Last week in a Richmond Times-Dispatch story Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli was quoted as saying, "The two most important forces for keeping the Earth clean in the history of the world are free markets and free people, combined."
Seeing as Cuccinelli is knee-deep in a couple of legal battles he initiated, challenging the science that finds the Earth's measurable rapid climate change to be somewhat man-made, that statement revealed a lot. More about that later.
Meanwhile, Cuccinelli’s unusual probe into a former University of Virginia professor’s research notes and emails lost some steam recently, as a pair of investigations have exonerated scientists accused of fudging the facts about climate change.
A Penn State University review of the methods of scientist Michael Mann, who is best known for his "hockey-stick" graph -- depicting the recent rise in the Earth's temperature -- found that his critics had no basis to dismiss his findings as bogus science, driven by ideology.
In England an independent investigation vindicated the scientists who had been accused of conspiring to promote phony findings about global warming. This should put an end to the so-called "Climategate" scandal at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit.
Unless, of course, one is a true believer. More about that later, too.
On April 23 Cuccinelli sent the University of Virginia a Civil Investigative Demand directing it gather up and send his office any documents having to do with Mann’s work on climate change research, while Mann was at the university (1999-2005).
Looking for evidence of fraud, Cuccinelli wants to sift through documents in any way connected to five grants Mann received while at the university. Now Mann is at Penn State, acting as the director of the Earth System Science Center.
Since normally the attorney general represents a state university, UVa. went out of house to retain a law firm, Hogan Lovells, to help defend itself. On May 27 the university filed a petition in the Albemarle County Circuit Court, asking the court to set aside Cuccinelli's CID.
Unfortunately for Cuccinelli, a good part of his argument that Mann may have committed fraud has been based on believing the charges those two independent investigations just branded as unfounded.
On Tues., July 13, Cuccinelli is scheduled to file papers defending his move to subpoena Mann's records, etc. Don’t be surprised if Cuccinelli’s office asks for more time. After all, now he’s got to show the court why it should ignore what those two investigations found to be true. Oral arguments on the case are scheduled for August.
Back to Cuccinelli’s statement about free markets and free people keeping the Earth clean. The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico can be said to be many things. One of them is that it is the byproduct of capitalism, gone wrong. And, if Americans and Brits aren’t free peoples, then who is?
An attempt to have Mr. Cuccinelli, or his spokesperson, explain how free markets and "free people" -- whatever that means, post-Cold War -- have combined to become the two most important forces for keeping the Earth clean was not successful.
However, who else but a true believer could make the statement Cuccinelli did in that first paragraph? Who except a true believer with a blind faith in a particular brand of ultra conservative ideology? In Cuccinelli’s case his ideology may have morphed into something akin to religious convictions.
How else could Cuccinelli truly believe that free markets have anything to do with protecting the environment in any country?
Did a free market keep Allied Chemical from dumping tons of a pesticide into the James River in the 1970s? No, but Virginia’s government made Allied pay for the cleanup. Without the Environmental Protection Agency, just imagine how much unfettered capitalism would have made the Earth cleaner over the last four decades.
When one scans the political landscape the Tea Party seems much like a religious movement. Its rallies show a marked resemblance to the tent show revivals of yesteryear. At this writing Cuccinelli is still a darling of the Tea Party movement, such as it is.
Cuccinelli needs to discredit Michael Mann and his colleagues in order to force UVa. to comply with his demand for papers and emails. Moreover, in the long run, he needs to prove in court that most scientists who study the environment are in on a worldwide conspiracy to dupe us all into believing there might be something wrong with poisoning the planet.
Cuccinelli is going to need a miracle.
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