Top climate scientist vindicated by NSF investigation
By Joe Romm
22 August 2011 Two things we know with extremely high confidence:
- Recent warming is unprecedented in magnitude and speed and cause (so the temperature history looks like a Hockey Stick).
- 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 (see links below). Readers also know that “the first rule of vindicating climate science is you do not talk about vindicating climate science.” While the anti-science extremists who rule the Tea Party and the right-wing bunkosphere keep shouting lies about the Hockey Stick and Mann — and urging their followers to “shout down” science-based commenters on independent websites — the vindications of the science and the man are reported as quietly as if they came from the Whos of Whoville. And so after countless investigations — 3 in the U.K., 2 by Penn State, the EPA, the NOAA IG — that have all unanimously found the allegations against climate scientists and their research conclusions based on the hacked “ClimateGate” emails to be wholly unsubstantiated, a top GOP presidential candidate backed by the fossil fuel industry still gives voice to the Texas-sized lie (see “Denier Rick Perry Takes $11 Million from Big Oil, Then Claims Climate Scientists ‘Manipulated Data’ For Money“). And so while Mann and the Hockey Stick were getting yet another full vindication (from Penn State) earlier this year, Fox News was trumpeting one final investigation:
But the final say will be in the hands of a skeptical inspector general at the National Science Foundation, the primary funder of the research into global warming. According to published documents obtained by FoxNews.com, the IG must determine whether Penn State’s investigation was adequate. The Office of Inspector General confirmed that it will review the misconduct charges. A spokeswoman told FoxNews.com that “in accordance with our research misconduct regulation, (45 C.F.R. part 689), when the OIG is provided with an institution’s investigation report, we review it for fairness, accuracy and completeness” — issues the investigation has already been faulted for.
Yes, well, the Penn State investigation was faulted only by anti-science deniers. And NSF’s IG is “skeptical” only in the sense that global warming “skeptics” are not — which is to say it analyzes the facts objectively and come to defensible and reproducible conclusions. The IG analyzed all of the charges “de novo” and concluded:
“Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed.”
I have uploaded the full report here, but you can also go the NSF IG website here and insert “A09120086.” […]
This is very good news, however it will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes in the denialsphere. Meanwhile, 1/3 of the country continues to broil.
It takes a willful blindness to go on denying what is dead obvious. Or "preferred stupidity", which is probably the same thing.
This unrepentant behavior is reminiscent of the 16th century when they burned witches. The Tea Party and the Republican party are actively engaged in embracing "no science" despite the facts that science itself is self-regulating, and self-validating.
Unfortunately, the proof is indeed in the pudding and as the world warms up to intolerable levels, the idiots among us will refuse to accept their role (blame) in helping make that happen. I have no pity on such people, they are actively engaged ecocide and deserve nothing from humanity, not even the right to live.