Climate Scientist Wins $1M Judgment Against Fox Host

February 9, 2024 Climate Change, Fox News

Axios reports:

Leading climate scientist Michael Mann was awarded $1 million in damages after winning his defamation lawsuit against two conservative writers over their response to his pivotal work on global warming.

The University of Pennsylvania professor sued Rand Simberg, a former adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Mark Steyn [photo], a contributor to National Review over their online posts from more than a decade ago about a key graph Mann helped author that illustrated rising global temperatures.

The writers maintained during the defamation trial they were expressing their opinions and indicated after the jury reached its verdict in D.C. Superior Court that they would appeal.

The New York Times reports:

The jury also found the writers had made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm,” and levied punitive damages of $1,000 against Mr. Simberg and $1 million against Mr. Steyn in order to deter others from doing the same.

In 2012, Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn drew parallels between controversy over Dr. Mann’s research and the scandal around Jerry Sandusky, the former football coach at Pennsylvania State University who was convicted of sexually assaulting children. Dr. Mann was a professor at Penn State at the time.

Mr. Simberg and Mr. Steyn testified that they sincerely believed what they wrote. In statements in court at the beginning and again at the end of the trial, Mr. Steyn said he stood “on the truth of every word I wrote about Michael.”

The Associated Press reports:

Mann’s research was investigated after his and other scientists’ emails were leaked in 2009 in an incident that brought further scrutiny of the “hockey stick” graph, with skeptics claiming Mann manipulated data.

Investigations by Penn State and others found no misuse of data by Mann, but his work continued to draw attacks, particularly from conservatives.

“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data,” Simberg wrote. Steyn, later referenced Simberg’s article in his own piece in National Review, calling Mann’s research “fraudulent.”

Steyn has appeared here multiple times for his anti-vax batshittery. In 2021, we heard from him when he blamed the Capitol riot on cultists having been banned by Facebook. Steyn, who is Canadian, was a regular guest host for Tucker Carlson Tonight until Carlson got shitcanned.



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