Climate change scientist Michael Mann fends off sceptic group's raid on emails:
Judge revokes permission of scektic think tank American Tradition Institute to look at private University of Virginia emails
American climatologist Michael Mann. He is one of the originators of a graph of temperature trends dubbed the 'hockey stick'. Illustration: Jon Golden/Pennstate
The climate scientist Michael Mann has successfully fought off an attempt by a pro-industry thinktank to gain access to thousands of private emails.
After a day-long court hearing on Tuesday, a judge in Manassas, Virginia, granted Mann's petition to join a lawsuit against the American Tradition Institute, an industry-funded thinktank that promotes scepticism about man-made climate change.
In an email, Mann called the decision a "good day" for academic freedom: "I don't think there is any way to view this as anything other than a win for us, and for science more generally."
Judge Gaylord Finch also granted a petition from the University of Virginia, Mann's former employer, to revisit its earlier decision to let lawyers for the ATI have access to the emails before they were made public.
Scientists had seen the demands for documents and private correspondence as an attempt to intimidate Mann and other climate scientists. Virginia's attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, has also pursued the emails.
ATI is pursuing similar legal action against the NASA scientist James Hansen, according to an investigation of the industry group.
The university has already released thousands of Mann's emails but said some correspondence was exempt from ATI's freedom of information requests.
Its initial decision to allow ATI's lawyers to review the emails while it determined which would be withheld had been criticised by scientists.
Mann, who is now at Pennsylvania State University, has been regularly targeted by climate science doubters because of his work on the "hockey stick graph."
His research, demonstrating a recent sharp rise in warming, is one of the most easily understood representations of climate change – and has infuriated those opposing action on global warming.
Mann has been repeatedly cleared of any scientific misconduct. But Cuccinelli, and more recently the ATI, launched their own investigations, alleging Mann may have manipulated data to help get government research grants. Cuccinelli lost his case, but it is under appeal.
The University of Virginia initially agreed to allow lawyers for ATI to review the emails. But on Tuesday its lawyers said they no longer trusted ATI to keep the contents confidential before their release.
With Tuesday's ruling, Mann for the first time has a say in the university's decisions about which emails should be released.
Rick Piltz, the director of Climate Science Watch, said Mann's lawyers could also be expected to fight more strenuously for his privacy than his former employer.
Mann's legal battles do not end with Tuesday's decision. The judge ordered the scientist and the university to come to an agreement with ATI on email access by 20 December 2011 or else he would impose one.
"I have no illusions that ATI and their industry-funded ilk are going to give up in their efforts to harass me and other climate scientists," Mann wrote. "But this is a very good day for me, for my fellow scientists across the country who might fear that they could be subject to similar intimidation tactics if their work too were perceived as a threat to powerful vested interests, and it's a good day for the publicm, which, after all, depend on the unfettered progress of science for the betterment of modern life."
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