Judge revokes permission of sceptic thinktank American Tradition Institute to look at private University of Virginia emails

American climatologist Michael Mann. He is one of the originators of a graph of temperature trends dubbed the 'hockey stick'. 


Climate change scientist Michael Mann fends off sceptic group's raid on emails

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 2 November 2011 02.25 EDT

The climate scientist Michael Mann has successfully fought off an attempt by a pro-industry thinktank to gain access to thousands of private emails.

After a day-long court hearing on Tuesday, a judge in Manassas, Virginia, granted Mann's petition to join a lawsuit against the American Tradition Institute, an industry-funded thinktank that promotes scepticism about man-made climate change.

In an email, Mann called the decision a "good day" for academic freedom: "I don't think there is any way to view this as anything other than a win for us, and for science more generally."

Judge Gaylord Finch also granted a petition from the University of Virginia, Mann's former employer, to revisit its earlier decision to let lawyers for the ATI have access to the emails before they were made public.

(More here.)