Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
WhenDeakinUniversity,Australia'sninthlargestuniversity,announcedtheopeningof
aresearchcentreincooperationwithPachauri'sTheEnergyandResourcesInstitute,ittold
the world it was partnering with a 'Nobel Prize winner'. And then there's that list on the
website of Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota. It enumerates the Nobel laureates on
whom this institution has also bestowed an honorary doctorate.
Currently, Pachauri's name appears first.
To recap: back in 2007, Pachauri elevated thousands of people, including himself, to
the status of Nobel laureates. And no one called him on it. Not the Nobel committee. Nor
the UN bodies that established the IPCC. Nor the media. Did we all lose our minds?
The world's science academies deserve special scrutiny in this regard. Why have
they remained mute, year after year, as Pachauri and others are falsely described as
Nobel laureates? If the public can't count on science academies to police a matter this
straightforward, what purpose do they serve?
Eventually, however, hot air deflates. In October 2012, American meteorologist
Michael Mann filed a defamation lawsuit against two journalists and two publishers. The
second paragraph of his 37-page legal document reads as follows:
Dr. Mann is a climate scientist whose research has focused on global warming. Along with other researchers, he was one
ofthefirsttodocumentthesteadyriseinsurfacetemperaturesduringthe20thCenturyandthesteepincreaseinmeasured
temperatures since the 1950s.
As a result of this research, Dr. Mann and his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Peace
Notice there isn't any mention of the actual recipient of that award—the IPCC. Someone
unfamiliarwiththismattercouldbeforgivenforthinkingthatMannhimselfwastheperson
at the Nobel podium. On page five, we learn that Mann served as a lead author on a single
chapter of the IPCC's 2001 report. On the next, this document implies once again that the
prize is connected to Mann's own research:
The work of Dr. Mann and the IPCC has received considerable accolades within the scientific community. In 2007,
Dr. Mann shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the other IPCC authors for their work in climate change, including the
development of the Hockey Stick Graph.
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Butthereasoningbehindthisawardwasratherdifferent.ThePeacePrizecommitteestated
clearlythatitbelievesclimatechange'willincreasethedangerofwar'.Theprizetherefore
recognisedtheeffortsofAlGoreandtheIPCCtoeducatetheworld'concerningman-made
climate changes and the steps that need to be taken to counteract those changes.'
To claim, in the context of legal proceedings, that you received a Nobel Prize for
contributing to one chapter in one UN report is absurd. But Mann's legal document goes
further, childishly suggesting that this
faux
honour should insulate him from criticism:
