Andrew Weaver’s Defamation Case Against Tim Ball Thrown Out By Judge
By Paul Homewood
Breaking news from Principia Scientific International:
After 3-week trial Canadian judge dismisses all charges in the lawsuit brought against Dr. Tim Ball by British Columbia Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. Climate skeptics are hailing the verdict as a key victory over extremists promoting human-caused global warming. Not a peep from the mainstream media!
Speaking to Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, Ball explained:
“The judge ruled that Weaver was not defamed by me and dismissed the claim completely. This was after almost seven years and thousands of dollars in legal costs.” But Ball lamented, “There are no media reports and my guess is there won’t be any.”
Professor Andrew Weaver is a champion of Canadian greens and Desmogblog (a site funded by a convicted criminal). View the lawsuit here.
One Down, One to Go!
Dr Ball, a 79-year-old retired climate professor has for decades been a staunch critic of what many see as alarmist junk science peddled by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The Weaver-v-Ball trial is one of the three lawsuits Dr Ball received from the same hotshot libel lawyer, Roger McConchie, on behalf of three prominent members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The most high-profile of the cases being the still outstanding libel suit Dr Ball defends against Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann.
Over the six years while these cases were running Dr Ball has witnessed relentless and systemic media bias. He recalls:
“At 09:30 on the day the trial started we were told there was no judge or courtroom assigned. Amazingly and incorrectly, that information was reported almost immediately on media claiming the trial was postponed. It wasn’t, because by 11:00 a judge and courtroom were assigned and the trail began at 11:30. The postponement story likely explained why no media attended a single day of the three-week trial. The nature of the case that involves a so-called climate change denier will likely also be ignored.”
A Back Story of Systemic Persecution
The first of three climate lawsuits served on Ball was filed on behalf of Gordon McBean, a former Assistant Deputy Minister at Environment Canada. He chaired the founding meeting of the IPCC in 1985. On the McBean case Ball chose to avoid a legal battle explaining:
“My wife and I decided not to fight the McBean case because of the legal cost involved. We simply withdrew the article.”
Not surprisingly, alarmists trumpeted a resounding defeat for Ball, who was repeatedly targeted for further personal attacks on his academic credentials and competency to comment on climate matters.
Read the full story here.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Judith Curry writes: ‘Weaver’s lawyer, Roger McConchie, is already preparing the appeal.
So did Tim Ball libel Andrew Weaver? Yes. Did Tim Ball’s libelous statements damage Andrew Weaver in any way? No. Was the judge’s argument of ‘lacking a sufficient air of credibility’ an appropriate rationale for his decision? Is making a libelous statement canceled out if your argument lacks credibility?’
More legal wrangles ahead it seems.
People should read the judgement:
The article by Ball was ‘derogatory’ (in the ordinary sense of the word) but not ‘defamatory’ (in the requisite legal sense of that word). So, Weaver’s case fell at the first hurdle.
The case would not have fared better in the U.K. where the Defamation Act 2013 has laid down that defamation must involve ‘serious harm to reputation’ as opposed to just ‘harm.’ The old rule was frightening people off from criticising anybody about anything, since even the smallest ruffling of feathers was deemed actionable.
When debate on an esoteric subject somehow spills into the public arena, and becomes ugly and slapdash, this actually raises the bar for establishing defamation.
And I wonder who is paying McConchie!!
According to johnosullivan, Roger D. McConchie is rumored to be a shill of the Suzuki Foundation, which receives money from Tides Canada.
https://johnosullivan.wordpress.com/2011/03/
andrew weaver?
A professor?
Professing what?
a professor of specious statistical jiggerpokery about a harmless trace gas and that’s all he is, a pipsqueak non entity.
Whatever happened to Romm?
Next.
Weaver’s a green politician. They defame themselves with their lies and propaganda.
Much is made by Tim Ball’s attackers that he is/was “a Professor of Geographer” and therefore this makes him unqualified to speak on climate matters.
If that is the case, then why do the following hold such sway in the global warming movement?
Professor Martin Parry
Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford (1991-94), and Professor of Geography at the University of Birmingham (1989-91).
Professor Martin Parry is Visiting Professor at The Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial
College London, and also Visiting Research Fellow at The Grantham Institute at the same
University. Until September 2008 he was Co-Chair of Working Group II (Impacts,
Adaptation and Vulnerability), of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
based at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, U.K. Met. Office.
He was chairman of the UK Climate Change Impacts Review Group, and a coordinating lead author in the IPCC first, second and third assessments.
In fact Parry was a private contractor to DEFRA as “Martin Parry Associates”. The Met Office was awarded a contract (google GA01087) worth £1,436,000, to run WGII and Martin Parry Associates (google Co-Chair IPCC Working Group II – GA01056) a contract worth £330,187, to be Co-Chair of it.
He was Director of the Jackson Environment Institute (JEI), and Professor of Environmental Science at the University of East Anglia (1999-2002); Professor of Environmental Management at University College London (1994-99).
Professor Diana Liverman,
former Director of Oxford Environmental Change Institute Professor of Environmental Science, School of Geography
The ECI opened in 1991, Martin Parry was the first Director, Professor Myles Allen is currently in the role, http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/people/mallen.html
Liverman went to the US in 2009 and was appointed to the committee on America’s Climate Choices convened by the US National Academies. She became Vice-Chair of the panel on ˜Informing Effective Decisions and Actions Related to Climate Change”.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/email/html/cen_87_i15_8715gov1.html
She took up a post at Arizona University with Jonathan Overpeck, (who has recently moved elsewhere), co-founding The Institute for the Environment and Society. She had previously been a professor of geography there in 1996-2003.
https://uanews.arizona.edu/story/ua-establishes-institute-for-the-environment-and-society
Still there: http://www.environment.arizona.edu/diana-liverman
Interestingly, the long time climate politician, Sir Crispin Tickell, is “Advisor at Large” to the ASU President: https://sustainability.asu.edu/person/sir-crispin-tickell/
Now, what was that about geography?
Mark Steyn is still in a case in the DC courts being sued for libel by that fire-hydrant of liars, Michael Mann.
Socrates had it right. “When debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser”
What a shame that a big benefactor did not step forward to fund Dr Ball’s McBean case to show that they will be fought at every step, and I hope costs will be awarded when they are won.
Good news! I’ve met Dr. Ball and heard him speak and he’s the real thing. To support him, buy his books – they’re very good.
Quite agree. The excellent Dr. Tim Ball is the real deal. I’ve read both his books, they’re excellent. So is his website: http://www.drtimball.com
Another great read is geology Prof. Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth, global warming: the missing science.
Written in plain English, easy to understand for the non-scientist such as myself, it nevertheless contains over 2000 references to peer-reviewed papers etc for those interested in aspects of the sciences involved.
I do so hope that the court awards punitive damages to the honest Dr. Tim & against the little fat fraud factory that is the pseudo-scientist “Lone Pine” Mikey Mann.
John Doran.
Great news! Crowd funding for legal costs is a great potential antidote to liars with deep pockets (or”friends “with deep pockets) trying to silence critics with litigation.
Meanwhile in THIS slowly moving matter:
http://www.firstpost.com/india/delhi-court-refuses-to-restrain-media-from-reporting-sexual-assault-case-against-rk-pachauri-4351173.html
Slightly off topic but I see from AM, that our ghastly Guv. of the BoE is complaining about Banks not doing anything about Climate Change. What are they supposed to do….throw good money after bad I imagine, not that the climate will take any notice. It tends to do its own thing.
Carney – one of the most useless BoE governers ever – expects them to warn of scary things happening due to global warming in their forecasts but I guess most of them just can’t stoop to that level of lies.
Clear from reading the judgement that Judge concluded ‘plague on both your houses’, he felt our man was a bit of an idiot but that’s his privilege.
Nice to see freedom of press being defended.