Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Eli Gets EVEN MORE Email

Dear Bunnies, when we last left this blog, the intrepid Gator was writing to Prof. Geir Lundestad Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute

Subject: Nobel Peace Prize, IPCC and Michael Mann

Hello Professor Lundestad,

I have seen a statement on some blogs that has been attributed to you.

"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."

This has appeared, for example, in a press release sent out by Marc Morano.

Since it is clear that the certificate being discussed is in fact a certificate sent by the IPCC to Michael Mann, perhaps you could clarify your email to whomever you sent it too... or send out some other sort of public announcement clarifying the situation. It is clear that the IPCC won the Nobel prize, not the individual authors. However, the IPCC sent out certificates to lead authors and others who it felt contributed to the work that earned the prize.

It would be nice to clarify this since Lord Monckton has been claiming for years to be a Nobel prize winner for the same IPCC work (he claims to have submitted some comments on some of the work.) Yet I have never seen an official pronouncement from the anyone connected to the Nobel committee criticizing Lord Monkton for these claims. It seems to undermine the whole awarding of that prize to publicly criticize a scientist who actually made a substantial contribution to the work, yet remain silent about an obvious crank who has been trying to destroy confidence in the work for which the prize was awarded.
 to which the reply was
Dear Gator,

I was asked a personal question and replied to that question. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar cases that are not brought to our attention.
Now some, not Eli to be sure, would have left it at that, especially since a humble lab bunny toiling away for the  Rabett Research Bureau had established that the same reply was give to Lord Moncton's claims of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore.  But, and you knew there was a but, Eli thought it would be worthwhile follow up, given the response of the IPCC Secretariat on this matter
Subject:  IPCC reply on THEIR issuance of copies of the Nobel Diploma to significant contributors
Dear Prof. Lundestad

I would like to bring to your attention an Email that I received a few days ago from the IPCC Secretariat with respect to THEIR issuing of certificates memorializing the organizations' Nobel Prize Award ------------------------------------ Thank you for your email of Sunday 28 October 2012 enquiring about the certificates issued by the IPCC to authors to mark their contributions to the IPCC's Nobel Prize. In December 2007 the permanent secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Geir Lundestad, clarified these questions in an email to one of our authors, copied to Dr Pachauri. Chairman of the IPCC. He wrote that the committee would issue no medal or diploma to individual contributors to IPCC reports and it was up to the IPCC to decide what it would do to recognize the various contributors.

On this basis, the IPCC Chair, the Secretary of the IPCC and IPCC Co-chairs decided in 2007 to present personalized certificates “for contributing to the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007 to the IPCC” to experts that had contributed substantially to the preparation of IPCC Reports, namely coordinating lead authors, lead authors, review editors, Bureau members, staff of the technical support units and staff of the secretariat from the IPCC’s inception in 1988 until the award of the prize in 2007.  IPCC Secretariat ----------------------------------- I note that your response to inquiries about the copy of the diploma shown by Prof. Mann are reported to have included the phrases

------------------------
"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."
----------------------

If, in fact that was your response, the IPCC Email shows that the text underneath the copy of the diploma was NOT added by Prof. Mann, but rather provided by the IPCC after some consultation with you as representative of the Nobel Institute, to acknowledge the work of those who contributed substantially to its work.  For that reason, you as representative of the Nobel Institute must decide if a public modification of that specific phrase is needed.  While I can understand the reasons for your being, shall we say, somewhat testy on the matter, I would hope that you agree that being precise as possible also is important.

What is clear is that Prof. Mann did not on his own add his own text under the copy of the diploma that was provided by the IPCC.  If this is an issue for the Nobel Institute, perhaps a more formal policy would be needed
Prof. Lundstad replied

I take note of what you write and that the IPCC issued the diploma in question. It still stands that Mr. Mann is not a personal Nobel laureate.
Geir Lundestad
Director, Professor
The Norwegian Nobel Institute
Prof. Rabett thanks Prof. Lundestad for his patience in this matter and hops on.

17 comments:

THE CLIMATE WARS said...

To tempt the Linen Laird of Pitlocherty to retire from the Climate Wars, The Norwegian Committee should inaugurate The Nobel Shirt Prize

Monckton's fellow liverymen of the Worshipful Company of Broderers will compel the haberdashing viscount to cease hectoring Mann , and devote his energy to competing with The PRK and Northern Marianas for the glittering prize.

rumleyfips said...

How about the Nobel Empty Shirt Prize. A sure winner for the mad monk.

Anonymous said...

Well you finally confirmed what I have been saying for a week.

Rabett's age is slowing him down.

Jay Alt said...

Lundestad: I take note of what you write and that the IPCC issued the diploma in question. It still stands that Mr. Mann is not a personal Nobel laureate.

Neither is James Hansen but IMO even a pride of physicists can't put that one off indefinately.

Anonymous said...

James Hansen will get arrested, again, many times, but he will never receive a Nobel Peace Prize.

Marion Delgado said...

I applaud Prof. Rabett's graciousness in thanking Prof. Lundestad for his patience and moving on. I note in passing that It still stands that Prof. Lundestad is an unapologetic, inaccurate dick.

EliRabett said...

True, but he is chastened and perhaps a bit more cautious.

Jeffrey Davis said...

Dear Prof. Lundestad,

You realize that you're still an authentic-looking jerk? Are your academic works as casually authenticated as your disparaging letters?

Sincerely,
A Friend

[not really a friend. It's just easy to make authentic-looking statements.]

nessaha 40

Anonymous said...

Too Funny!

Michael Mann can represent that he won the Nobel Peace Prize and his cult followers jump through hoops and bind into pretzels to defend him.


Professor Lundestad makes an assumption that Mann added language to a giat piece of cardboard and he is a jerk, etc.


duplicity is not just for Mashey I see.

J Bowers said...

Good grief, that Lundestad fella really can be a jerk.

Marion Delgado said...

On reflection, we should channel our irkedness towards figuring out what historically the Nobel jurors associated with the Peace Prize have said about institutional recipients.

I imagine it should vary a bit. The IPCC as a whole was reasonably big, but it did go out of its way to honor certain members, and that should count for something.

Then again, the EU's prize, clearly, even if you're a VIP in the EU, I doubt you're a nobel laureate.

Marion Delgado said...

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/nobel/Nobel_statement_final.pdf

IPCC makes things pretty clear about how they regard the matter in the PDF above.

None of the right-wing, and mostly public-relations-industry or Republican National Committee or fossil-fuel-front-sourced attacks have ever quoted Mann as saying "I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize" simply because he never has said it.

John Mashey said...

There can be plenty of confusion about wording, and those obsessed with minutiae can waste much time. Unlike many people, I actually have some idea how the IPCC really works, among other things, because I actually know a fair number of people who have those plaques. Some are friends and neighbors, some I see at Stanford, some I only see at AGU or other meetings.


The UN IPCC itself is miniscule: IPCC errors: fact and spin. Most of the work is done by the other folks.

I took off 10 minutes from real work and found:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2007/october17/nobel-101707.html

"All the scientists that have contributed to the work of the IPCC are the Nobel laureates who have been recognized and acknowledged by the Nobel Prize Committee," said Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian engineer who chairs the panel.”
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-10-12-1979965791_x.htm

“RECS Day 2 - IPCC Lead Authors / Nobel Laureates Present at RECS”
http://recsco2.tumblr.com/post/7230864068/recs-day-2-ipcc-lead-authors-nobel-laureates

“It’s a great privilege to have a Nobel laureate visit the HPU campus..."
http://www3.hpu.edu/kalamalama/archive/3204/SUB/Front02.htm

Dahe Qin: "eventually facilitating IPCC to become a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize laureate."
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/cv-ipcc-new-bureau/cv-qin-dahe.pdf

“It was with great sadness that I learned this evening of the passing of Dr. Stephen Schneider, Nobel Laureate, IPCC author, Stanford University professor, and much more.”
http://www.calacademy.org/blogs/climate/?p=320

“Interview: Nobel Laureate Rajendra K. Pachauri“ http://poptech.org/blog/a_poptech_interview_nobel_laureate_rajendra_k_pachauri

“Tag Archives: Nobel Laureate Susan Solomon Boise State Distinguished Lecture Series Presents Nobel Prize-Winning Climate Scientist Susan Solomon”
http://news.boisestate.edu/blog/tag/nobel-laureate-susan-solomon/

‘Christopher Field, Nobel laureate director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Field

"A fantastic line-up of speakers, including Seth Cooper (FoldIt), Terry Root (Nobel Laureate, IPCC),"
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/citscitoolkit/news/abstract_scholarship_deadline_extended/

“John T. Houghton is an atmospheric physicist. He was born in Dyserth, Denbighshire and currently lives in Aberdyfi, Gwynedd. He was the co-chair of the scientific assessment working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).[4] The IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, jointly with Al Gore”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welsh_Nobel_laureates_and_nominees

“The Physical Science Behind Climate Change" in Scientific American (2008) by Nobel Laureates William Collins, Robert Colman, James Haywood, Martin R. Manning and Philip Mote. “
http://www.prattlibrary.org/locations/periodicals/index.aspx?id=64590

"At the centre of all this was New Zealand climate scientist Jim Salinger, an IPCC Nobel laureate who had earlier been unceremoniously sacked from Niwa for speaking to the media without authorisation." (not an article friendly to Jim, still calls him Nobel Laureate)
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10823014

Even, for amusement:
“IPCC Nobel Laureates Lack Scientific Curiosity”
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/01/20/ipcc-nobel-laureates-lack-scientific-credibility/ which has a picture

I have several times had to warn those who'd done good debunks that they were about to hear threats of legal action, but it would be like getting your ankle gummed by an angry toothless chihuahua (perhaps barking in Latin).

Arab proverb: Dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.

Modern version:
Given new Army intelligence data, Abrams tanks hurry to the next objective through the desert night, waking rabid, toothless chihuahuas lost there, who cower behind the dunes and howl their rage and anger at the tanks.
The tanks roll on.

Anonymous said...

So falsey claiming to be a Nobel Peace Prize winner is a rampant problem in the scientific community?

No one could take the times to read the rules posted by Nobel?


Great case you make their Mashey. Mann was not alone in being wrong, got it.

chek said...

The hornerbots really are going apeshit trying to get their - heh -interpretation to stick aren't they?

Whereas anybody who actually knows what the IPCC is and who actually created the work that was recognised by the Nobel committee cannot see any problem

Perhaps the only solution is for the hornerbots to stop reading nothing but their poisonous in-house material.

bill said...

Perhaps this one will get himself into such a lather he'll go the way of Breitbart?

EliRabett said...

Given what is going on in Montana the hornerbots have other worries:)