BOOM!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann has taken the unorthodox step of jumping into politics and campaigning with Virginia's Democratic gubernatorial candidate, worried that an "anti-science zealot" could win the election in November.
In an interview with radio host Ari Rabin-Havt on Sirius XM Progress on Monday, Mann sharply contrasted Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) with his gubernatorial opponent, Democrat Terry McAuliffe. The election is on Nov. 5.
Mann said Virginians "can either vote for an anti-science zealot like Ken Cuccinelli, who would use his authority to try to persecute scientists whose views he doesn't agree with ... versus Terry McAuliffe, a pro-science, pro-technology politician."
"In this case, I felt that the choice was so stark that it was my responsibility to do what I could to try to help the McAuliffe campaign, help them in drawing that contrast between the way they view science and technology and the way Mr. Cuccinelli does," Mann later added. - Huffington Post, 7/29/13
More below the fold.
Mann's been one of Cuccinelli's enemies for a while now. Especially when Cuccinelli used his Attorney General position to launch a two year investigation against Mann looking into whether he committed fraud by obtaining grants to research global temperature changes:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
I'm a climate scientist. My work is one piece of a vast puzzle scientists have assembled that forms a clear picture: the world is growing warmer due to the emissions of heat-trapping gases from burning coal and gas, and we're already seeing the effects of climate change, including increases in some types of extreme weather and rising sea levels.
Political allies of the fossil fuel industry -- including Mr. Cuccinelli, whose top donors include coal producer Consol Energy and oil giant Koch Industries -- don't like our research. They'd rather use their power to attack well-established science than consider the possibility that burning massive amounts of coal and oil has negative environmental side effects.
In April 2010, Cuccinelli demanded thousands of emails my fellow researchers and I had exchanged with one another over many years from the University of Virginia. He launched his investigation under a state law designed to prevent Medicaid fraud, so his operating theory seemed to be that scientists whose research he didn't like must be making it all up.
Scientific and free speech groups cried foul. Nine hundred Virginia academics, in a letter organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, argued that the investigation sent a chilling message to researchers who work on issues of public import.
After some initial hesitation, the university fought Cuccinelli's demand. The attorney general took his misguided case all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court, which handily rejected it. Total cost to the university: at least $350,000, which could have been better spent educating Virginia students. Cuccinelli's office, meanwhile, has not disclosed how many resources it wasted.
Cuccinelli's court filings, when they referred to climate science at all, were clearly based on Internet conspiracy theories and misinformation from fossil fuel industry front groups. Ph.D. candidates at the university thought the attorney general's treatment of scientific research was so laughable that they simply read his court filings out loud during a speaking engagement he had at the school. Similarly, UVA microbiologist Martin Schwartz wrote in a mock letter to Cuccinelli, "I've got a pile of lab notebooks that contain results someone might disagree with. Could your office help me check the calculations?" - Michael Mann, huffington Post, 2/4/13
Mann's been making ads for Terry McAuliffe's (D. VA) campaign to help take down Cuccinelli:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Titled “Witch Hunt,” the commercial recalls a two-year effort by Cuccinelli, the GOP nominee for governor and a climate change skeptic, to obtain records from Michael Mann, then a U-Va. researcher.
The campaign of Terry McAuliffe, Cuccinelli’s Democratic rival, released the ad Monday. It declined to say where it will run and for how long.
“It’s been called ‘Cuccinelli’s witch hunt.’ ‘Designed to intimidate and suppress,’ ” a narrator for the 30-second spot says, quoting newspaper editorials from the time. “Ken Cuccinelli used taxpayer funds to investigate a U-Va. professor whose research on climate change Cuccinelli opposed. Cuccinelli, a climate change denier, forced the university to spend over half a million dollars defending itself against its own attorney general. Ken Cuccinelli — he’s focused on his own agenda, not us.”
The ad is part of McAuliffe’s broader strategy to portray himself as a business-oriented moderate and Cuccinelli as someone outside the mainstream on a range of cultural issues. The opening image of the ad shows McAuliffe sitting at table, having a seemingly productive discussion with others gathered there. - Washington Post, 7/29/13
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell's (R. VA) been a loyal ally to Cuccinelli in pushing the GOP's climate denying campaign:
http://www.treehugger.com/...
Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell phased out a Governor's Commission on Climate Change after taking office in 2010. His attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli (who won the state's Republican gubernatorial nomination in May), has spent a good deal of his time in office seeking to prosecute former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann for his work on historic temperature records. And when state lawmakers requested a study on sea level rise, Republican state Del. Chris Stolle retorted that the term was "left-wing." (The Legislature settled on "recurrent coastal flooding.") And Virginia is better off than neighboring North Carolina, where lawmakers last year explicitly refused to consider scientists' current projections in coastal building decisions. - Tree Hugger, 7/29/13
I don't blame Mann for wanting to get revenge and stop Cuccinelli from becoming the next Governor of Virginia. I also thank him for helping McAuliffe's campaign. The Virginia Governors Race is November 5th. Lets help McAuliffe defeat anti-science zealot. You can go here to donate or get involved with the McAuliffe campaign:
http://terrymcauliffe.com/