Climatologist Michael Mann wins defamation case: what it means for scientists

Paper money is delusional enough thank you very much. Don't hold your breath.

 

Hah! Maaaate! I had the direct experience (and you can ask the mods about this) of a right wing idiot who logged on one evening when there were only a few of us here - he would engage someone - start a “fight” then escalate to threatening to trace their IPs and come to their homes and shoot them. So, I made him focus on me. Figured if he was that much of an idiot he was in for a long wet drive across the Pacific Ocean.

in other words there is a vast and huge difference between taking you down “verbally” because you are in disagreement and someone and threatening to rape a spouse

https://scholarsandrogues.com/2012/01/13/morano-abets-threats/

Australian scientists had to go into hiding

 

Well, maybe that is because they know more than you about the subject

 

Lols!

 

I guess being an Australian you missed the "Summer of Love" here in the US when Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, etc. burned.

But then again, that wasn't just nasty emails so I guess it doesn't count.

 

Truth telling? Remember you posted a thread of Mann being interviewed by Al Franken? And Mann gave out a bunch of disinformation in the interview? Even contradicted peer reviewed studies the IPCC report on and accept?

Mann has no interest in the truth. Nor do folks like you who believe the disinformation that emanates from his dialogues. You posted easily verifiable disinformation from Mann on the internet on this very forum. And you don’t care. Why are you referencing truth on the internet now?


http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?posts/1074468998/

 

In other climate-related legal news from DC, there's a verdict going against another virtue-signaler.
Stanford prof who sued critics loses appeal against $500,000 in legal fees

Mark Jacobson

Mark Jacobson, a Stanford professor who sued a journal and a critic for $10 million before dropping the case, has lost an appeal he filed in 2022 to avoid paying defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.

As we have previously reported, Jacobson:

…who studies renewable energy at Stanford, sued in September 2017 in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia for defamation over a 2017 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that critiqued a 2015 article he had written in the same journal. He sued PNAS and the first author of the paper, Christopher Clack, an executive at a firm that analyzes renewable energy.

The fees, based on an anti-SLAPP statute, are “designed to provide for early dismissal of meritless lawsuits filed against people for the exercise of First Amendment rights.” Jacobson tried to argue that, by dropping the suit, he was no longer liable for legal fees because the statute requires that defendants “prevail.”

But the three judges in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals disagreed. Justice Joshua Deahl, writing on behalf of himself and colleagues, held:

under Jacobson’s preferred approach, a plaintiff could engage in harassing and meritless litigation up until the point at which they sense the court might dismiss the case, and then voluntarily dismiss the suit themselves, all the while keeping the threat of refiling hanging over the defendants’ heads and running up their legal bills.

The specter of repeat litigation by Jacobson is not farfetched. In his briefing to this court, Jacobson continues to take issue with “the refusal of Dr. Clack and NAS to correct the false facts to this day, in reckless disregard for the truth.” Much of his brief rehashes his claims that NAS and Clack defamed him and he persists in condemning Clack’s article. In arguing that NAS and Clack have not “prevailed,” Jacobson repeatedly asserts that he retains the ability to refile his defamation suit, “keeping the defendant at risk.”

Indeed, Jacobson told us in a statement – available here – he is “evaluating whether to appeal the DC decision to the full DC Appellate court”:

It appears the court decided to set a precedent, ensuring that future voluntary dismissals before a ruling in similar-type cases would be subject to the risk of a fee award. . . .

 

But much more likely, it is because I tell the truth and they are liars.

 

Not sure how the strike-through got there. I didn't do it.

 

Michael Mann's serial dishonesties are reviewed here.
Hockey Stick Trial: Science Dies in a DC Courtroom

Rupert Darwall, RealClearEnergy

 

The verdict was a setback for science, but then again Mann's lawsuit was always about his ambition, not the science.
Science by Jury: Michael Mann's Defamation Case

Jeryl Bier, Substack

A well-worn set of arguments underscoring the urgency of addressing climate change is familiar to any consumer of mainstream media. Less ubiquitous is the dissenting view: climate change is not the catastrophe activists have warned about for decades. While earth has warmed about one degree Celsius over the last 50 years, this counterargument goes, weather-related disasters have declined, food production has exploded, and living standards around the globe have never been higher.

Those developments are good news on their own. They’re also important context for public debates over what, if anything, governments and other institutions should “do about” climate change. Pointing out holes in climate disaster scenarios, even stridently or mockingly or rudely, should not put anyone on the wrong end of a defamation lawsuit. But a recent D.C. Superior Court case in which two political commentators were fined more than $1 million for challenging the conclusions of Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann has set that alarming precedent.

Not only has the verdict emboldened those who would happily dismantle the First Amendment, the inevitable chilling of speech that will accompany it threatens the progress of science that makes modern life possible. . . .

 

Seriously, you think this is legitimate scientific discourse?

"US climate scientist Michael Mann has prevailed in a lawsuit that accused two conservative commentators of defamation for challenging his research and comparing him to a convicted child molester."

 

This poor guy was put through hell and high water.

 

It's free speech. Mann has routinely publicly insulted those who disagree with him, so I don't feel sorry for him.

 

Slander is not free speech.

 

But satire is.

 

Here's another pretty good article on this trial and the outcome.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...el-mann-wins-1-million-in-defamation-lawsuit/

“I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech,” Mann said in a statement...

Conservatives had framed Mann’s trial as though climate science itself were taking the stand....

“Michael Mann & Mark Steyn will battle in court,” she continued. “The case will explore the hockey stick climate graph that rattled the world. Mark Steyn claims it’s a fraud. Michael Mann believes it is our future....

“Today’s verdict vindicates Mike Mann’s good name and reputation,” said Pete Fontaine, chair of the environmental practice at the law firm Cozen O’Connor. “It also is a big victory for truth and scientists everywhere who dedicate their lives to answering vital scientific questions impacting human health and the planet.”

 

Hey - you should give Trump's lawyers that excuse!

 

Ah, no. SciAm has been a laughable woke betrayal of its former greatness for decades.

 

It actually became about the US civil "justice" system. When I saw that Steyn was representing himself, I knew he was virtually certain to lose: "A man who represents himself in court has a fool for a client." -- Abraham Lincoln

There are limited data available on how successful self-representation is. In traffic court, it seems to be easy to win because the police usually don't even show up: it's not worth their time to prosecute a minor speeding ticket. But in family court, for example, plaintiffs who have attorneys are an order of magnitude more likely to get a restraining order than those who represent themselves.

 

"Laughable woke betrayal"? - interesting review for a magazine that for all practical purposes, prints layman summaries of scientific journals.

 

If you can't tell SciAm is laughable woke bull$#!+, not layman summaries of scientific journals, and has been for decades, then it is because you are dealing in laughable woke bull$#!+ yourself.

 

So bitter! I know that FAUX News has made a lot of their constituents this way, by continuously inciting angry responses since the '90s. Don't forget that they recently lost a $840M judgement to Dominion Voting Machines for allowing liars on their network.

 

Dishonesty is bad. That's not bitterness. It's just a fact.

<yaawn> Too bad I don't watch Faux Noise, other than for amusement when they do something particularly stupid.

 

A friend of mine told me that he no longer watches Faux News, and then he started quoting from Newsmax