It took 12 years, but on Thursday, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann won a $1 million ruling in a defamation suit he filed against climate change skeptics who had falsely accused him of manipulating data.
The case stems from attacks on work Mann and his colleagues published in the late 1990s that became known as the "hockey stick" graph. The graph shows that global temperatures over the past 1,000 years were largely flat—the "handle" of the stick—but rose sharply in the years since the Industrial Revolution and the rise of greenhouse gas emissions—the stick's "blade."
In 2012, Rand Simberg, writing for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based think tank, attacked the hockey stick and Mann, who taught at Penn State University at the time. According to the lawsuit, Simberg made a comparison to former disgraced Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, who was convicted of assaulting children. Simberg said Mann had "molested and tortured data."
In an article in the National Review, Mark Steyn referred to Simberg's blog post and likewise attacked Mann's credibility.
The jury in Washington, D.C., Superior Court found that both Simberg and Steyn had made false statements and had acted with maliciousness. The jury awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.
Both Simberg and Steyn have said they plan to appeal the ruling.
In an email exchange with Newsweek, Mann, who is now a presidential distinguished professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said he hoped that the legal victory will encourage climate scientists to communicate their findings more broadly with the public.
Newsweek: This took more than a decade to resolve, which must have been frustrating. Why did you think it was important to pursue this suit and stick with it?
Mann: Yes, it's been a long journey, but we're delighted that it's resulted in such a decisive victory. This was about something larger than me, or any one scientist. It's about the bad faith, ideologically driven attacks on scientists today. This decision sends a clear message: falsely attacking scientists is not protected speech.
Do you think that this sort of aggressive criticism of climate scientists has served to silence scientists or made them wary of engaging on the issue—has there been a chilling effect?
I don't think there's any doubt.
Do you think this ruling will help improve communication of climate science?
One can hope that bad actors will think twice before defaming scientists just trying to do their job. That can't hurt.
You've become a bit of a lightning rod for climate skeptics. Why do you think your work became such a flash point?
The hockey stick was such a compelling graph—it told a simple story, it conveyed the dramatic impact that human carbon emissions are having on our planet. That made it a threat to powerful special interests—indeed, the most powerful special interest on the planet, the fossil fuel industry. I wrote The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars more than a decade ago to tell that story.
Over the past decade or so, we've seen a big shift in how climate scientists communicate their findings and engage with the public. Many scientists once avoided public engagement, preferring to let the findings speak for themselves. You've argued for a more assertive approach. Why?
The powerful special interests and ideologically driven bad actors would like us to keep quiet. They prefer the status quo, an agenda of total inaction. But the fate of the planet literally lies in the balance. The stakes are too great for us to keep quiet.
If the judgment stands, do you have plans for how to spend the money that was awarded?
I'll take my family to Disneyland. No, seriously, I haven't even given that any thought yet.
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