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Steyn v Mann: The Infamous Climate ‘Hockey Stick’ Goes on Trial

by Chris Morrison
31 January 2024 7:00 AM

Fifteen years on from the notorious Climategate scandal, and the widely debunked temperature ‘hockey stick’ is centre stage in a libel trial in a Washington D.C. court. In the widely-billed climate trial of the century, the fake Nobel laureate Michael Mann is suing the journalist Mark Steyn for claiming that his infamous hockey stick graph is fraudulent. The case has enormous ramifications since it can be argued that the hockey stick removed the concept of natural climate variability for an entire generation. It is fraudulent, claims Steyn, both in its construction and in the uses to which it has been put by Al Gore, the IPCC, every school and most governments throughout the Western world.

The hockey stick first appeared in 1998 and purported to show that global temperatures had slowly declined for around 1,000 years before shooting up suddenly in recent years under the impact of humans burning hydrocarbons and increasing the supply of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It was widely quoted by activists and was published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). To this day, many activists argue that the small recent rises in global temperature are exceptional and have not been witnessed in the past going back 125,000 years. Widespread and convincing proxy evidence, along with historical observations, suggest otherwise. It is generally accepted that a medieval warming period saw similar rises to those witnessed today. But proxy evidence can work both ways. According to Steyn, the Mann graph abolished warming in medieval times using two clumps of trees – some California bristlecones and just one cedar from the Gaspe Peninsula for the years up to 1421.

“Tree rings are absolutely brilliant at telling you the temperature in 1432”, Steyn has observed sarcastically, and if you criticise that on Twitter, Mann says you are funded by the Koch Brothers. In 2012 Mann sued Steyn in the District of Columbia Superior Court for “defamation of a Nobel Prize recipient”. Mann has since withdrawn the false Nobel claim but not the defamation charge. In court hearings it has been revealed that if Mann loses he will not pay a cent. As always, there is interest in who funds a great deal of climate activism and ‘lawfare’ around the world.

The hockey stick featured in the Climategate scandal in 2009 when leaked emails, possibly from an internal whistleblower, showed the process by which Mann and a number of colleagues working out of the University of East Anglia had used proxy evidence to arrive at the graph. It was said that a reference in the emails to “Mike’s Nature Trick” referred to the practice of using the most convenient proxy or temperature measurements to fit the desired narrative. The emails showed how competing climate claims were kept out of science journals and requests for information about the methodology these activists were using were denied. At the time, Professor Jerome Ravetz of Oxford University noted that within two months the East Anglian scientists and the IPCC “were discredited”. Even if only a fraction of their scientific claims were eventually refuted, added Ravetz, “their credibility as trustworthy scientists was lost”. Even George Monbiot in the Guardian was appalled, noting that pretending the climate email leak wasn’t a crisis wouldn’t make it go away.

In fact, there was a massive pretence that the emails were not a crisis and interest faded. Internal inquiries whitewashed the affair, ‘denier’ abuse rapidly took away any perceived need to debate sceptics, the leaks were blamed on bad players (probably funded by the Koch Brothers), and a general air of “move along please, nothing to see here” descended on the tame, mainstream media.

Michael Mann continued his career, rising up the climate activist ranks, and is currently a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He still seems keen on supressing climate information that doesn’t follow the ‘settled’ narrative. Last year he was part of a successful attempt to get a published science paper by four scientists retracted in a Springer Nature journal. The scientists, including three professors of physics, argued that a climate ‘emergency’ was not supported by the available weather data. Mann told the Guardian that “either the consensus of the world’s climate experts that climate change is causing a very clear increase in many types of weather extremes is wrong, or a couple of nuclear physics dudes in Italy are wrong”. Mann is no stranger to abuse, referring to Steyn at one point as an “odious excuse for a human being”.

The stakes could not be higher for Mann, and the reputation of ‘climate science’ more widely. Mann may well find his abuse and false claims of Nobel honours do not play well in a court room before a judge and a jury. He is up against an opponent of considerable intelligence and sharp, quick wit. Mark Steyn has been a regular on U.S. broadcast media, and U.K. viewers will remember him from a stint on GB News. A stint, it might be noted, that was required viewing if only for speculation as to how long Ofcom would allow it to continue. Not long, as it turned out. It is difficult to second guess a court trial, even one held these days in a solid Democrat city. But Mann, who can come across as an attention-seeking and vicious science nerd, is up against a skilled showman. This was evidenced by the following opening exchange when Mann complained that Steyn’s writings had led to him receiving a “mean look” in a supermarket. Having elicited precise details of where Mann received his mean look, Steyn observed:

Excellent. Excellent. Truly excellent answer there… I thought that was a good answer. Let’s say for the sake of argument you were in the pet food aisle and you were standing there. How do you know the mean look was not because you were blocking the guy because you were dithering between the Fancy Feast Gourmet Tuna and the Fancy Feast Salmon Delight?

Steyn in fine form, subtly tutoring Mann in the pitfalls of causation. The trial is expected to continue for up to another week. You can listen to a podcast in which actors re-enact key moments from the trial hosted by Phelim McAleer here.

Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.

Tags: Cancel CultureClimate AlarmismHockey stickLawfareMark SteynMichael MannPropagandaThe Science

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66 Comments
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Monro
Monro
1 year ago

Mann is losing the war in America:

‘…..the broader point is that Mann hasn’t checked his sources because he simply doesn’t care. What he is really defending is affective environmental identity, not science. In that role, his environmental audience is going to take his word for it.

Everybody in that bubble knows who is on which team and anyone criticizing environmental organizations, or for that matter icons like Mann, is clearly not on the right one.

Among the tribe, scientists literally speak for the truth, even when they say things that are demonstrably false, and activists speak for the people, even when they make demands that most of the public opposes…….

Mann knows that few journalists, scientists, or experts will call him on any of it, because, mostly, they are of the tribe and even those who are not won’t dare to cross it. 

Many, of course, will excuse Mann’s misrepresentations as the cost of war. But that presumes that Mann and his coreligionists are actually winning it.

In fact, over the 12 years since Mann became a public figure and dedicated himself to winning the climate war, there has been little change in the number of Americans telling pollsters that they are concerned about climate change, that its effects have already begun, or that scientists agree that it is happening…….

Mann’s attacks upon “false solutions,” which include everything from nuclear energy to carbon capture to adaptation to geoengineering are not, as he suggests, about moving beyond the phony debate about the reality of anthropogenic climate change but rather its opposite, an effort to reimpose that debate upon framings, technologies, policies, and political possibilities that might disrupt it.

They are not actually in service of the cause of progress on climate change. A decade of prosecuting the climate war has achieved nothing other than raising the ideological stakes associated with the issue, making the possibility of concerted federal climate action even less plausible than it was when he started.

Over the last decade, Mann has now published what is essentially the same book three times, once, literally, in cartoon form (‘The Madhouse Effect’ $18 – now available for $2).

What the ritualized incantations of his personal history and its political meaning actually serve is to enforce ideological discipline within the Left/environmental bubble that pays attention to him, to warn his disciples away from impure thoughts, and, perhaps most importantly, to keep himself at the center of it all.’

https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/the-folly-of-mann

That is why is he is being funded to take Mr Steyn on. Should be a cracking test match, with Mann as Smith/Warner…….Watch out for the Emery Paper/sugar in the pocket……..

Last edited 1 year ago by Monro
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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

“They are not actually in service of the cause of progress on climate change. A decade of prosecuting the climate war has achieved nothing other than raising the ideological stakes associated with the issue, making the possibility of concerted federal climate action even less plausible than it was when he started.”

Is this something you’re quoting?

Or should I understand that you believe Man-Made Climate Change
1. Exists
2. Is a problem
3. Is a problem which governments/other must fix?

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
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10navigator
10navigator
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

Mann-made climate change clearly does exist, if only in MM’s head.
Power to Steyn’s elbow, and his defence lawyer.

The late, great John Arlott, on witnessing the torrid time South African bowler ‘Tufty Mann’ was giving George Mann of England, remarked: “What we have here is a clear case of Mann’s inhumanity to Mann.”

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Jon Garvey
Jon Garvey
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

It’s a quote from the Breakthrough article (which, coming from an organisation that castigates “anti-climate change” people is intended to show that even cautious types are beginning to see through Mann).

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Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

The clue is in the quotation marks and reference at the end of the quotation.

I have no idea whether man made climate change exists but, if it does, it is, in my view, a minute part of a far greater entirely natural variability.

The idea that governments should involve themselves in such matters is a mark of just how dim and incompetent our socialist fascist leaders have become.

Last edited 1 year ago by Monro
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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

No it’s not stupidity it’s the desire to control ppl.

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Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

That is the hallmark of fascism.

‘Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people. No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State.’

Mussolini 1932

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

It’s both.

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Totally agree, Monro, and

Apologies! I thought I had made a special effort to look for quotation marks! It was before my morning tea.

Note to self: Remember to Drink Tea Before Looking at DS BTL.

(I do drink a lot of tea)

[goes to make tea]

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

I usually put the referenced article at the top of my comment and the quotes from it beneath suitably italicised and with quotation marks.

Usually, but there are exceptions.

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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 year ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

“EXCEPTIONS” ???!!!

ZERO TOLERANCE IS THE ONLY WAY!

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

😀😀😀

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Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

It was very kind of you to look at it at all.

It was far too long a quote for that time in the morning, or for any other time, for that matter.

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TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

This podcast is providing day by day updates of the trial. Actors are acting out each part from the transcripts. It’s a great podcast. Steyn is utterly destroying Mann. Will it be enough to overcome the probable bias of a DC jury? Steyn is doing such a good job, I think there is a very good chance he will win.

The episode where Steyn has his say uninterrupted is a great listen.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/climate-change-on-trial/id1713827256

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

But remember that lies spread half way around the globe while truth is still tying its show laces.

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Monro
Monro
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

I have been a huge fan of Steyn for many years.

His show on GB News was pure genius, but a bit alarming because I remember thinking, on more than one occasion: does he, or anyone else in the studio, realise that, live on set, Mr Steyn is displaying all the symptoms of an incipient heart attack?

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

Steyn was taking the heart attack on behalf of us all and exposing the climate con artists that don’t release their data and methodology so their work can be checked and reproduced. —–If work cannot be checked and no one knows how you arrived at your silly graph then it isn’t science and you are a charlatan. ——Mann is an imposter.

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Roy Everett
Roy Everett
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

The court drama is partially re-enacted by American actors. It’s easy to tell who the “baddies” are as they speak in fake English accents, which I guess is the sound equivalent of the white-hat/black-hat convention on Westerns!

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GroundhogDayAgain
GroundhogDayAgain
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

Thanks for the link TBM, I’ll enjoy listening to that.

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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

Can I just say a massive thank you for pointing me at this. Very entertaining and Michael Mann comes across as a boundless PoS.

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JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago
Reply to  Monro

“They are not actually in service of the cause of progress on climate change”

Which suggests you believe we can control the climate.

Please confirm? I need a laugh.

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stewart
stewart
1 year ago

From what I’ve heard and seen, courts in the US are anything but impartial. Even less so in D.C.

If Steyn gets an impartial lawyer, then he should be fine. But it’s a big if.

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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  stewart

These days federal judge appointments are highly politicised – possibly true at the state level too though I have no info on that. From what I have seen, the Republican appointed judges tend to uphold the law as it was written and understood at the time of adoption – but I would say that.

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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

It is true at state level also, if anything it’s even worse. See the trump trial in NY, calling that a kangaroo court is a disservice to kangaroo courts. Think Zanu pf on steroids but with better pr.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago

I’m sorry to burst everyone’s bubble but Steyn will lose. This is being heard in a DC court, therefore they will return whatever judgement the establishment wants. If Hitler was on their side they’d happily rule Hitler was a friend of the Jews. See the recent Trump trial in NY where a women with a known rape fetish claimed sexual assault in a department store without evidence, found in her favour by a bent jury giving her 5m, Trump bemoans the verdict gets fined another 85m by a bent judge/jury. Lawfare is totally out of control in the USA and doing business in blue states is becoming impossible.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

Sure things are stacked against him. But I don’t think he will lose. I’ve been following the case through this podcast. He is presenting a very strong case and Mann is very much coming across as a petty nasty serial congenital liar. The basis for defamation simply isn’t there annd Steyn is illustrating that well. According to the podcast hosts, while the Jury are mostly stony faced, a few are smiling at Steyn’s jokes. Those jokes are for the most part, identifying the utter absurdity of Mann.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/climate-change-on-trial/id1713827256

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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

Yr optimism is admirable.

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

Just look at the mug on that charachter. —-What a squirming parasite fraud. All exposed in Andrew Montford’s book. McIntyre shredded the Hockey stick —-But since climate change isn’t about real science or real truth Mann and his ugly squirming mug might get away with it……..Climate science truly is a “Disgrace to the Profession”

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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

Academia has long been weaponised Keynes was a total charlatan, mediocre mathematician, who came up with a preposterous economic theory that doesn’t pass the common sense test. Bizarrely his nonsense has been amplified by the state for around 100 years to justify ever creeping interference in our lives. It’s no accident.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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Cristi.Neagu
Cristi.Neagu
1 year ago
Reply to  TheBasicMind

Remember that this isn’t just them fighting eachother in court. If Steyn wins, that means Mann couldn’t prove his graph isn’t fraudulent. That graph is the basis of the entire climate change cult. The whole thing would come crashing down. They’ll never let that happen.

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stewart
stewart
1 year ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

I thought of that. But lots of things go against them. What they do is simply bury it. They control the mass media. So if Steyn wins most people will never find out. If he loses, it will be communicated far and wide.

Of course, they will do what they can for him to lose, but it’s not a major problem for them if he wins.

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jburns75
jburns75
1 year ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

I wonder if Steyn wins, whether it could pave the way for a lawsuit against Mann by Tim Ball’s family?

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TheBasicMind
TheBasicMind
1 year ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

Unfortunately it doesn’t as for Mann to win he has to show, 1) it Steyn lied about the graph being a fraud, 2) if he can prove that, that he has suffered harm as a result.

Unfortunately that second part means if Mann loses you can be sure all the climate cultists will be saying it is only because he couldn’t prove harm. Unfortunately in that regard Steyn has been rather good. He has shown rather too well Mann suffered no harm (Mann was trying to claim he lost commissions and money as a result of the defamation, and Steyn showed ALL his various sources of income increased in the years that followed). That’s good for Steyn of course, who for entirely valid personal reasons doesn’t want damages awarded against him. But it’s bad for the “climate science” on trial aspect to this because it could let Mann off the hook.

Last edited 1 year ago by TheBasicMind
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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Cristi.Neagu

It already has come crashing down. ——it was removed from IPCC reports a long time ago. I think this isn’t so much about the validity of the phony graph. It is more about whether it was deliberate fraud. Proving that is not easy despite the fact that Mann did everything to prevent people seeking to reproduce his work from finding out how he created it. ——The guy is a squirming parasite and a diabolical disgrace.

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Cristi.Neagu
Cristi.Neagu
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

True. Man made climate change is pretty much on trial. There’s a lot of incentive to not let it fail. Also, good luck finding an impartial jury.

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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

Lawfare out of control in the States. We only have to look inwards to see how corrupted and vicious our courts and judiciary have become.

Laurence Fox?

Tommy Robinson?

Other examples will come to mind. And of course before the victim even gets to court he / she will have been fitted up by bent coppers.

British justice? A joke.

International law legally binding – oh do firk off.

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jburns75
jburns75
1 year ago
Reply to  wokeman

In any sane world Mann would lose. But this isn’t a sane world, and the trial is held in a particularly insane state in a country that is losing its grip on reality.

The jury will probably sympathise with Steyn, and no doubt find Mann odious. They will see through the fraudulent Hockey Stick graph, and understand why it is such an appalling piece of pseudoscience. They will view Mann as a self-evident liar given the inconsistencies even in his deposition. But his lawyer’s closing statement (and he has the last word) will sail as closely as possible to the theme of “yes, the plaintiff might be a creep, but there are far bigger issues at stake here”. It will tap into years of propagandistic grooming, and generate an automatic fear response in opposing a perceived consensus, which will probably override any sort of common sense.

The climate blob with now infinite pilfered public funds at its disposal absolutely can’t afford for Steyn to win (hence the parachuting of Naomi Oreskes and Bill Nye into the courtroom to generate a knee jerk response in a doubtlessly DC-liberal jury). It would be the beginning of the end for them, and they’ll know at this point there will be little room to spin the narrative, even if they can supress it to a degree.

I’m not holding out much hope, but will happily crack open a bottle of champagne and donate £50 to the Daily Sceptic in celebration if I’m proven wrong.

Last edited 1 year ago by jburns75
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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago
Reply to  jburns75

Totally agree.

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wokeman
wokeman
1 year ago

Michael Mann is the sort of overweight ignoramus the regime promotes, a failed physicist with a patchy record of publications. His academic career suddenly has rocket boosters put underneath it when he comes up with the hockey stick nonsense. The regime does this, similar thing happened with Keynes in economics, he was a low grade mathematician with zero background in economics who promoted the ridiculous theory government could borrow it’s way to prosperity.

Last edited 1 year ago by wokeman
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NeilofWatford
NeilofWatford
1 year ago

Steyn is a modern day hero, badly let down by GB News.
I tuned in every night to his show. After his sacking I stopped watching.

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RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago
Reply to  NeilofWatford

Getting rid of him and replacing him with Jacob Rees-Mogg was disgraceful.

I switch off the minute Farage ends.

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Roy Everett
Roy Everett
1 year ago

I think Mann will win. The US courts are even more highly politicized that those in the UK. I have had peripheral involvement with a couple of linked proceedings in the UK in which a particular verdict would have been tantamount to saying that two senior public sector employees had colluded to frame a defendant for a serious allegation. The first had made a serious but not criminal blunder, and the other had apparently tried to protect his “mate” by way of an ill-judged smear campaign against the defendant which got out of hand and led to an entirely bogus “me-too” rape allegation from a convenient delusional fantasist. In one of the trials a junior whistle-blower, on oath, began to testify against her management regarding the smear campaign, but the judge would not allow her to name the individuals within that management. I did a bit of deeper investigation and found that situations like this abound in the UK Establishment circles: one senior public employee errs, another helps to cover it up, a tangled web of lies and deception develops, and judges then wade in to cover up the cover up. If anybody starts to expose it they risk triggering police “advice”, career limitation, super-injunctions and massive costs or imprisonment. A private individual on an average income stands no chance of winning against a public sector organisation with access to unlimited funds. Even the media these days are reluctant to expose these cases. Whatever happened to programmes like Rough Justice?
However, there is a glimmer of light in such cases, which perhaps applies in Mann v Steyn. In the “discovery proceedings” (or similar in the US), or even during the main case, the public agency may realise that disclosing important evidence necessary to win the case in question would expose much more embarrassing facts about their behaviour. They then adopt a “gambit”, ceding the particular case (or settling “out of court”) but maintaining secrecy over deeper state skulduggery. I suspect that that is the best that Steyn can hope for.

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Roy Everett

You may be right, Mann might get away with more of his phony computer modelling masquerading as science. Despite it being shown to be FALSE, and not a true representation of climate over the last thousand years. The whole climate change issue is floating in a sea of government funded S..t —-We remember the Climategate scandal where thousands of incriminating emails by the data adjusters were clearly showing malpractice yet the whole shenanigans was airbrushed by “nothing to see here” establishment protecting their pathetic green politics.

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Roy Everett
Roy Everett
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

I was a [mature] student at UEA at the time of Climategate, albeit not directly involved with climate research. Nevertheless, the entire academic culture was saturated with a conviction that the Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis was “settled science”, and that we (as student teachers) were obliged to instil that into children’s minds (along with other contentious political agendas). People who dissented were metaphorically taken out and shot. It was very difficult for anybody who was involved in climate research to understand that the AGW hypothesis is not merely flawed but a fraud, when their salary depended on their not understanding it (as Upton Sinclair pointed out).

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Roy Everett

Roy thanks for that but I have been looking into this issue of energy and climate since about 2007. ——-I have realised for sometime that what is claimed to be about “science” is really “official science” in support of marxist and anti Capitalist policies from the world government people seeking control over the worlds wealth and resources, and who are supporters of the Malthus idea that population growth will outstrip the ability to feed everyone. ——-Julian Simon showed this eco socialist world view to be wrong and that the words greatest resource is —humans.

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varmint
varmint
1 year ago

I call Steve McIntyre to the stand My Lord. ————-To anyone not familiar with Steve, he is the person who for 5 years tried to get data, computer code and methodology from Mann regarding the Hockey Stick so he could check it for himself. That information was not forthcoming . Mann refused to provide it. ————ALARM BELLS.—- In science something has to be reproducible as well as falsifiable. ——-To cut a long story short, Steve eventually did get some of the information and his analysis showed the graph to be statistically flawed, and did not show what it purported to show. So is this “fraud” or just someone who actually believes the crap they produce. I just wonder what this trial is attempting to do. Because if it is about truth then Mann looses. ——-Or as someone once pointed out “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you in trouble, it is what you know just ain’t so” —Mark Twain. ——–And the other Mark knows that what Mann says simply ain’t so.

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0
RTSC
RTSC
1 year ago

The Globalists / Eco Fanatics and Billionaires-who-want-to-become Trillionaires can’t afford to have Steyn win.

The chances of a fair trial are nil.

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Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago

I have the Liberty Stick, with the Constitution on one side, and the Magna Carta on the other. In the shape of a Hockey Stick. Issue no 557. That was my small contribution to the fight.

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V Detta
V Detta
1 year ago
Reply to  Ron Smith

Or you can buy one of his many books – e.g The Prisoner of Windsor here. https://www.steynonline.com/club/.

8
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Ron Smith
Ron Smith
1 year ago

The way these Globalists win is they seem to have unlimited funding, yet, it’s not the first time they cancelled the court case with Mark Steyn after raising money for Hotels etc. When right at the last moment the case is moved on to a later date. As Mark said, Mann cannot just settle the case for a fiver, all the lawsuits are tied up and costing millions.

Last edited 1 year ago by Ron Smith
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WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
1 year ago

The hockey stick has been debunked many times by numerous scientists across various climate related specialisms yet it remains a vital tool of propaganda, power, money and control for the elite who determined to shape the world in their own image – and f*ck the rest of us. For that reason alone, Steyn will, unjustly and unfortunately, lose.

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godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
1 year ago

‘Mann complained that Steyn’s writings had led to him receiving a “mean look” in a supermarket.‘

I can’t help thinking that Mann received the mean look because he farted.

It’s certainly more plausible than believing that Mann is so well-known to the public that if someone looks at him in a supermarket, that person must not only recognise him but also knows what has been said about him.

But Steyn’s explanation is as wonderfully eloquent as ever:

‘Let’s say for the sake of argument you were in the pet food aisle and you were standing there. How do you know the mean look was not because you were blocking the guy because you were dithering between the Fancy Feast Gourmet Tuna and the Fancy Feast Salmon Delight?’

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godknowsimgood
godknowsimgood
1 year ago

I honestly don’t understand how Michael Mann can be so stupid as to bring this case against Mark Steyn, it’s obvious that Mann has no hope of winning it. His lawyers won’t care, I’m sure they are being well-paid.

17
0
MTF
MTF
1 year ago

There are so many things in this article that have been discussed and disputed for decades – why not at least mention the counter-arguments? They are bound to come up in the case.

E.g.

The basic hockey stick shape has been confirmed by numerous studies since Mann’s first paper using different proxies and different statistical methods.

The MWP is now believed to be a more of change in temperature distribution than overall warming – some places got warmer, others got cooler. Globally current temperatures exceed that period.

The “trick” referred to in the climategate e-mail was not a matter of cherry picking proxies. It was a way of dealing with the period when tree ring proxies stopped shadowing real temperatures. There was nothing hidden or deceptive about this. Technique might have been a better word than “trick”.

The enquiries following climategate included:

The House of Commons Science and Technology CommitteeThe US Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Commerce (as requested by well known sceptic Inhofe)The US National Science Foundation
So not all internal and it is hardly surprising that interest faded because every enquiry exonerated both Mann and the UEA climate staff.

0
-32
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

You are defending the indefensible. Try reading about Steve McIntyre’s attempts to get data, computer code and methodology from Mann so that he could check the Hockey Stick Graph for himself. Mann refused to give this information. Do you ever ask yourself why he would do that? Isn’t it the case that if we are all searching for truth we need to share data? Being an expert statistician McIntyre suspected there was something amiss. He spent 5 years doggedly trying to figure out what Mann had done with this graph that was all over IPCC reports purporting to show a surge in warming in the 20th century and eventually found it to be statistically flawed. ——You can read a full report by Andrew Montford in “The Hocket Stick Illusion”. ————-Or you can continue to wallow in your particular world view that seems to keep you cosy at night. ——–PS The Hockey Stick Graph quickly vanished from sight, just as everything does when finally shown to be garbage.

21
0
MTF
MTF
1 year ago
Reply to  varmint

I followed the controversy closely at the time. Steve makes good points and Mann seems to be a difficult person to deal with. But the point is subsequent research has shown Mann’s conclusions to be broadly correct.

PS. Is it surprising that the scientific community makes little reference to a 1999 paper which has been superseded by 25 years of research and data?

2
-14
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  MTF

Have you read Andrew Montfords Book —-The Hockey Stick Illusion? ——Until you do please do not try to tell me anything about this issue. You think that a graph based on proxies from one tree (The Bristlecone Pine) in one particular area can somehow tell us the temperature of the entire planet for the last thousand years? If you do then you are even more of a brainwashed dreamer than you actually always appear.. ——–The Medieval warm Period was mysteriously erased, and so was the Little Ice Age. Both of these periods have historical evidence for their existence from places all over the world. yet Manns graph made them vanish ————-Don’t you get it? McIntyre never just made “some good points” . He shredded the Hockey Stick —–It is DEAD. —-Mann was not just “difficult to deal with”. He was deliberately evasive and would not let McIntyre see how his graph was created. —–You only behave like this when you know you have something to hide, and McIntyre eventually exposed the nonsense for what it is. ——Malpractice.

6
0
JeremyP99
JeremyP99
1 year ago

Mann is no different to an extreme religious fundamentalist

13
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  JeremyP99

The corruption of science for political purposes. —-A sad day for us all.

2
0
Covid-1984
Covid-1984
1 year ago

Following the E Jean Carroll verdict against Donald Trump, no madness is off the table in the courts Democrats are the enemy of the people.

12
0
Prickly Thistle
Prickly Thistle
1 year ago

I miss Mark Steyn on GB News. He was great.

13
0
Peter W
Peter W
1 year ago

I’d give MM more than a mean look if I saw him anywhere and it would have nothing to do with Steyn. There are many other sources that show the true nature of the man(n).

9
0
Kornea112
Kornea112
1 year ago

Mann is fanatical a key player in the climate change cult and has built his career around it. Susan J Crockford is an expert and has written extensively on Polar Bears. In her book she states that it was Michel Mann who advised Canadian Arctic scientists that they could get increased funding from the government for more research trips to the Arctic if they started pushing the climate lie that the polar bears were going extinct because of global warming. This has now been proven false many times but not before it paid handsomely.

9
0
varmint
varmint
1 year ago
Reply to  Kornea112

Yep —–Almost all climate change “science” is funded by government with an agenda. Despite Polar Bear numbers increasing 5 fold in the last 50 years the Climate Industrial Complex can still manage, aided and abetted by a bought and paid for media to convince people they are endangered. ———People are very reluctant to question what they think is science, or anything they think is supported by a large majority of scientists. Ordinary people are inclined to follow the path of group think as they have this safety mechanism that tries to keep them as part of the herd.

1
0
Simon MacPhisto
Simon MacPhisto
1 year ago

The podcast mentioned is fantastic. Essential listening for all.

8
0
allanplaskett
allanplaskett
1 year ago

‘Fifteen years on from the notorious Climategate scandal, and the widely debunked temperature ‘hockey stick’ is centre stage in a libel trial in a Washington D.C. court.’

It is coming up 25 years since Mann’s inaugural Hockey stick article appeared in Nature. The depressing thing to contemplate about Mann and the climate maniacs in general, what convinces you they may win in the end, is their remorseless incapacity for self-boredom.

Mann’s original article was a response to a call from the IPCC. ‘We need to get rid of the medieval warm period,’ emailed J Overpeck internally to his close little group of IPCC colleagues, not expecting to appear in the ‘Climategate’ leaks.

The IPCC couldn’t have been more delighted with Mann’s response to their ‘call for papers’. The hockey stick was the centerpiece of its (2001) 3rd Assessment Report, headlining page 1 of the Summary for Policymakers.

A year or two later, Canadian statisticians McIntyre and McKitrick, analyzing Mann’s methods, showed that his software would produce a hockey-stick graph from pretty much any data fed into it, because it was programmed to ignore any other trend. 

12
0

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