2y ago

Renowned climate scientist Michael Mann awarded $1 million in suit over his work being likened to child molester's acts

www.cbsnews.com

A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann, who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester.

Mann, a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania, rose to fame for a graph first published in 1998 in the journal Nature that was dubbed the "hockey stick" for its dramatic illustration of a warming planet.

The work brought Mann wide exposure but also many skeptics, including the two writers Mann took to court for comments that he said affected his career and reputation in the U.S. and internationally.

"It feels great," Mann said Thursday after the six-person jury delivered its verdict. "It's a good day for us, it's a good day for science."

34 comments

How would it even occur to you to compare climate science to child molestation? Unless you just think that everything you don't like is child molestation.
- I think it's probably got more to do with the "every accusation is a confession" principle that modern conservatism seems to operate under.
- How would it occur to you that a guy rescuing kids trapped in a cave is a pedophile? Who knows, but Elon did anyway.
  
  This is apparently what started many people realizing that he is actually an idiot and not a genius.
- Its shit heel behavior, but there was the Jerry Sandusky revelations at Penn state, the same university where Mann worked at the time.
  These shit heads just used an actually evil bastard that was in the news to drum up clicks and vilify Mann in the worst way possible at the same time.
- They actually like child molestation, but only when their side is doing it, otherwise they use it as an insult.
  
  They hate seeing others do it wrong.
- When I was a kid everything my family didn't like was satanic. Boy getting a piercing, wearing a sweatband, non-baby boomer music.
- Conservatives really do build up this whole terrible world in which they are the only heroes and anything they do is ok. They don't think he is a child molester, they said it for shock value alone and are now giving us the shocked Pikachu face.
- Accusations like that are often confessions.
- Wackos used to call everything they hated, "communist" but switch names because their beloved Putin is pretty communist.
  
  Russia stopped being a communist state with the fall of the USSR (and Gorbachev loosened that up even before the fall). It's more of a right wing kleptocracy today.
  
  Putin is not in any way a communist. He's a mobbed up, fascist dictator.
  
  Whenceforth are you taking the claim from that Putin is a communist?
The jury in Superior Court of the District of Columbia found that Simberg and Steyn made false statements, awarding Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer. It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with "maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm."
During the trial, Steyn represented himself.
Conservatives, you're a predictable mess.
- Was Bobby Barnes not available? I hear he has experience defending defamation lawsuits
It'll be a good day for science when we collectively take climate change seriously. Until then it's all political grandstanding.
- Kinda like all the work Joe Biden has been doing for 11 years in the executive?
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_policy_of_the_Joe_Biden_administration
  On his first day in office, Biden began to make policy changes to protect the environment. He began revising and strengthening the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and ordered a number of executive orders aimed at reviewing or undoing the environmental policies of the former administration, including removal of some wildlife protections,[8] the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline,[9] and drilling for oil and gas on federal lands.[10] He promised to end and reverse deforestation and land degradation by 2030.[11] As a first step in recognizing the impact of climate change on less developed nations—an impact which is largely the result of years of environmental damage caused by nations which have prospered—Biden signed an executive order to study the effects of climate change's impact on migration, including "options for protection and resettlement."[12] Biden appointed Pete Buttigieg as the Secretary of Transportation, and he is expected to work with the administration to reduce carbon emissions with plans such as improved public transportation, building a national network of electric vehicle chargers, and other strategies to reduce emissions.[13]
  The Biden administration delivered a tax plan to congress that aims to start winding back fossil fuel subsidies, replacing the subsidies with incentives to start producing green energy.[14] His proposed budget includes a 30% increase in clean energy research and development, $2 billion to be invested in green energy projects and $6.5 billion to lend to rural communities in support of additional green energy, power storage, and transmission projects.[15] Biden has ordered the amount of energy produced from offshore wind turbines to be doubled by 2030.[16][17]
  In August 2022, Biden signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which includes the largest federal climate change investment in American history ($391 billion).[18][19] With this law and additional federal and state measures, the USA can fulfill its pledge in Paris agreement: 50% greenhouse gas emissions reduction by the year 2030.[20][21]
- If we are still in the "someday, when we take it serious" timeline, then it's probably too late anyway.
The actual hockey stick image
Source: https://www.science20.com/newsarticles/michaelmannandtheiconichockeystickgraphicatthecenteroftheclimatedebate-153238
Media Bias Fact Check entry for Science 2.0 (science20.com): https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/science-2-0/
That should be Billion honestly
I love how their whole argument comes down to "well he became more famous because of what we said so how can there be damages?" Also some of the comments make them sound like Sovereign Citizens.
Rand Simberg was one of those authors and the article in question was for the Competitive Enterprise Institute which received 2 millions dollars from Exonmobile.
So here we see a classic example of a corporation paying thru a proxy someone to release propaganda to influence public opinion and then when there is a reaction to it they throw a low level guy under the bus.
Think of how much better of a world we would have if all the influence peddlers all the hired gun "journalists" had real jobs.
- Notice how the judgement is always against flunkies like simberg and not the Exxons paying them. What would the jury have awarded if they had the whole story and the proper defendant? Probably more than 1M.
  
  Interesting question. Can some clever lawyers go after the people who put out the hit? Exxon has to have more money than the "think" tank involved.
Congratulations Mann! It's a win for the whole world.
- .
- The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) is a US-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1985 that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues. According to its mission statement, CFACT also seeks to protect private property rights, promote economic policies that reduce pollution and protect wildlife, and provide an "alternative voice on issues of environment and development".[2][3]
  The organization rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.[4][5]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_a_Constructive_Tomorrow
  And you think linking to that organization's website will convince anyone here?

34 comments