. Mann believes that he’s a public figure: Because he setup (or is involved in running and regularly posts to) a facebook for “Michael E. Mann – Public Figure” as evidenced by this screenshot: http://imgur.com/y2BOyuB
If you are a member of Facebook, type Michael E. Mann in the FB search box, if you too wish to enjoy Michael E. Mann Public Figure’s antics!
We are asking these guys the wrong question. Ask the next “global warmer” or “climate change expert” or so they say: “If the CO2 content of earth’s atmosphere were doubled (by whatever means) what would the result be?
(ans. we would be in the lower “Best area of plant growth position on the climate charts”> the upper range for best plant growth is: 1250ppm). There are many other questions (and answers ) which will show these people to be the frauds they are. GET THIS! This is about obtaining huge million dollar grants to constantly “study” (and make the “studiers” rich while the government taxes energy to the point the rest of us will be serfs) and has nothing to do with “global warming” caused by man. There are literally hundreds of “feedback” mechanisms which will keep “global warming” under control. CO2 IS NOT a green house gas, however water vapor IS. Since humans breath out CO2 and drink water any government person calling for “control” of either substance should be instantly arrested as a “domestic enemy of the Constitution! Clipper1
I dunno what advantage Mann thinks he gets by claiming to be an involuntary public figure. How would one define that term to begin with? And in any case, he IS a public figure, which raises the threshhold for libel very far above anything Steyn or others have published about him.
In fact it raises the threshhold of libel to just about the level of things he’s said about others.