More Manntastic denigration from the ‘climate agitator in chief’ over the American Museum of Natural History

As first reported on WUWT yesterday, this press release went out on PRNewswire today. Meanwhile,  the chief climate agitator himself, Michael Mann, who never misses an opportunity to promote himself, has penned an op-ed in the New York Times. More below.

Scientists Petition American Museum of Natural History to Stand against ‘Climate-Change’ Agitators, States Physicians for Civil Defense

TUCSON, Ariz., Feb. 6, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — More than 300 scientists have sent a letter and background information to the president of the American Museum of Natural History in response to demands to remove Rebekah Mercer, a generous donor, from the Board of Trustees, reports Physicians for Civil Defense.

These demands come from agitators waving signs in front of the museum and an open letter circulating on the internet that amassed signatures from self-styled scientists. These include well-known proponents of the catastrophic, human-caused global warming (now climate change) hypothesis, along with many with no apparent scientific credentials, observes Physicians for Civil Defense president, Jane M. Orient, M.D.

The protestors complain that the Mercer Family Foundation has donated to politicians they don’t like and to supporters of scientists who dissent from the climate-change narrative, defaming them as “ringleaders of climate denial.” In fact, dissent is essential to science, and those who attempt to silence it are truly anti-science, Dr. Orient stated.

The letter to AMNH reads: “The case for harm from catastrophic global warming is growing weaker as more is learned about the Earth’s climate system, and about the poor predictive power of computer climate models. The Earth has supported abundant life many times in the geological past when there were much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is quite likely that future generations will benefit from the enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with more carbon dioxide. And there is no doubt that policies advocated by many of the protestors will cause economic harm across the world, especially to those hoping to climb out of poverty.”

Signers of the letter include two Nobel laureates, Ivar Giaever (physics, 1973) and Kary Mullis (chemistry, 1993), and many other esteemed, highly accomplished scientists, notes Dr. Orient. “The American Museum of Natural History should not tarnish its long and honorable tradition by allowing political pressure and street theater to dictate its policy,”

Physicians for Civil Defense distributes information to help to save lives in the event of war or other disaster.

Here’s an excerpt from the NYT op-ed:
Rebekah Mercer Puts a Museum’s Credibility at Risk

By JAMES POWELL and MICHAEL E. MANN FEB. 5, 2018

Museums are vital cultural institutions. They provide a glimpse into the past, a record of what once was and an exploration of how the present came to be. They are social cornerstones, shaping public opinion in subtle yet profound ways.

In a world increasingly dominated by fake news, museums should stand as sanctuaries of truth and science. To do so, a natural-history museum must be accurate, faithful to the facts and trusted by the public. This is why it is so troubling that Rebekah Mercer continues to sit on the board of trusteesof the American Museum of Natural History.

Ms. Mercer and her family were important backers of President Trump. She has a stake in Breitbart News, and the family foundation has contributed millions of dollars to climate-change-denying politicians and organizations like the Heartland Institute, which says, “Global warming is not a crisis” and “There is no need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and no point in attempting to do so.” According to the Mercer Family Foundation’s tax reports, it gave the Heartland Institute nearly $5.9 million from 2008 to 2016, more than the $4 million it donated to the American Museum of Natural History during that period.

Other climate-denial groups have also benefited from the Mercers’ largess. According to the foundation’s most recent tax filing, for 2016, obtained bythe Climate Investigations Center, those groups include the CO₂ Coalition, $150,000 (“We are persuaded that the net effects of increasing CO₂ will be very good for the world,” the group says); the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, $125,000 (“It is highly unlikely that future increases in the air’s CO₂ content will produce any global warming,” according to the group); and the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine, $200,000 (“several” members of its staff are “well known for their work” promoting a petition whose signatories are scientists “opposed, on scientific grounds, to the hypothesis of ‘human-caused global warming,’” the institute’s website says).

These organizations are in clear conflict with the virtually unanimous international scientific consensus on climate change.

more here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/opinion/rebekah-mercer-museum-credibility-.html

What is mind-blowing is that since the offending exhibit placard was installed in the early 1990’s, millions have people have visited, and until this alarmist mouthpiece went to visit, not one complaint was lodged.

The exhibit which was installed in 1993 summarised the scientific consensus at the time on “what caused the Ice Ages?”:

“The causes of the Ice Ages are not fully understood, but we know some factors that led to the first growth of the polar ice sheets. One was a decline in world temperatures over the previous 30 million years. Another was the formation, about 3 million years ago, of the Isthmus of Panama, which connected North and South America and diverted the oceans’ circulation to a more northward pattern. Since the first northern-hemisphere glaciers formed, 2.6 million years ago, the polar ice caps have expanded and contracted in response to variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun, causing cold spells alternating with warmer periods, like the one we live in now.

There is no reason to believe that another Ice Age won’t come. In the past, warm cycles lasted about 10,000 years, and it’s been that long since last cool period. Human-made pollutants may also have an effect on the Earth’s climatic cycles.”

On January 6^th, a visitor to the museum, Dr. Jonah Busch, objected on Twitter to the last paragraph and claimed that the museum was “promoting misinformation on climate change”.

Read more about it here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/05/an-open-letter-and-petition-defending-the-american-museum-of-natural-history-against-irrational-climate-zealotry/

Meanwhile, clueless Mann is blaming Mercer for the placard, even though she had nothing to do with it. It’s mainly because she has values that Mann thinks are shameful.

This whiny op-ed makes me want to publish one of my own: Michael Mann Puts Science’s Credibility at Risk

But, thankfully, that’s already been done.