SLAPPed With the Hockey Stick
Conservative journalist Mark Steyn must pay $1 million in punitive damages in a defamation lawsuit that strikes at the root of First Amendment free-speech protections. Attorneys for the prosecution applauded the judgment as a clear message to those they dub “climate deniers.”
Twelve years ago, controversial scientist Michael Mann sued Steyn and some associates for drawing parallels between Mann’s claims of catastrophic global warming and the case of a convicted child molester. This past February, the jury decided that Mann had not suffered damages, but it still penalized Steyn. Why?
When the case began, Mann was professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). He had gained international recognition in 1998, when he published his now-infamous “hockey stick” graph in the journal Nature, depicting global temperatures since 1000 A.D. According to Mann, from that time until the mid-20th century, little variation occurred. But then, temperatures suddenly skyrocketed upward. Mann included several years of future forecasting with no expected end to rising temperatures. The result was a curved line that looked a lot like a hockey stick.
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