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Author Topic: Mark Jacobson Lawsuit  (Read 1622 times)

jai mitchell

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Mark Jacobson Lawsuit
« on: November 02, 2017, 01:35:56 PM »
Background here:  https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/609308/a-renewable-energy-champion-is-suing-his-scientific-critics/

Mark Jacobson of Stanford is relatively famous in the climate mitigation world for developing a national, state by state and (is working on) a global energy resource analysis that shows that is is 'possible' for a state, country or even the whole world to switch all energy consumption to non-fossil fuel (and nuclear) sources. 

Last year the National Academy of Sciences published a response paper co-written by 20 authors to take apart his work.  He claimed that their assertions in the paper (peer reviewed) were intentionally misleading and akin to libel.  It looks like he REALLY believed what he was saying.

Some climate scientists have stated that this is not the correct way to treat scientific debate.  That the conversation should be done through the peer reviewed, refereed literature.  Mark Jacobson did this with a very lengthy response to the paper, which was published.

He is suing for $10 million dollars.

My thoughts,

First off, I am not a big fan of scientists suing people, except when the targets of these lawsuits are actively working, either through ideological insanity or for simple monetary gain, to intentionally suppress good work that is going to help us to get off of fossil fuels and preserve some kind of non-dystopian future for our children.

However, some interesting things about the authors that wrote the paper.

Did there really need to be 20 authors for a response paper?  There is no real core datasets that required field research, why so many authors except to make the paper seem more authoritative.  This is akin to saying, "I win because me and my friends are louder than you are".

Which lends itself to Mark Jacobson's argument that they are intentionally trying to discredit his work, not discuss the scientific merit of his work.

Secondly, Mark Jacobson asserts that most of the 20 authors have ties to Nuclear industry, nuclear support organizations, fossil fuel interests (I think) and/or geoengineering.  He implies that they are trying to suppress his work intentionally to protect their own interests.

In any event this could get interesting.

Mark Jacobson's Paper from 2015:  http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15060.full.pdf

Christopher Clack (and 20 authors) paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/6722.full

Mark Jacobson's Reply: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/26/E5021 
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miki

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Re: Mark Jacobson Lawsuit
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2017, 03:59:12 PM »
Thank you, Jai. Very interesting. I'll read the whole saga.