Joanne Nova attempts fraudulent smear of Dr. Michael Mann

by Michael Mann, facebook, March 3, 2013

As professional climate change deniers become increasingly irrelevant and desperate, so do their distraction and smear efforts. These are mostly just noise in the background these days, as the media increasingly appears to be recognizing the intellectual bankruptcy of the industry-funded climate change denial effort and those who do its bidding. Occasionally, though, I will debunk the most egregious of the smears and falsehoods, both to set the record straight, and to arm readers w/ the information necessary to evaluate the credibility of the various actors in the climate change denial campaign.

The first of today's examples comes courtesy of his excellency "Lord Monckton" (http://www.desmogblog.com/christopher-monckton) and Australian climate change denier Joanne Nova (http://www.desmogblog.com/joanne-nova).

Nova credulously quoted Monckton as he made the usual long-discredited accusations about climate scientists, including me, Jonathan Overpeck, etc. Here is the statement, with scare quotes intact:

"Dr". Michael Mann, fabricator of the “hockey-stick” graph that falsely abolished the medieval warm period, sued Dr. Tim Ball for calling the graph scientific fraud. Tim Ball’s defence was to propose showing the judge the many dodges by which “Dr.” Mann had done what "Dr.”Overpeck had called for in 1995: “We have to abolish the medieval warm period…Rather than face cross-examination, “Dr.” Mann gave up the case at a cost that cannot have been much less than $1 million." (see
http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/monckton-explains-why-taking-climate-extremists-to-court-works-and-uni-tas-agrees-to-investigate/ ).

What is most peculiar about the false assertion that we "gave up" the defamation suit against Mr. Ball (it is very much alive and well thank you) is that this statement appeared on the very day that my lawyer, Canadian libel expert (he quite literally wrote the book on the subject: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2028422.Roger_McConchie) Roger McConchie, was DEPOSING BALL as part of the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

One would think that Ms. Nova would have wanted to fact check such a claim. It would have been rather easy for her to contact my lawyer, for example, to see if there was any veracity to Monckton's claim. McConchie's contact info is readily available on the web: http://www.libelandprivacy.com/roger-mcconchie_bio.html

But perhaps Ms. Nova *did* try to contact McConchie and was unable to reach him…since he was BUSY DEPOSING BALL on that day.   ;-)

https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/143643312468953