Michael Mann requests retraction of defamatory claims; frankly, the whole piece should be replaced with multiple apologies.

Scientific American has published easily its worst article ever, a multi-libelous puff piece by Michael Lemonick lionizing the widely debunked Prof. Richard Muller.  Its embarrassing title, “I Stick to the Science,” is a self-congratulatory quote from Muller as utterly false as most of most of his other statements in the piece.

Leading climatologist Michael Mann has rightfully requested a retraction of the article’s defamatory claims.  It also gratuitously libels Al Gore and Tom Friedman.

Memo to SciAm editors:  It is still libel when you quote someone else at length making a libelous statement.  That goes double for a proven fabricator like Richard Muller — a man whose previous libel of Al Gore was revealed to be a pure fabrication by esteemed climate scientist Dr. Ralph Cicerone, the head of the National Academy of Sciences.

This piece is a massive failure of editorial judgment:  It actually contains falsehoods that had previously been debunked by other articles published by SciAm! It is VERY hard to undo the kind the harm SciAm has done with this piece. It should be retracted in full and replaced by several apologies.

As Mann writes, “Anyone who thinks that Richard Muller has any credibility at all should see this recent video report by Peter Sinclair, which shows him clearly lying about the science and the scientists. There is no room for such dishonesty when it comes to discussions of science.”  Many other climate scientists have shared similar views with me.

While Muller’s version of climate science has repeatedly been shown to be wrong, his libels repeatedly shown to be fabrications, and his latest Koch-funded climate research to be riddled with conflicts of interest and anti-scientific partners, Scientific American manages to conduct an extended 3-page interview that never raises a single tough question, that never pushes back against Muller myriad libelous fabrications.  Indeed, the piece just credulously parrots Muller’s anti-science nonsense.

Here are just a few of the head-exploding low-lights from this People-magazine-style hagiography masquerading as science journalism:

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Texas lawmakers are set to slash funding for the agency responsible for fighting wildfires in the midst of a historic wildfire season in which some 2.5 million acres have burned.

First an “unprecedented drought” drove a “never-before-seen wildfire situation in Texas” by mid-April.  Then Governor Rick Perry officially proclaimed three “days of prayer for rain” “” starting on Earth day.

Soon after, NOAA reported that April 2011 saw “wildfire activity that scorched more than twice the area of any April this century,” most of it in Texas.  By mid-May, the Weather Channel was calling the southern drought, “truly exceptional.”

So what do Texas legislators do?  They propose cutting funds for firefighters, slashing the Texas Forest Service budget by “almost $34 million in budget cuts over the next two years, roughly a third of the agency’s total budget.”

The National Academy of Sciences says the median annual area burned by wildfires is projected to jump 100% to 500% over much of the West by mid-century.  But we aren’t even ready to deal with what is happening now.

Prayer beats funding adequate levels of firefighting every time, no?

Think Progress has more on this story:

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EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson thinks President Barack Obama deserves more credit for his environmental record.

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How big are the tax subsidies for oil companies? Why do we give subsidies to oil companies? Do big oil companies need these subsidies? Why should we eliminate tax subsidies for oil companies? What are the prospects for ending oil tax subsidies?

Seth Hanlon, Director of Fiscal Reform for CAP’s Doing What Works project, has the answers in this “Ask the Expert” video:

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