[font face=Serif][font size=5]The Price of Defame[/font]
By Phil Plait | Posted Wednesday, July 24, 2013, at 7:45 AM
[font size=3]Michael Mann is a climate scientist who was flung into the spotlight when he and his colleagues published a graph several years ago showing the explosive growth of global warming over the past century or so. The original work has been updated and extended many times, by many different scientists, and each time the pattern of results has been supported and strengthened.
Additional data going back 11,000 years show that we are experiencing an unprecedentedly rapid rise in temperatures.
This, of course, has made Mann a
big target of climate-change deniers. While most of them attack the graphfailing in their attempts, Ill notesome have taken a more personal tack. Two groups, the far-right
National Review Online and the
Competitive Enterprise Institute, have made this personal indeed. In a
frankly disgusting article by Mark Steyn, the
NRO accused Mann of academic fraud. It even compares him to the ex-Penn State University coach Jerry Sandusky,
a convicted serial child molester. Steyn got this comparison from
an article by Rand Simberg in the CEI's blog, who called Mann the Jerry Sandusky of climate science
(who) molested and tortured data.
Nice, huh? So Mann
sued for defamation.
Unsurprisingly, both the
NRO and CEI were unhappy with this and tried to block the lawsuit using
SLAPP lawsrules used to stop lawsuits that try to censor criticism. However, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge
has ruled that SLAPP doesnt apply. Manns lawsuit can move forward.
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