Four of the incidents in J Burke’s background chronology in Weaver v National Post (the January 27, 2005, February 15, 2005, August 2006 and February 27, 2008 incidents) relate, either in whole or in part, to a dispute between Weaver and National Post on whether Weaver had dismissed our research as “rubbish” or “balderdash” or a like pejorative.
J Burke’s decision contains a chronology of prior interactions between Weaver and National Post, much of which, when closely examined, is highly misleading. In today’s post, I’m going to discuss one small but interesting issue: Weaver’s claim that he “did not lobby for climate funding”. J Burke referred to this when she said that Weaver “sought to correct a number of factual errors” in an earlier article by Corcoran. J Burke did not mention that National Post had published a rebuttal contesting Weaver’s claim. In today’s post, I’ll review the sides of the dispute.
According to the University of Victoria, Andrew Weaver says:
the next generation of his climate model will address the influence of climate on human evolution—much like it’s now being used to examine the influence of humans on climate evolution”.
In breaking news, Climate Audit has obtained exclusive information on output from the first runs of Weaver’s “next generation” climate model. These are the first known climate model predictions of the future of human evolution. The results are worrying: take a look.
Coauthors of Rutherford et al (J Climate 2005) (pdf) were Rutherford, Mann, Bradley, Hughes, Jones, Osborn and Briffa. Its editor was Andrew Weaver. It was formally submitted on Sept 16, 2003, received two reviews in January 2004, revised and resubmitted on June 29, 2004, accepted without revision on September 27, 2004 and published in July 2005.
In 2005, serial litigant Andrew Weaver, now a politician but then an academic at University of Victoria active in public controversy, threatened Climate Audit about alleged defamatory remarks. I asked Weaver to explain why the seemingly innocuous remarks (by John A, not myself) were supposedly defamatory. As I understand Weaver’s theory of libel, sarcasm towards an academic is supposed to be tortious. It may seem -preposterous spelled out like this, but so does the decision in Weaver v National Post.
In today’s post, I’ll show that even Andrew Weaver was tricked by Mann’s IPCC 2001 hide-the-decline. Weaver’s incorrect belief that the IPCC diagram showed “four” “independent” “hockey sticks” constructed using “different techniques” led him to believe that the research was much solider than it really was (or is), to say that our focus on the Mann reconstruction was “vindictive” and that any suggestion that our work might impact IPCC conclusions on the topic was “pure and unadulterated rubbish”.
Last year, Karl Rove was reported to have suggested that Hillary Clinton had brain damage:
One of the more startling aspects of Andrew Weaver’s libel case was Weaver’s claim that it was defamatory in Canada to say, even in an opinion column, that Weaver had called for Pachauri’s resignation or even a change in leadership at IPCC. It was even more startling that novice judge Emily Burke found in Weaver’s favour on this point. Given the controversies surrounding Pachauri in 2010, one might ask of Weaver: if you didn’t call for Pachauri’s resignation, why didn’t you?
Andrew Weaver has been taking a victory lap following the recent decision in his favor by rookie judge Emily Burke. In previous commentary about Mann v Steyn, I’ve made some snide remarks about the competence of D.C. trial court judge Combs-Greene, either implying or stating that Canadian courts have higher standards. I take it all back. As a Canadian, it’s embarrassing to discuss Judge Burke’s disorganized and muddled decision with readers from other countries.
