Pat Michaels Steps Down As VA State Climatologist - Hid Links To Utility Company Funding

[hatrack]

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Virginia's state climatologist, whose doubts about global warming and utility-industry funding made him a lightning rod on climate change issues, quietly left his position over the summer.

Patrick J. Michaels, who had held the position since 1980, will remain as a part-time research professor on leave at the University of Virginia, Joseph C. Zieman, chairman of the school's Department of Environmental Sciences, told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville. Michaels has been a leading skeptic of global-warming theories. While he believes global warming is real and influenced by humans, he contends it primarily is caused by natural forces.

EDIT

George F. Allen, a friend of Michaels, twice intervened on matters involving funding for Michaels' office, once as governor and again as a U.S. senator. In 1994, Allen restored a cut of more than $100,000 to Michaels' office that had been proposed by former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder. Eight years later, as a senator, Allen rescued Michaels' office from other proposed cuts that Michaels said would have wiped out his entire funding.

Democrats, top scientists and environmental advocates also have maintained that Michaels' reliance on large utility company contributions for private research was a conflict of interest. Last summer, The Associated Press reported that a Colorado utility raised at least $150,000 in donations and pledges to help Michaels analyze global-warming research by other scientists. In July, Michaels withdrew as an expert witness for the auto industry in a high-profile case in Vermont federal court rather than disclose his funding sources. He said he was hired by the Automobile Manufacturers Association, and that his donors had information they wanted to remain confidential.

"Global warming science is a controversial area, and those who do not believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will inevitably result in extreme climatologic outcomes are often subject to public attack," Michaels stated in an affidavit to the court.

EDIT

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/virginia/dp-va--stateclimatologis0926sep26,0,1483522.story

OK, everybody - all together now: AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Buzz Clik]

1. Patrick Michaels caught with his fingers in the cookie jar and whining about being attacked. Awwww!

Michaels being for sale to the highest bidder is the worst kept secret in the global warming community. Michaels has creds that the "junkscience.com" idiot Steve Malloy would never have -- education, position, access to power. And now, he's screwn. Poor baby.

Anybody remember Michaels testifying before Congress using James Hansen's data? Michaels showed a temperature graph, including model predictions. In Hansen's original graph, there were three lines; Michaels deleted the line that was most supportive for anthropogenic sources of global warming. Hansen called him on it instantly; how Michaels avoided being charged for that deception escapes me.

But I am truly shocked at the greed of this scientific whore. In today's (Bush's) environmental climate, funding for research has been deeply slashed. Entire research programs have been starved to death. And Michaels has been tapping the till to the tune of $100,000 from the state and $150,000 in gift money from industry. Unreal. One hundred fifty thousand dollars per year to "analyze global warming research by other scientists." Hey, Michaels! Scientists who are not whores do that kind of analysis as a matter of course -- it's part of the day-to-day job. And exactly what was that $150,000 buying?

Couldn't have happened to a better guy, Pat.

[hatrack]

2. The John Stossel of climatology gets the boot . . . I hope there were hobnails on it

Oh, I forgot - he's still got his cushy Cato gig, and nothing buys glib whores the way Koch money does.