[troutman]

The Price of Defame


http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astro...e_forward.html

Michael Mann is a climate scientist who was flung into the spotlight when he and his colleagues published a graph several years ago showing the explosive growth of global warming over the past century or so. The original work has been updated and extended many times, by many different scientists, and each time the pattern of results has been supported and strengthened. Additional data going back 11,000 years show that we are experiencing an unprecedentedly rapid rise in temperatures.

This, of course, has made Mann a big target of climate change deniers. While most of them attack the graph—failing in their attempts, I’ll note—some have taken a more personal tack. Two groups, the far-right National Review Online and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, have made this personal indeed. In a frankly disgusting article by Mark Steyn, the NRO accused Mann of academic fraud. It even compares him to the ex-Penn State University coach Jerry Sandusky, a convicted serial child molester. Steyn got this comparison from an article by Rand Simberg in the CEI’s blog, who called Mann “the Jerry Sandusky of climate science … [who] molested and tortured data.”

Nice, huh? So Mann sued for defamation.

Unsurprisingly, both the NRO and CEI were unhappy with this and tried to block the lawsuit using SLAPP laws—rules used to stop lawsuits that try to censor criticism. However, a District of Columbia Superior Court judge has ruled that SLAPP doesn’t apply. Mann’s lawsuit can move forward.

This is great news.