Heated Battle Between ‘Skeptics’ And Climate ‘Dictators’
In a decision last week that should shock all who believe in free speech and open science debate, a Washington Superior Court jury found journalist Mark Steyn and another writer guilty of defaming Michael Mann, the Penn State climate scientist behind the “Hockey Stick graph,” possibly the greatest global warming marketing tool since Al Gore’s polar bears.
For having allegedly published “false facts” with “knowledge” of their falsity, Steyn was fined US$1 million. [emphasis, links added]
The 12-year-old case, with Mann’s millions in legal fees funded by unidentified sources, has attracted scant attention outside the confines of narrow climate science battle zones.
What was revealed during the Mann-Steyn confrontation, however, is the underlying desperation of global warming fearmongers who have portrayed Steyn’s loss as a victory for what they claim is unquestionably sound climate science.
Few media covered the Mann-Steyn trial — previewed on this page in early February — or the decision beyond blithering about how the jury verdict offered support for Mann’s hockey stick science and the inviolate truth that fossil fuels are pushing the planet toward imminent catastrophe.
Mann’s post-verdict statement was enough for mainstream media journalists: “I hope this verdict sends a message that falsely attacking climate scientists is not protected speech.”
Nothing of the sort was proven during the Mann-Steyn court process.
In fact, it’s climatists such as Mann who need help. As the trial took place, the political and scientific aspects of climate change seemed to be weakening, if not unraveling.
The European Union this week brought in a Net Zero Industry Act that effectively abandoned major carbon-emitting targets.
Electric vehicle progress is struggling, economically and politically. The last global climate conference, COP28, was deemed a mixed bag of challenges and failure by most observers and activists. Signs of climate policy push-back are everywhere.
Climatists need the court victory to boost their case and dependence on aspects of Mann’s hockey stick claim that global temperatures have shot up over the past 100 years to levels not seen for thousands of years.
Within a day of the trial, Mann moved to attack his critics.
One of his post-trial targets was Judith Curry, former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Curry was denied expert witness status at the trial on behalf of Steyn. But in a post-trial outburst, Mann still felt the need to tear Curry down — again.
Instead of a dignified celebration of his victory, he sent out a tweet [above] alleging Curry “was among those named” as a climate change “denier” in the Nature Communications journal.
Mann also slapped the provocative “denier” label on scientist Bjorn Lomborg. [below]
Lomborg tweeted a response to Mann with a link to the article, which was based on a list of climate scientists provided by DeSmog, the activist website.
The list, including Curry, was the basis for the research, which also mentioned other labels such as “contrarians” and “skeptics,” labels that at least avoided allusions to Holocaust denial. Curry was not listed as a denier.
Missing from the categories of climate scientists, however, was a description for scientists such as Michael Mann. How about “climate science dictators” — researchers who will allow no other views to circulate outside of their own.
Skepticism is a necessary aspect of the scientific discovery process. During the trial, however, skeptics such as Curry were not allowed to testify, despite her having prepared a 54-page report for the court on the hockey stick science, which was highly critical of Mann’s work.
In her 2023 book, Climate Uncertainty and Risk: Rethinking Our Response (Amazon here), Curry calmly and methodically outlines the merits of skepticism, or — as she describes it, neo-skepticism. As she spars with Mann, she describes the role of skepticism.
“The label neo-skeptic refers to a scientist who comments publicly about concerns that current climate policies may not have the desired impact on changing the climate and human welfare for the better and are not commensurate with the uncertainties in climate science.” She puts Bjorn Lomborg in the neo-skeptic camp.
In Mann’s view, skepticism and contrarian views are nothing more than the evil product of billions of dollars in fossil-fuel industry funding that should be labeled denialism.
As Curry’s unaccepted report to the Mann-Steyn trial demonstrates, her work and the work of others raise serious questions about the validity of the science behind the hockey stick and other iconic claims of planetary doom.
No wonder Mann continues to feel post-victory that he needs to maintain his mean-spirited accusations against Curry and others. Even the polar bear scam has been curbed by activists. Could the hockey stick be next?
Source: CCD
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VOWG
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A G W and climate change are non existent problems.
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Moffin
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No such thing as a false fact.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Sunsettommy,
1/262024 you wrote “I am the ADMINISTRATOR who knows what is going on better than anyone else here. “ On March 22,2018 one os my essays titled “To Avoid Accidents We Need To Anticipate Problems” was published here at PSI. Now I find that PSI ’s search engine cannot find it. And after rereading my published copy of it, I would like it to be republished.
You have my email so could you please send me s postal address so I could send you a hard copy for you to republish lt. It concerns Professor Nissif Naple’s experiments recently referred to by John O’. Thank you for your good work.
Have a good day
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Lorraine
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I’d like to hear the explanation for the terminal moraines that compose Long Island, NY if it wasn’t the natural recession of the ice sheet that covered North America during the last Ice Age 18,000 years ago.
Does it not occur to the gaslighters and propagandists promoting AGW that temperatures were warming significantly without the help of human activity?
The climate of earth is a dynamic ever changing process. We are currently in an interglacial period that will reach peak temperature before gradually cooling toward the beginning of another Ice Age.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Lorraine,
We, you and I, see the samethings you wrote about except, I have to ask: Who has ever attempted to explain the cause of the ‘ice ages’?
Have a good day
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Koen Vogel
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Hi Jerry, funny you should ask. A few weeks ago I started a substack that will explain the cause of the start and end of the Last Glacial Period. I’ve started at the Last Glacial Maximum and am now in the Oldest Dryas. Friday’s post is the Lake Missoula floods. I’ll get around to the story on orbital forcings (fireworks) on March 1, and on to the power source that caused the LGP to end on March 8. After that it will take another 10-15 posts to get to around 7000 BP, after which the sea level rises became minor. Free to read, free to subscribe, about a 15 min read per post. It starts here:https://thinkandhammer.substack.com/p/11-the-big-melt
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Koen,
The title of your link is “the big melt”..I would like to read “the big freeze.
Have a good day
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Lit
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“In Mann’s view, skepticism and contrarian views are nothing more than the evil product of billions of dollars in fossil-fuel industry funding that should be labeled denialism.”
That seems like a giant conspiracy theory, one of the greatest sins today. Mann is a conspiracy theorist.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Climate Change Dispatch and PSI Readers,
Who is Climate Change Dispatch who does not have the courage to use an actual name to identify whom the author, of what I read, is? At the Climate Change Dispatch website I read “The site is managed and edited by Thomas Richard, a freelance semi-retired writer.”
So I ask what does a freelance semi-retired writer know about SCIENCE? And my answer to my question is almost nothing and I am offended. For I am an old retired physical chemist who for 4 years majored in chemistry, and then for 6 more years majored in physical chemistry with minors in physic and mathematics and did research on diffusion systems involving the interactions of two different ions upon each other, a study which had never been done before, to earn my doctoral degree. Then as a postdoc, for 3 more years I studied low (down, to about one degree absolute) temperature magnetic properties of chemical systems which I had never been studied. And then I taught introductory chemistry at a small community college for about 20 years.
Maybe a non-scientist reader, might understand why Thomas hides his scientific experiences. Yes, I am upset that Thomas’s better writing about SCIENCE seems to receive more respect than what I have written. But I will keep fighting.
https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/1575/1/Science.pdf
Have a good day
Reply