Climate Professor Michael ‘Hockey Stick’ Mann Won His Defamation Case Against Mark Steyn

A Washington, DC jury found that journalists Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn made false statements against Michael Mann, who was a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania 12 years ago when they made the statements. Mann is the creator of the contested ‘hockey stick’ graph. The jury ordered $1 in compensatory damages to be paid by each writer and awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.

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Link for video:      https://www.bitchute.com/video/5OcS5mNGfpFu/

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Summary by JW Williams

A Washington, DC jury found that journalists Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn made false statements against Michael Mann, who was a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania 12 years ago when they made the statements. Mann is the creator of the contested ‘hockey stick’ graph. The jury ordered $1 in compensatory damages from each writer and awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.

Simberg wrote: “Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.” Steyn wrote that he was “Not sure I’d have extended that metaphor all the way into the locker-room showers with quite the zeal Mr. Simberg does, but he has a point.” Mark Steyn referred to Mann as “the man behind the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph, the very ringmaster of the tree-ring circus.”

Steyn represented himself in the defamation case and lost. The verdict is a strike against free speech.

Dr. Mann’s lawyer used his closing argument to urge the jury to punish Steyn and Simberg to stop “attacks on climate scientists.”

Steyn plans to appeal the decision. Steyn is currently in a wheelchair following a series of heart attacks.

Dr. Abraham Wyner, a renowned statistician, testified that Dr. Mann made numerous choices regarding data selection along the way to producing the hockey stick chart. And Mann consistently—deliberately—chose options that produced the startling hockey stick graph. Another witness, Steven McIntyre, testified that he repeatedly asked for the data supporting Mann’s hockey stick chart but that Mann (and others) were hiding the data, along with their computer coding.

Journalist David Knight said Mann’s hockey stick model is “bogus” and that Michael Mann fought to keep the data that he used to create it hidden while working for a public institution (Penn State).

Mann’s model was used to craft climate/ global warming policies.

Washington, DC residents consistently vote for Democrats over 90% of the time. Most DC residents are either government employees or big government advocates in some way. Knight said that prosecutors and plaintiffs know they are virtually guaranteed a victory whenever they prosecute or sue conservatives or libertarians.

Sources…

CBC:      https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/us-trial-mann-defamation-steyn-simberg-1.7110203

Gateway Pundit:        https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/j6-attorney-roger-roots-weighs-another-disgraceful-verdict/




Michael Mann, Creator of the ‘Hockey Stick’ Climate Graph, Is Held in Contempt of Court for Withholding Scientific Evidence

British Colombia: After six years, the libel lawsuit filed by Michael Mann, the climate scientist who created the ‘hockey stick’ climate model and graph, is finally coming to an end. The lawsuit was against Tim Ball, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, for saying that the data used by Mann was fraudulent and that he should be in the state pen instead of Penn State. Mann claimed that this was defamation of character. The court, however, asked Mann to prove that his data was not fraudulent and asked for it to be made available for inspection. When Mann refused, he was in contempt of a court order, and that likely will lead to the collapse of his case against Professor Ball. Dr. Ball is expected to instruct his attorneys to ask for punitive court action, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate-data fraud. [Professor Ball’s debunking of Global Warming soon will be broadcast on the Internet along with thirteen other experts who participated in a conference, sponsored by Freedom Force International, called Global Warming, An Inconvenient Lie. To be advised of the date and time of this free broadcast, click here.]   –GEG

Penn State climate scientist, Michael ‘hockey stick’ Mann commits contempt of court in the ‘climate science trial of the century.’ Prominent alarmist shockingly defies judge and refuses to surrender data for open court examination. Only possible outcome: Mann’s humiliation, defeat and likely criminal investigation in the U.S.

The defendant in the libel trial, the 79-year-old Canadian climatologist, Dr Tim Ball (above, right) is expected to instruct his British Columbia attorneys to trigger mandatory punitive court sanctions, including a ruling that Mann did act with criminal intent when using public funds to commit climate data fraud. Mann’s imminent defeat is set to send shock waves worldwide within the climate science community as the outcome will be both a legal and scientific vindication of U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that climate scare stories are a “hoax.”

As can be seen from the graphs below; Mann’s cherry-picked version of science makes the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) disappear and shows a pronounced upward ‘tick’ in the late 20th century (the blade of his ‘hockey stick’). But below that, Ball’s graph, using more reliable and widely available public data, shows a much warmer MWP, with temperatures hotter than today, and showing current temperatures well within natural variation.

Michael Mann, who chose to file what many consider to be a cynical SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) libel suit in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Vancouver six long years ago, has astonished legal experts by refusing to comply with the court direction to hand over all his disputed graph’s data. Mann’s iconic hockey stick has been relied upon by the UN’s IPCC and western governments as crucial evidence for the science of ‘man-made global warming.’

As first reported in Principia Scientific International (February 1, 2017), the defendant in the case, Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball, had won “concessions” against Mann, but at the time the details were kept confidential, pending Mann’s response.

The negative and unresponsive actions of Dr Mann and his lawyer, Roger McConchie, are expected to infuriate the judge and be the signal for the collapse of Mann’s multi-million dollar libel suit against Dr Ball. It will be music to the ears of so-called ‘climate deniers’ like President Donald Trump and his EPA Chief, Scott Pruitt.

As Dr Ball explains:

“Michael Mann moved for an adjournment of the trial scheduled for February 20, 2017. We had little choice because Canadian courts always grant adjournments before a trial in their belief that an out of court settlement is preferable. We agreed to an adjournment with conditions. The major one was that he [Mann] produce all documents including computer codes by February 20th, 2017. He failed to meet the deadline.”

Punishment for Civil Contempt

Mann’s now proven contempt of court means Ball is entitled to have the court serve upon Mann the fullest punishment. Contempt sanctions could reasonably include the judge ruling that Dr. Ball’s statement that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State’ is a precise and true statement of fact. This is because under Canada’s unique ‘Truth Defense’, Mann is now proven to have wilfully hidden his data, so the court may rule he hid it because it is fake. As such, the court must then dismiss Mann’s entire libel suit with costs awarded to Ball and his team.

The spectacular rise and fall of climate alarmism’s former golden boy is a courtroom battle with even more ramifications than the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. To much fanfare at the time, Mann had sued Ball for daring to publish the damning comment that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State.” Dr Ball brilliantly backed up his exposure of the elaborate international money-making global warming scam in his astonishing book, ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science‘.

In his books, articles, radio and television appearances, Dr. Ball has been resolute in his generation-long war against those who corrupted the field of science to which he had selflessly dedicated his life. Now aged 79, Ball is on the cusp of utter vindication. Despite the stresses and strains on himself and his family, Tim has stood at the forefront of those scientists demanding more openness and transparency from government-funded researchers.

As Ball explains:

“We believe he [Mann] withheld on the basis of a US court ruling that it was all his intellectual property. This ruling was made despite the fact the US taxpayer paid for the research and the research results were used as the basis of literally earth-shattering policies on energy and environment. The problem for him is that the Canadian court holds that you cannot withhold documents that are central to your charge of defamation regardless of the US ruling.”

Likely Repercussions for Science & Climate Policy

A bitter and embarrassing defeat for the self-styled ‘Nobel Prize winner’ who acted as if he was the epitome of virtue, this outcome shames not only Michael Mann, but puts the climate science community in crisis. Many hundreds of peer-reviewed papers cite Mann’s work, which is now effectively junked. Despite having deep-pocketed backers willing and able to feed his ego as a publicity-seeking mouthpiece against skeptics, Mann’s credibility as a champion of environmentalism is in tatters.

But it gets worse for the litigious Penn State professor. Close behind Dr Ball is celebrated writer Mark Steyn. Steyn also defends himself against another one of Mann’s SLAPP suits – this time in Washington DC. Steyn boldly claims Mann “has perverted the norms of science on an industrial scale.” Esteemed American climate scientist, Dr Judith Curry, has submitted to the court an Amicus Curiae legal brief exposing Mann. The world can now see that his six-year legal gambit to silence his most effective critics and chill scientific debate has spectacularly backfired.

But at a time of much clamor about ‘fake news,’ it seems climate scare stories will have a new angle now that the United States has officially stepped back from the Paris Climate Treaty. President Trump was elected on a mandate to weed out climate fraud so his supporters will point to this legal outcome as vindication for a full purge. It makes a mockery of statements made by Mann last February when PSI’s Hans Schreuder and John O’Sullivan publicly backed their colleague, Dr Ball and endorsed the revelations in his book. Mann reacted by moaning:

“It is difficult to keep up with this dizzying ongoing assault on science.”

The perpetrator of the biggest criminal “assault on science” has now become clear: Dr Mann, utterly damned by his contempt of the court order to show his dodgy data.

There can be little doubt that upon the BC Supreme Court ruling that Mann did commit data fraud, over in Washington DC, the EPA’s Scott Pruitt will feel intense pressure from skeptics to initiate a full investigation into Mann, his university and all those conspiring to perpetuate a trillion-dollar carbon tax-raising sting on taxpayers.

Read full article here…