Pat Michaels, whose utility industry funding, private research and controversial views on global warming made him a lightning rod on climate change issues, left the office too politicized, according to officials at the University of Virgina.

As a result, Michaels is no longer the state's climatologist.

Huge kudos to Kert Davies and Greenpeace for their effort in this latest astounding blow to the climate denial industry.  

Court documents (attached at the bottom of this post) have surfaced claiming that longtime climate denier Pat Michaels has withdrawn as an expert witness from a Vermont court case after a request was submitted that he reveal his funding sources. 

In the documents, Michaels states that he was dependent for his livelihood on the income he got through his wholly owned firm, New Hope Environmental Services, Inc.

"Many of New Hope's clients provide funding to New Hope with the understanding that the funding will be confidential," Michaels and his lawyers said in one document.

Alexander Cockburn (writing in the Nation) has become the latest contrarian-de-jour, sallying forth with some rather novel arithmetic to show that human-caused global warming is nothing to be concerned about. This would be unworthy of comment in most cases, but Cockburn stands out as one of only a few left-wing contrarians, as opposed to the more usual right-wing variety.

Casual readers may have thought this is a relatively recent obsession of his (3 articles and responses over the last month), however, Cockburn has a fairly long history of ill-informed commentary on the subject of global warming.