Scientist Michael Mann, of the ‘double hockey sticks’ graph fame in the global climate change research controversy created by right wingers who stole emails and promptly misinterpreted them in order to try and smear the academic reputations of the scientists, has had it with The National Review. That conservative rag published yet another article full of lies, distortions, and misinformation about Mann, but this time stooped so low as to compare him to Sandusky and the Penn State pedophile scandal.
As a result, Mann has offered to sue them. He has posted the letter on his fact book page.
Letter from Mann’s Lawyer to The National Review
Michael Mann, thank you for taking this action.
The radical right and anti-science conservative and fundamentalists have succeeded for too long because scientists and liberals and those on the left have deluded themselves into thinking that being nice and rational and logical will persuade these people. It will not. They are rabid, anti-intellectual bullies, and the ONLY thing they understand is a good law suit, a solid metaphorical smack up-side the head, as my Daddy would would have said.
At this point only the most militantly ignorant and willfully obtuse can continue to deny the reality of accelerated anthropogenic climate change.
Recent polling suggests that a super majority of Americans is finally waking up to reality. 70 percent of people in U.S. now believe in climate change. UT climate poll 2012 University of Texas
I only fear it is simply too late to turn that into any political action required to stem the forces we have triggered in the environment. I fear we have already reached the tipping point.
The fact is that the effects of this climate change, including rapid warming, are producing conditions threatening not only sea levels from ice melting, but it threatens the very foundation of our food supply. Here in the mid-west, the corn crop is failing from both drought, as in Illinois, and also from heat that prevented pollination or simply cooked the corn in the field, as happened in Iowa at 108 degrees. You might suggest a la Marie Antoinette to your detractors, well, “Let them eat hockey sticks.”
Thank you for taking this needed action. National Review is a pathetic shadow of the magazine founded by William Buckley. It is nothing but a propaganda rag of the corporate oligarchy and anti-intellectual right at this point. I suspect Buckley is spinning in his grave at what his legacy has become.
As for Michael Mann, here is his new book, which I have just added to my reserves at the library to read as soon as available:
The hockey stick and the climate wars : dispatches from the front lines
Author: Mann, Michael E., 1965-
Publisher, Date: New York : Columbia University Press, c2012.
ISBN: 9780231152549 – Description: xvi, 395 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
As for the conservatives who continue to deny the reality, and fight any and all efforts to take actions that might mitigate future suffering? I can guarantee you right now they will be the very first in line for federal government handouts as their crops wither in the field, and their ocean front homes and cities start disappearing under the lapping waves of the rising ocean. I guarantee it.
