It looks like a bad B movie. Is it a true story?
Quite. Climatologist Michael Mann has just won a lawsuit against Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn, for blog posts published in 2012 considered defamatory. In a unanimous verdict, a Washington jury ordered them to pay just over $1 million to Mr. Mann on Thursday. The two men, however, indicated that they could appeal the decision.
PHOTO PETE MAROVICH, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Renowned US climate scientist Michael Mann leaves a Washington courtroom after winning a libel suit against two bloggers on Wednesday
Who are Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn?
Rand Simberg is an American engineer who worked in 2012 for a libertarian think tank, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), recognized for its climate skeptic positions. He was ordered to pay Michael Mann $1,000 in punitive damages. As for Mark Steyn, a controversial Canadian journalist, the jury fined him $1 million for comments published in 2012 in the conservative magazine National Review.
Why attack Michael Mann? This name is not well known to the general public.
Michael E. Mann became known in 1999, at the age of 34, for a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters which included one of his most important contributions to climate science: a graph nicknamed the “hockey stick graph” (hockey stick graph), representing global temperature averages over the last 1000 years. The data showed a hockey stick-shaped curve, illustrating a sustained increase in global warming starting in the pre-industrial period. The graph became very popular and was included in a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2001. In 2006, it was also featured in former Vice President Al Gore’s documentary , An inconvenient truth (An Inconvenient Truth), winner of the 2007 Oscar for best documentary film.
IMAGE FROM WIKIPEDIA
The “hockey stick graphic”
In 2009, Michael Mann found himself, along with other scientists, at the heart of an email hacking scandal called Climategate. Climate skeptics then falsely accused him of manipulating his research data. Mr. Mann is now director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He also inspired the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Cosmic denial (Don’t Look Up), released in 2021.
What do we blame Simberg and Steyn for?
“You could say that Mann is the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except that instead of molesting children, he molested and tortured data,” wrote Rand Simberg in a post published on the CEI website in 2012 Jerry Sandusky is a former football coach at Pennsylvania State University, convicted in 2012 of sexually assaulting children over a period of fifteen years. In 2012, Michael Mann was a professor at the same university, where he taught climate science. Although the IEC removed the sentence from its site as “inappropriate,” Mark Steyn later repeated Simberg’s post in a publication in the National Review adding, “I’m not sure I would have extended that metaphor to the locker room showers with the same zeal as Mr. Simberg, but he’s not wrong.” »
How did Michael Mann react after the verdict?
“I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech,” the scientist said in a statement. “It’s a victory for science and it’s a victory for scientists,” he added. The decision was also welcomed by several scientists on social networks. “I’m not a big fan of Michael Mann, but this is a fantastic result in the fight against climate misinformation. Two down, millions of clueless fools to come,” retired mathematics professor Eliot Jacobson wrote on the X Network on Thursday.
Could such a verdict increasingly help scientists in the crosshairs of climate skeptics?
Philippe Gachon, professor of hydroclimatology at UQAM, believes that the decision in favor of Michael Mann could dampen the ardor of certain deniers. But at the same time he notes a resurgence of climate skeptic discourse in the public sphere. “Michael Mann will not be the only one attacked. The more visible we are, the more targeted we are,” he says. The stakes are high, he emphasizes, recalling a recent report from the World Economic Forum which placed misinformation and disinformation at the forefront of the most serious risks for the year 2024. “We are going to have to redouble our efforts. Conspiracy theorists are increasingly effective at communicating false information. »