Climate scientist Michael Mann wins more than $1M in defamation suit

Doug Cunningham
·2 min read
18
UPI
Climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann Thursday was awarded more than $1 million in a defamation lawsuit against bloggers Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. Photo courtesy of University of Pennsylvania

Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Climate scientist Michael Mann won more than $1 million in damages in a defamation lawsuit against a pair of conservative bloggers.

Mann noted that the verdict came after four weeks of a jury trial in the case filed 12 years ago after Mark Steyn writing for National Review and Rand Simberg writing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute published articles comparing him to convicted child molester and former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky.

"I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech," Mann wrote in a statement posted to X.

Steyn was ordered to pay $1 million in punitive damages and Simberg was ordered to pay $1,000.

However, both men were ordered to pay just $1 in compensatory damages.

"We always said that Mann never suffered any actual injury from the statement at issue. And today, after 12 years the jury awarded him one dollar in compensatory damages," Steyn's manager said in an email to NPR.

Howes indicated he would appeal the punitive damages award.

Mann filed suit in 2012 alleging the articles by Sindberg and Steyn had falsified his research and called him "the Jerry Sandusky of climate science" who "molested and tortured data and committed "scientific and academic misconduct."

Mann, a National Academy of Sciences member and a Presidential Distinguished Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, collaborated with other scientists on groundbreaking global warming research in 1998 and 1999.

The research showed that a sharp increase in global temperatures was linked to greenhouse gas. It resulted in the "hockey stick" graph showing global warming spiking after the industrial fossil fuel burning age began.

At closing arguments in the trial Steyn said he still stands "on the truth of every word I wrote about Michael Mann, his fraudulent hockey stick and the corrupt investigative process at Penn State."

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund executive director Lauren Kurtz told NPR Mann's work has been investigated and exonerated of wrongdoing in his research.

"Climate scientists are still regularly targeted by climate deniers, even though the science is quite clear at this point," she said in a statement.