The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday shut down an effort by the state's attorney general to obtain records related to a former University of Virginia researcher whose work supports the widely accepted theory that climate change is a serious environmental issue.
The attorney general, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, is a critic of climate change who is prominent in conservative Republican circles and argues that researchers' private records might cast doubt on views of the environment backed by most scholars. Many academics have viewed Cuccinelli's campaign as an invasion of their privacy and as an attempt to intimidate scientists with the threat that their work could be taken out of context.
Michael Mann, the researcher, currently teaches at Pennsylvania State University. Via e-mail, he said that he was "pleased that this particular episode is over." But he added: "It's sad, though, that so much money and resources had to be wasted on Cuccinelli's witch hunt against me and the University of Virginia, when it could have been invested, for example, in measures to protect Virginia's coastline from the damaging effects of sea level rise it is already seeing."