Richard Littlemore has the Calgary Herald's
Statement of Defence against Tim Ball's lawsuit.
Best bit:
- The Defendants (the Calgary Herald) state that the Plaintiff (Ball) never held a reputation in the scientific community as a noted climatologist and authority on global warming. The particulars of the Plaintiff's reputation are as follows:
(a) The Plaintiff has never published any research in any peer-reviewed scientific journal which addressed the topic of human contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and global warming;
(b) The Plaintiff has published no papers on climatology in academically recognized peer-reviewed scientific journals since his retirement as a Professor in 1996;
(c) The Plaintiff's credentials and credibility as an expert on the issue of global warming have been repeatedly disparaged in the media; and
(d) The Plaintiff is viewed as a paid promoter of the agenda of the oil and gas industry rather than as a practicing scientist.
As Littlemore says: ouch.
More like this
Richard Littlemore has posted Ball's Statement of Claim. Here is the heart of it with my commments:
8 The letter to the editor contains the follow statements which contain inaccuracies and are defamatory of Ball:
"...newspapers ought to report factual summaries of authors' credentials. You note…
The Globe and Mail reports
CALGARY -- The skeptic at the centre of the heated debate about climate change that has been taking place in Canadian newspapers is moving the dispute to the courts, where Tim Ball is seeking $325,000 in damages for a letter to the editor that he says amounted to a "…
DeSmogBlog has Dan Johnson's statement of Defence against Tim Ball's lawsuit.
Johnson has uncovered more examples of Ball embellishing his academic record. For example, Ball claimed he was an Emeritus Professor when he wasn't. Part of his defence is that Ball had no reputation to be damaged:…
One favourite tactic of creationists is that of "quote-mining", using out-of-context quotes from scientists that appear to support the creationists' position. Global warming skeptics play this game as well and a recent Calgary Herald column Tim Ball is a good example of the practice. He quotes…
I hope Timmy Ball doesn't throw in the towel. It would be a real treat to witness Timmy defend his "credentials" on the stand.
I also like the part where they say:
The Plaintiff is a member of the Friends of Science, a group dedicated to discrediting mainstream scientific beliefs and theories regarding the contribution of human sourced greenhouse gases to global warming.
They sure live up to their name!
Timball : Very good performance. Please stick with the case 'til the Bitter End so that the Piñata will be produced forth many times for everyone's enjoyment !
I, personally, thingk Tim Ball is a parody character in some person's performance art, acted out on The Internets (that some on the right still asserts Gore created).
Best,
D