It is relatively easy to manipulate raw climate data and cherry-pick time ranges to put forth a misleading report on climate, but are the climate researchers above manipulating a Nobel Peace Prize?

This is a defamation action brought by Michael E. Mann, Ph.D. against two publishers, the National Review Inc. and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and two of their journalists, Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, for their utterly false and defamatory statements against Dr. Mann-accusing him of academic fraud and comparing him to a convicted child molester, Jerry Sandusky, the disgraced former football coach at Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. Along with other researchers, he was one of the first to document the steady rise in surface temperatures during the 20111 Century and the steep increase in measured temperatures since the 1950s. As a result of this research, Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. <Source: Court Documents - SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIVIL DIVISION, Case Number 0008263-12, filed October 22, 2012>

Dr. Mann was a Lead Author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organizing committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including NOAA's outstanding publication award in 2002 and selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with other IPCC authors in 2007. In 2012, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union. <Source: Michael Mann’s University Web Site>

The facts …

The Nobel Peace Prize 2007 was awarded jointly to Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr. "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" <Source: Nobel Prize Committee>

The only individual that can claim to be a Nobel Peace Prize Winner in 2007 is Al Gore. The IPCC is an organization and their award was issued to the organization and not any individual associated with the organization.

In turn, the IPCC decided to honor those who worked on the climate project with their own certificate which included a replica of the actual award.

This is not a Nobel Peace Prize, nor does it permit the certificate recipient to claim to have received a Nobel Peace Prize.

This is confirmed in an exchange between a journalist and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee …

I contacted the The Norwegian Nobel Institute to find out if Mann was indeed a Nobel Laureate, winner, etc... My questions were:

1. Was Prof Michael Mann 'awarded' a Nobel Prize of any sort at any time? Is he a Nobel Laureate as implied elsewhere in his legal brief?
2. Did he receive a certificate "for contributing to" the IPCC Nobel Peace Prize? Is the photo of the certificate authentic? [see photo]
3. Is there a difference between stating you "were awarded" the Nobel Peace Prize as indicated by Mann in his legal brief and "contributing to" as shown in the attached photo of the certificate?

Geir Lundestad, Director, Professor, of The Norwegian Nobel Institute emailed me back with the following:

1) Michael Mann has never been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
2) He did not receive any personal certificate. He has taken the diploma awarded in 2007 to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and to Al Gore) and made his own text underneath this authentic-looking diploma.
3) The text underneath the diploma is entirely his own. We issued only the diploma to the IPCC as such. No individuals on the IPCC side received anything in 2007.

Lundestad goes on to say that, "Unfortunately we often experience that members of organizations that have indeed been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize issue various forms of personal diplomas to indicate that they personally have received the Nobel Peace Prize. They have not." <Source>

Bottom line …

This lawsuit will potentially open Michael Mann to discovery proceedings which can be used to investigate the manipulation of global warming data and research. (THE OTHER PENN STATE MOLESTING SCANDAL -- ANOTHER COVER-UP?)

The truth is that any investigation of Michael Mann by his university was an internal investigation where the charges were made up by a committee and then investigated – apparently clearing Mann of academic misconduct. The truth is that the investigation was bogus and not complete. Thus, Michael Mann cannot claim he was truly exonerated.

To be noted, the IPCC did issue a similar certificate to the one shown above to Michael Mann, he did not add any text or create the certificate himself.

Another sad chapter in an attempt to manipulate science to drive public policy to benefit political special interests and their cronies.

-- steve