Foreword: The title is an understatement. As I heard the verdict yesterday, like many of you, my heart sank. I wondered if truth and sanity would ever prevail. The execrable Mann squeaked by again. But there is hope courtesy of this report. Excerpt, bold mine. – Anthony
In a statement, a spokesperson for Steyn said the $1 damages award proves the jury found Mann didn’t suffer any losses.
“We always said that Mann never suffered any actual injury from the statement at issue. And today, after twelve years, the jury awarded him one dollar in compensatory damages,” said Steyn’s manager, Melissa Howes. “The punitive damage award of one million dollars will have to face due process scrutiny under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.”
The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that punitive damages awards 10 times greater than compensatory damages awards are generally unconstitutional.
https://tnc.news/2024/02/08/mann-defamation-lawsuit-steyn-simberg3/
A BITTERLY DISAPPOINTING VERDICT
By John Hinderaker, Powerline Blog
Today the jury returned its verdict in the defamation trial of Michael Mann v. Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. The verdict was disappointing to those of us who followed the case and thought that Michael Mann presented a pathetically inadequate case. The jury actually agreed: it found that the defendants had defamed Mann, but awarded only a token $1 in damages, since Mann had failed to prove any. But it found that both Simberg and Steyn acted with actual malice–they didn’t actually believe what they said about Mann–and awarded punitive damages in the amount of $1,000 against Simberg, and $1 million against Steyn.
In a sane world, this case never would have gone to the jury. The legal standard is actual malice, which means the defendants must have thought, subjectively, that what they said wasn’t likely true. In this case, there was no evidence whatever that Steyn and Simberg didn’t sincerely believe that what they said was true. Indeed, as Mark pointed out in closing argument, he has been saying the same things about Mann’s hockey stick for something like 21 years, and even wrote a book about it.
Where do we go from here? The trial judge was openly skeptical of Mann’s case, and seemed to take seriously the defendants’ motions for a directed verdict. Those motions presumably were renewed at the close of evidence, and the court might now take them up. It requires a brave judge to take away a jury verdict, but Judge Irving, presiding in this case, was low-key but seemed, if pushed too far, to have a backbone. So who knows, he might do the right thing.
In any event, the case is destined for more years in the appellate courts. In John Williams’ closing argument on behalf of Mann, he said that the jury should award punitive damages so that in the future, no one will dare engage in “climate denialism”–whatever that is–just as Donald Trump’s “election denialism” needs to be suppressed. In 41 years of trying cases to juries, I never heard such an outrageously improper appeal. John Williams should be ashamed of himself, but he won’t be, because this jury apparently bought his argument: they want to make Mark Steyn pay $1 million out of his own pocket, to a plaintiff who suffered no damages but only made an ideological argument, so that no one will, ever again, try to challenge the regime’s global warming narrative. However false that narrative may be.
Ironically, the case may have come full circle. Mark always wanted to try this case as a free speech issue. But that didn’t quite work, since defamation has always been an exception to the First Amendment, or whatever free speech principles may apply. But now Michael Mann’s lawyer has made it explicit: impose an arbitrary seven figure penalty on Mark Steyn, not to compensate the plaintiff Michael Mann, who didn’t suffer any damages whatsoever, but rather to deter anyone from ever again arguing that climate change alarmists are wrong, however flawed their science may be.
It is hard to imagine anything more anti-scientific or anti-American. Let’s hope that somewhere in the federal court system, there are judges who realize what is at stake.
Nice artwork depicting the hockey stick bearer, except for one minor but significant detail, Washington DC is no longer a swamp, it’s a sewer.
… and meanwhile in the Land of the Free where jurisprudence is but a memory, the Department of ‘Justice’ (no sniggering at the back) declared that whilst he was Vice President a cantankerous, doddery, old bloke with memory loss who broke the law with respect to classified documents, wouldn’t be prosecuted because he wasn’t competent to face a jury.
He is however competent to be President of the USA and to face the big jury – the electorate – in November.
Mr Trump on the other hand… I suppose it was a foregone conclusion that Mark Stern would lose in that mad house.
The Special Counsel found Joe Biden guilty of deliberately keeping classified materials, even though he knew it was wrong, but decided not to prosecute Biden because he is too senile.
Yes but Tom the guy who wrote the report is a republican (as in if it was a dem who wrote about Trump, you would bin it before reading it), so by your measure that means you can’t trust a word he said. And anyway I think deep down we all know they are both too old and are heading for the knackers yard. Time for new blood I say.
Not everyone is as venal as you and the rest of the trolls.
That Biden was in possession of documents he was not legally entitled to have was never in question.
That Biden showed those documents to others who were not legally entitled to see them was never in question.
Citizen free press picked up a link to my screed on this (linked in the thread below), which is hilarious because it will get 20,000 views over the next several hours.
I added a link back to your more serious post Anthony.
Thanks
Jeff,
Is there any particular part of the evidence that you found completely at odds with what really happened, in the history that was so close to you back then?
One that rankles me is the claim that SM demonstrated that the algorithms generated a hockey stich from red noise, by running many many simulations. The ?? claim is that SM then cherry picked for domonstration ony a few that did show a HS. I cannot recall cherry picking being used.
Geoff Sherrington
There are layers of these papers, each having different issues. Coincidentally, I just reposted an algorithm which pulls multiple types of signal from the actuall Mann08 proxies. You can get downslopes, sine waves, upslopes, upslopes in history, inverted sine waves, all using a CPS algorithm.
Mark’s analogy of the university’s treatment of Mann to the “misbehaving” Penn State coach may have been the entire case. Climate facts weren’t the issue, it was defamation.
Steyn’s analogy was both ignorant of the facts of the Sandusky case and repulsive in his flippancy about such heinous crimes.
Neither of your claims is true.
That is an admission that you didn’t pay attention to the trial.
Both Penn State Investigators of Mann plus Spanier the Penn State President of the time testified via deposition at the trial.
The investigators admitted they were going to “censor Mann”, until the President weighed in.
It was whitewashed.
Both Steyn and Simberg described the analogy to perfection, and as they stated Mann’s investigation was just as whitewashed as the Sandusky Penn State investigation.
Remember … a ‘judgement’ is only a HUNTING LICENSE. The court can NOT extricate money from the defendant by force. If I were Steyn, I would just go dark. No mun, no talk, no email, no communication, no nothing. Forever. Eventually the piebald kooks would want their pound of gold, so they’d go for another trial. THEN the circus starts again. And so forth.
He doesn’t have to, he’s a Canadian citizen – all he has to do is cross the border. End of.
Actually this isn’t even a judgement, just the jury verdict. The judge has yet to render his judgement in this case.
This case is very much like the case of Galileo vs the Church. Belief, emotion and divine authority were on the side of the Church. Data, measurements and a different conclusion were on Galileo’s side. Same thing today, defenders of Mann cite his Wikipedia entry as an “expert” in science and his work reinforces the group-think narrative that we are in a climate catastrophe. Mark and Rand have the evidence of malfeasance and data falsification (Climategate) as well as statistical proof (McIntyre) that Mann et. al. are wrong. It’s frustrating how in the short term, justice is sometimes elusive. In the long term however, the mistakes and wrong conclusions of Mann will be another example of a religious conviction that was mistaken as science.
This will be overturned in Steyn’s favor on appeal. The governing SCOTUS precedent is State Farm v Campbell, 538US408 (2003). It held punative damages should be a single digit multiple of compensatory damages—so no more than 9x. That means both Simberg and Steyn owe $9 in punitive damages, nothing more.
Hope you are right Rud. Nice to have somebody here in the WUWT community who knows the law.
Lol! Rud’s last pronouncement was that the Mann vs Steyn wouldn’t even be handed to the Jury. That forecast went well, didn’t it?!
Even if they owe damages, then it shows they misspoke. Mann is vindicated by the outcome, not the damages.
FN, the judge improperly did not accept the Rule (50)a motion. That by itself is appealable, let alone his then accepting the jury verdict by ignoring clear State Farm v Campbell. In the end, Steyn wins via two clear judicial errors and your type loses.
I’m guessing that you’re correct here. But if you are, why then is this not a built in part of every jury instruction for every similar case? Or is it, and the judge spaced this time?
Because juries have an annoying but perfectly legal habit of ignoring instruction, precedent, evidence or any legal niceties that come up – that is for the judge to balance against a verdict from the jury. The jury can say whatever they like but only the judge can rule on a case.
Ok. But I am merely wondering about normal procedure in the instructions. Shouldn’t such an important instruction have been given? Was it?
In a civil trial the lawyers argue over what instructions the judge should give to the jury, but a judge can do just about anything they please. Even to the point of forcing the jury to come back with the verdict the judge wants.
I posted this in the other article not realizing it was dead and succeeded by this article. It has been asked many times what other reconstructions corroborate the original MBH98 and MBH99 reconstructions. This is by no means an exhaustive list. It is only a subset of what is available and which I have readily available in my personal archive.
1998 Jones 10.1191/095968398667194956 – High-resolution palaeoclimatic records for the last millennium: interpretation, integration and comparison with General Circulation Model control-run temperatures
1998 Pollack 10.1126/science.282.5387.279 – Climate change record in subsurface temperatures: A global perspective
2000 Crowley 10.1579/0044-7447-29.1.51 – How Warm was the Medieval Warm Period
2001 Briffa 10.1029/2000JD900617 – Low-frequency temperature variations from a northern tree ring density network
2004 Huang 10.1029/2004GL019781 – Merging information from different resources for new insights into climate change in the past and future
2005 Oerlemans 10.1126/science.1107046 – Extracting a climate signal from 169 glacier records
2005 Moberg 10.1038/nature03265 – Highly variable Northern Hemisphere temperatures reconstructed from low- and high-resolution proxy data
2006 D’Arrigo 10.1029/2005JD006352 – On the long-term context for late twentieth century warming
2006 NRC 10.17226/11676 – Surface Temperature Reconstructions for the Last 2,000 Years
2007 Wahl 10.1007/s10584-006-9105-7 – Robustness of the Mann, Bradley, Hughes reconstruction of Northern Hemisphere surface temperatures
2010 Ljungqvist 10.1111/j.1468-0459.2010.00399.x – A new reconstruction of temperature variability in the extra‐tropical northern hemisphere during the last two millennia
2012 Li 10.1198/jasa.2010.ap09379 – The Value of Multiproxy Reconstruction of Past Climate
2012 Shakun 10.1038/nature10915 – Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation
2013 Marcott 10.1126/science.122802 – A Reconstruction of Regional and Global Temperature for the Past 11,300 Years
2013 Tingley 10.1038/nature11969 – Recent temperature extremes at high northern latitudes unprecedented in the past 600 years
2014 Crowley 10.1002/2013EF000216 – Recent global temperature “plateau” in the context of a new proxy reconstruction
2016 Hakim 10.1002/2016JD024751 – The Last Millennium Climate Reanalysis Project
2016 Wilson 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.005 – Last millennium northern hemisphere summer temperatures from tree rings
2017 PAGES2K 10.1038/sdata.2017.88 – A global multiproxy database for temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
2018 Esper – Large Scale Millennial-Length Temperature Reconstruction from Tree Rings
2019 Neukom 10.1038/s41586-019-1401-2 – No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era
2019 PAGES2K 10.1038/s41561-019-0400-0 – Consistent multidecadal variability in global temperature reconstructions and simulations over the Common Era
2020 Kaufman 10.1038/s41597-020-0530-7 – Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach
2020 Westerhold 10.1126/science.aba6853 – An astronomically dated record of Earth’s climate and its predictability over the last 66 million years
2021 King 10.1175/JCLI-D-20-0661.1 – A Data Assimilation Approach to Last Millennium Temperature Field Reconstruction
2021 Osman 10.1038/s41586-021-03984-4 – Globally resolved surface temperatures since the Last Glacial Maximum
2021 Bova 10.1038/s41586-020-03155-x – Seasonal origin of the thermal maxima at the Holocene and the last interglacial
2021 Buntgen 10.1038/s41467-021-23627-6 – The influence of decision-making in tree ring-based climate reconstructions
2022 Thompson 10.1126/sciadv.abj6535 – Northern Hemisphere Vegetation Change Drives Holocene Thermal Maximum
2022 Erb 10.5194/cp-18-2599-2022 – Reconstructing Holocene temperatures in time and space using paleoclimate data assimilation
2022 Anchukaitis 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107537 – Progress and uncertainties in global and hemispheric temperature reconstructions of the Common Era
That’s an impressive list. As such lists go. To your knowledge, do any of these papers reference a body of credible research which demonstrates, for each proxy species used as input into the mathematical analysis, how the effects of temperature on tree ring growth can be isolated from other environmental factors such as water availability, sunlight availability, and soil fertilization?
Have you looked up any of the papers?
They are all peer reviewed and are fully referenced.
I have wonderful real world examples of tree rings that shows me explicitly even from a couple of feet away that other influences affect tree rings to a far, far greater degree than CO2
50 years of personal knowledge of working (upto about 3k year old bog oak) with wood and its detailed appearance isnt going to be changed by a few papers looking at a limited sample from billions of trees from when the world was warmer/colder/the same over the last 11k years
Right, so are you published in this area? Can you shed light on what it is that the above-referenced papers have missed?
All one needs is a passing knowledge of biology and an open mind.
Neither of which you posses.
BTW, the scientist who collected the data that Mann was misusing, stated that tree rings cannot be used as a temperature proxy.
Can you post a link to more information? I’d like to review the material you used as a reference for this statement.
papers please!
I would not even call myself an amateur in the domain of dendrochronology but it is my understanding that most people agree that CO2 is only a secondary factor in growth rates. But that’s probably moot since dendrochronology is used mainly to assess temperatures prior to the instrumental temperature era in which CO2 was relatively stable.
Doesn’t change the fact that its bullshit.
Firstly most people agree that CO2 is not even a secondary factor, but a contributing factor of about 5 or 6 main ones. Secondly dendrochronology is used mainly as dating evidence for archaeological and historical remains – the use as a proxy for temperature is no part of dendrochronology.
What about the dozens of other things that affect tree growth more than temperature does?
BTW, the fact that most climate activists believe something is not evidence that most people do.
bdgwx,
I have done factorial experiments in CSIRO in which a dozen or so growth facrors were varied in defined ways for a number of grasses and legumes – but not trees – so that an analysis of variance of yield could be used to find which factors had most effect on growth. That is not a very big credential, but it is better than none, as in a casual comment from an armchair commentator.
There was no term like “secondary factor” for growth rates. For all variables I can recall, all were treated as primary because a contribution of zero from a factor meant no growth.There are complex interactions between growth factors, such as growth rate affected by molybdenum changing with various amounts of calcium, a second order effect. For all I know, there can be third order effects involving (an an example only) a need to optimise Ca, Mo and Fe simultaneously.
I consider it problematic to select one growth factor, in your case CO2, for discussion without reference to co-variables of various orders.
Geoff S
So? Doesn’t mean they’re correct in any way, just that the spelling and grammar were acceptable.
Being peer reviewed, like being cited by Wikipedia, is not the killer argument you want it to be.
Well of course they are! — “fully” referenced. Not partially referenced. Science!!
Neither peer review nor the inclusion of a list of references say anything about quality.
bdgwx,
To replicate the orioginal work, you have to have access to exactly the same original input data. This means exactly the same proxies, for the same length of time and the same version, if that varied.
Steve McIntyre reported on Climate Audit, 24 Nov 2023, that a clever guy named Hampus Soderqvist had reverse engineered the part-worked data, to find some files that had eluded the research of SM and which MM failed to provide on request.
https://climateaudit.org/2023/11/24/mbh98-new-light-on-the-real-data/
Can you demonstrate that these listed replication attempts were done on the full set of Mann data, including the “missing” proxies that SM had searched for since about 2010, with out success?
It is not valid to claim replication on near-enough data. It is not an excuse to now claim that some papers on your liosts did not use such “missing” proxy data, because the results were similar enough.
…
Geoff S
The list of studies you see in my post above use a wide variety of data inputs and processing methodologies.
Then none of them are replicating Mann’s data and are irrelevant for the purpose you intend.
All publications I listed replicate the hockey-stick finding.
So what?
The GAT remains a meaningless number that cannot represent “the climate.”
And you still have no appreciation for the real magnitudes of the uncertainties, which your hallowed climate scientists make as small as possible.
Whats the real uncertainty of a bristlecone treemometer?
Then they shouldn’t – the use of a wide range of ‘data inputs and processing methodologies’ should, at best, give different results. That they do accurately agree with the hockey stick can only indicate that the statistical analysis was so poor that they cherry picked or p-hacked the result they were after.
They do give different results in the same way the various GAT datasets give different results today. Are the difference significant. No. But they are different nonetheless.
That’s a bold claim. Do you have evidence that hundreds of scientists working with different subsets of data using different methodologies all accidently made different mistakes that miraculously resulted in the same basic hockey-stick shape as MBH98 and MBH99?
That is not “Replication”.
fReE sPeEcH! tHe AmErIcAn CoNsTitUtiOn! ThE FiRsT aMmEnDmEnT!
My friends died to defend the Constitution of the United States of America.
Is that the constitution Trump says is a waste of paper … “I haven’t read the Constitution, but, from what I’ve been told, most of it is a waste of paper, quite frankly,” he told the One America News Network. “The Fifth Amendment is the only part worth saving.”
Indeed, the very man they idolize is the one who orchestrated a coup in the government capital. Yet, they believe they are the saviors of democracy.
DRS..
Wow, DJT “organized a coup” consisting of hundreds of thousands of participants and forgot to tell a single one to bring a firearm.
(I believe history has shown that “insurrectionists” carrying flagstaffs complete with an American flags) are rarely successful.
And the “coup” was somehow against himself!
This is the level of analytical thinking of the American marxo-democrat party.
It’s what his handler has told him to believe, how could it be wrong?
Reality is not your strong suit, is it?
Biden’s coup was not organized by Trump.
Looks like I stuck my finger in the hornet’s nest!
@ur momisugly Anyone confused by Simon’s repeating a gross mischaracterization of President Trump’s remarks:
“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES,” Trump said on Monday on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
The post seemed to be a complete denial of his post from Saturday, which remained online as of Monday afternoon:
“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote … .”
(Source: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/12/05/trump-terminate-constitution-00072230 )
For the reading comprehension-challenged (and those who fooled by the mainstream media’s mischaracterization):
1. Subject: “Fraud of this type”
2. Verb phrase: “allows for” (i.e., enables)
Trump accused the Democrats of enabling destruction of the rule of law, of our liberties. Trump NEVER called for termination of most or all of the Constitution.
And you knew that, Simon. Shame on you.
As a committed marxist, the ends justify any means for him.
Like most of his fellow travellers, Simon believes that the cause is more important than truth.
Mirror time….
Janice. Are you saying they were not Trumps words I copied and pasted?
And now I see Trump is mocking Nikki Haley’s husband for not being with her on the campaign trail, when he is over seas serving in his position in the military. Janice, surely given your love for those who serve, you cannot support this degrading of the men and woman who protect the US?
And anyway where is Melania? And why does he fee the need get so personal like this?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-mocks-haley-asking-where-deployed-husband-where-gone
And Haley is not mincing words…
“Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief.”
And I have to say I am finding it really hard not to agree with her. I’d really like to know what you think?
So Janice now I have provided quotes of exactly what he said…. do you still hold that he didn’t say these words?
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4168261-trump-called-for-termination-of-parts-of-constitution-in-december/
Trump made no such statement regarding the American Constitution.
Prove a link to where he states your claim.
No problem….
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4168261-trump-called-for-termination-of-parts-of-constitution-in-december/
Enough?
Do you get paid extra to make an ass of yourself?
Troll.
Good of you to self-identify but a waste of time, we’re all aware of what you are.
What’s the over/under on ghosties age? I say 10.
I’d say the spread is only a couple of years either way on that – too young to know better, old enough to use some device to get online. Of course, if we’re discussing mental age or development vs physical age, that could extend the top end spread somewhat more.
A million dollar punishment for a dollar worth of damages, Wow! But, it seems to hold true with the Green Math – A dollar worth of benefit at a million dollar cost.
How much did his backers spend on lawyers to get that result, which still has to be confirmed by a judge.
This site spent the whole trail mocking Mann’s lawyers as doddering incompetents.
They won easily, as it seems, and suddenly they are now expensive ‘super’-lawyers?
No, they have always been a big team of expensive lawyers, estimated at $18-$20 million over the 12 years. That they looked slack and incompetent is more due to the poor quality of the material they had to work with rather than anything else. And before you say anything, they only won this case because of the DC jury, anywhere else Mann would have lost badly. He still might – this is only the jury verdict, we’re still waiting for the judgement.
“The tyranny of the majority (or tyranny of the masses) is an inherent weakness to majority rule in which the majority of an electorate pursues exclusively its own objectives at the expense of those of the minority factions.”
I don’t like the villain in the plot but I’d totally understand if, at age 58, he takes the money and runs.
I would happily lend my name to a carefully petition letter to the GRL editor pointing out that Wyner testified under oath last week that the “Northern hemisphere temperatures during the past millennium: Inferences, uncertainties, and limitations ” publication (https://doi.org/10.1029/1999GL900070) is a result of p-hacking and needs to be investigated.
Science was on trial, and silence won.
Yeah, the silence of the climate scientist is alarming.. Hey Gavin Schmidt, what do you think about Wyners testimony under oath about the hockey stick being a result of p-hacking?
Are you claiming to know statistics better then him?
It’s on LinkedIn – as a wtf as opposed to a good news – I wonder if they’ll shut it down if it gets a bit too honest about the plaintiff.
Wasn’t it amazing how quickly the ‘stuck post’ about the MvS trail that has been headlining this site for weeks was relegated once the jury’s decision came in?
I hadn’t really been following it closely; but when I saw WUWT had dropped it from the top slot I reckoned right away that things had not gone as envisaged (wished for).
It’s a salutatory lesson for us all.
Speak for yourself, clown.
Come on, take the opportunity to learn; to self-reflect.
It’ll do ya good!
Perhaps you should take your own advice.
If you had been following it closely, you might have noticed that it was unpinned a couple of days before the jury came back with a verdict. Perhaps you should check your facts before posting – and that is, indeed, a salutory lesson!
Checking his facts? That would be a first.
The “stuck” post was about live coverage of the trial. Last time I checked, the jury portion of the trial is over.
Your assumptions regarding why things happen, are as disconnected from reality as they usually are.
Besides that post being for the live and podcast coverage of the trial, new posts covering the verdict appeared, so the live coverage post was no longer applied nor was the best place to comment.
So no, it wasn’t “amazing how quickly the ‘stuck post’” was unpinned, only that some people couldn’t deduce the obvious rationale.
More likely, he didn’t care what the real reason was. He was after something to criticize, even if once again, he had to make it up.
But it sure sounds good to his compatriot shill-trolls.
Indeed, playing to the cheap seats.
It is a bitterly disappointing result, however to suggest the jury doesn’t know or understand is fraught with danger. He has now been judged by a group of his peers. Whilst I think Steyn is a wonderful orator, a great storyteller and wordsmith, perhaps his sarcasm and dry wit was too much for the jury. Perhaps he shouldn’t have represented himself, something that is consistently advised time after time to participants.
The statement ” so that in the future, no one will dare engage in “climate denialism” is abhorrent and appears to leave a very big opening for contesting the punitive award.
Not really replying, just jumping aboard the thread.
The jury decision is outrageous, of course. But Aristotle reminds us that approbation or disapprobation have nothing to do with dispassionate analysis. So let’s analyze.
The jury award of $1 in compensatory damages to Mann from Steyn (and also from Rimberg) is a direct recognition that Mann did NOT suffer any significant damages from the alleged defamation (even if the outrageous conclusion that there indeed was any defamation could be upheld). This is the only “good” part of the jury decision.
So the question then arises: In the jury awarding punitive damages to Mann ($1million from Steyn and $1thousand from Rimberg) what exactly is being punished with those punitive damages?
I think any reasonable person would conclude that what is being punished is not Steyn or Rimberg defaming Mann but rather their temerity in questioning – even debunking – a central prop of “climate change” dogma (i.e., the hockeystick) and in exposing the base and despicable corruption of Mann, and thereby broadly undermining faith in climate dogma. In short, Steyn and Rimberg are guilty of heresy!
And heresy is a deeply serious crime, undermining as it does the cohesiveness of society and its shared worldview, which accordingly must be severely punished. The mere societal conventions of actually applying the provisions of the law in this case can be justifiably swept aside in addressing such a mortal threat. In effect, this is a form of “jury nullification” which allows their collective climate indoctrination and brainwashing as sufficient warrant for throwing out the actual provisions of the law in order to punish unbelievers.
We are truly descending into a new dark ages in which belief and feelings total trump rationality and reality.
I spent 37 years a a civili trial lawyer. Every judge I ever knew would have granted a mistrial for the comment about awarding punitive damages to scare off others. Was a motion made?
In any event, I will burn a couple tires to celebrate the “win.”
I have seen a Federal trial judge leave motions on the table, ignore sanctions given by the magistrate judge, ignore applicable law, ignore the case file, and ignore rules of procedure just to get the outcome he/she wanted.
Can the money be put in escrow in somewhere in Canada to be released contingent upon the payment of the legal fees awarded to Timothy Ball? Anyone know?
Amazing resemblance…..
Pippi Longstocking ( Swedish: Pippi Långstrump) is the fictional main character in an eponymous series of children’s books by Swedish author Astrid Lindgren. Pippi was named by Lindgren’s daughter Karin, who asked her mother for a get-well story.
Michael Mann
This pony still has legs.
I remember many years ago a radio play in which a judge – renowned for his fairness, ended his career with a decision so outrageously unfair that it went all the way to the high court and the government, to get the law changed. Which happened successfully.
On being subsequently questioned he said ‘it was the only way I, as a judge could get bad law replaced by good’.
Looking from afar, all I can say is that the purpose of punitive damages has been absolutely called into question by this judgement.
It sets a very dangerous precedent.
Punishment belongs under the criminal code, not the civil code.
Regarding the statistical arguments above, the definitive account is Andrew Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. Non statisticians will need to concentrate but the verdict is undeniable. The Hockey Stick is a fraud. And the surrounding Climategate emails are discussed at length and paint a shocking picture. I did not notice during the trial a mention that the disgraceful call to delete emails by Phil Jones was actually to defeat a Freedom Of Information suit (UK law) up coming, a criminal act. In all the four whitewash enquiries described with dispassionate accuracy by McKitrick nobody asked Jones whether he did actually delete emails. Nor did they ‘clear Mann’ as his science was never discussed. Also as far as I know Mann’s campaigns to have journal editors sacked was not discussed in the trial. Note also that when discussing ‘sceptics’ Mann said ‘can we find a better word? So he is also the father of ‘climate denier’.
Whilst I and probably most others here aggree with your points, unfortunately they make little difference. When ‘climategate’ broke, I was sure that the whole climate conspiracy was blown wide open, surely the behaviour revealed was so blatant that it could not be brushed aside – but it was. This trial clearly showed Mann as an unpleasant individual with no real case – so what? Does anyone here think that any other verdict was possible? Unfortunately the climate argument is reduced to a Monty Python sketch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ
the public will not reject the climate narrative because they will hear nothing else except from people characterised as cranks and oil interests. What will happen though is that people will be directly affected by the consequences – failing power grids, expensive and dangerous EVs, etc. That is what will provoke a backlash.
I wonder how many climate scientists have lost earnings and grants as a result of mendacious tweets and name calling, originating from P Hacker Central? That’s without considering being looked at in a menacing way.
Is there a possibility of a mass defamation action?
The Mickey Mann Hockey Stick Trial got an article in JustTheNews, the shill-trolls won’t like it:
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/celebrity-climate-scientists-victory-libel-suit-raises-concerns-about-free
I’ll probably get accused of being some kind of right-wing extremist by you-know-who for linking to JustTheNews…
Why, is it as bad as the Hateway Pungent?
I wouldn’t be suprised if lurking observers stumbled upon this thread and thought to themselves the glaring hypocrisy of WUWT’s commentators. They claim to champion free speech, yet their actions involve attacking those with differing opinions. It’s about their narrative. While it might not quite reach the level of an echo chamber, it’s far from being any gold standard of open discourse.
Maybe we are all being dragged down to the level of the alarmists because we want to win a Nobel prize too?
Lurking observers??? The glaring hypocrisy? — Gold standards? – The narrative…Echo chamber
Got all bases covered I see.