date: Fri, 16 May 2003 16:11:38 -0400 from: "Michael E. Mann" subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: Harvard? to: m.hulme@uea.ac.uk X-Sender: paul_epstein@hms.harvard.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 17:37:36 -0400 To: "Michael E. Mann" From: Paul Epstein Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: Harvard? Cc: eric_chivian@hms.harvard.edu, trenbert@ncar.ucar.edu, jmccarth@oeb.harvard.edu Dear Michael Mann, It is indeed a great pleasure to receive your message (showing your famous graph for the last millennium so often in talks). My feelings -- and those of Eric Chivian, our center's director -- are mutual. It is appalling what Baliunus et al. are doing, using the past 50 year window for example, to tell their distorted story. And of course the story is used by those who's interests have become self evident. Have you spoken with Mike McElroy and Jim McCarthy? I know that Dan S is steaming mad and I do suggest a call to Mike to encourage a response from the Harvard University Committee on the Environment. I have discussed this with both Mike and Jim, but a note from you might help move things along. I look forward to hearing back and would certainly be open to developing a response based on climatology and the accumulating biological and health responses to climate change. With best regards, Paul mbm@io.harvard.edu 617-495-4359 jmccarth@oeb.harvard.edu 617-495-2330 At 10:49 AM 5/15/2003 -0400, Michael E. Mann wrote: Dear Paul, Kevin reminded me that you would be a good person to contact. I don't know if you have followed this story. Baliunas and company have published these two terrible paper which purport, without any credibility whatsoever, to undermine IPCC conclusions. The papers were published in "Energy and Environment" (an industry shill) and "Climate Research" (with help from some dubious individuals on the editorial boards--there is an investigation now into the practices of the editor in question, Chris DeFrietas of New Zealand, who rights anti-IPCC and anti-Kyoto op ed pieces in New Zealand). They are making some headway within the beltway, though the mainstream media and scientific community recognize the stuff for what it is [I'll resist using the appropriate words here, because my message might then not make it through the email filters]. Any insights you might have into the goings on within the PR office at Harvard would be of interest. It is disappointing to see Harvard's press office allow itself to be used as a pawn in this transparently political, pseudo-scientific, and industry-backed stunt... thanks in advance for any help or insight you can provide, mike Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 18:00:06 -0600 From: Kevin Trenberth Organization: NCAR/CGD User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.1) Gecko/20020823 Netscape/7.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en To: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: Re: Harvard? My main contact there is Dan Schrag: also Paul Epstein. Kevin Michael E. Mann wrote: Dear Colleagues, Baliunas and co. appear to have successfully hijacked Harvard's PR office on this. Any of you have contacts there you might be able to get some information from? Both of these appeared in the "Harvard Gazette": [1]http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/04-sun.html [2]http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/04.24/01-weather.html That provides the appearance of Harvard's stamp of approval for unsound claims which have otherwise been ignored by any other mainstream media outlets (despite the repeated attempts of the authors and their promoters to get wider coverage, the story has generally only been picked up by right-wing online sites and Murdoch-owned newspapers). While the work is getting ignored in scientific circles, and by the mainstream media, it is nonetheless being heavily promoted within Washington DC by not just the usual suspects like the "Marshall Institute", which has sponsored multiple presentations on this by the authors on capitol hill, but by the administration and agencies directly under their control. From what I am told, they are beginning to make political inroads in their attempts to use this to attempt to undermine IPCC's credibility. Phil Jones and I are writing a review paper for "Reviews in Geophysics" which will include a debunking of much of what they say, and Ray Bradley and others have something in the works in Science along these lines, but these will both have a long residence time--something more immediate may be necessary in the meantime. Thoughts and suggestions as to how best to proceed would be appreciated. mike ______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: [3]mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [4]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml ______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [5]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml Paul R. Epstein, M.D., M.P.H. Associate Director Center for Health and the Global Environment Harvard Medical School Landmark Center 401 Park Drive, Second Floor Boston, MA 02215 Tel. 617-384-8586 Fax. 617-384-8585 Email. Website. <[6]www.med.harvard.edu/chge> ............................................................. The Mission of the Center for Health and the Global Environment is to study and to promote a wider understanding of the human health consequences of global environmental change. The Center believes that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health, and to the health and lives of their children. ______________________________________________________________ Professor Michael E. Mann Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall University of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 22903 _______________________________________________________________________ e-mail: mann@virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7770 FAX: (434) 982-2137 [7]http://www.evsc.virginia.edu/faculty/people/mann.shtml