Roger Pielke Jr. writes that Michael Mann just got a legal smackdown compared to which losing his million dollar damage award from Mark Steyn is peanuts. A judge found that in the process of suing bloggers for accusing him of fraudulent research Mann presented fraudulent evidence in court. Not mincing words, “the Court finds, by clear and convincing evidence, that Dr. Mann, through [his lawyers] Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams, acted in bad faith”. Mann once expressed a vindictive desire to destroy Steyn, emailing a colleague “One fringe benefit of the lawsuit will be to ruin this odious excuse for a human being.” It will be very revealing to see whether the science establishment, ever prickly about suggestions it tolerates sharp practice, finally distance themselves from this, well, odious you-know-what.

It was no ordinary moment in court. The ruling included language such as “Dr. Mann’s counsel’s bad faith misconduct is an affront to the Court’s authority and an attack on the integrity of the proceedings warranting sanctions” and “the Court finds that Mr. Fontaine and Mr. Williams knowingly violated the rules of professional conduct”. Shades of the Herman cartoon with a prisoner telling his cellmate “The judge gave my lawyer five years before he even got around to me!” In this case the court order didn’t include any actual punishment for Mann’s counsel though as RPJ observes, the court said of his two main lawyers

“They each knowingly made a false statement of fact to the Court and Dr. Mann knowingly participated in the falsehood, endeavoring to make the strongest case possible even if it required using erroneous and misleading information.”

Which naturally raises the larger question of alarmist integrity. As Pielke Jr. writes:

“That sentence has me thinking of RCP8.5, Billion Dollar Disasters, and the fake ICAT dataset, but I digress.”

Or not, because this episode naturally raises the larger question of alarmist integrity especially given the high horse from which they so frequently accuse skeptics of deliberate, venal deceit.

We will change the subject slightly to note that in consequence Mann was ordered to pay Steyn and his fellow defendant Rand Simberg’s legal fees for that portion of their expenses relating to the wilfully false claims in question. Whether Mann will pay up, and whether he will pay the more than half a million dollars in expenses he was earlier ordered to pay National Review, remains to be seen. He never did pay the expenses awarded to Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball following Mann’s unsuccessful suit against him, and Ball consequently died insolvent, ruined by Mann’s lawfare.

What do his defenders think of this record? What does the University of Pennsylvania think, which recently made him their first-ever Vice Provost for Climate Science as “a globally renowned scholar of climate science” who “has been named one of the world’s most influential people in climate policy, one of the 10 most influential earth scientists, one of the top influencers in sustainability, and one of the 50 scientists who are changing the way we see the world”? (What, indeed, do they think of his public offer of a million dollars to a Supreme Court justice to step down?)

And what of those who, following the initial verdict in his case against Steyn and Simberg, hailed it as a triumph for justice and science? RPJ pointedly quotes Mann himself, in a piece coauthored with Peter Fontaine in the New York Times on Feb. 15, 2024:

“This case is part of a larger culture war in which research is distorted and the truth about the climate threat is dissembled”.

Thine own lips have said it. And Pielke Jr.’s lips have said:

“The larger significance of this ruling is that a case which was widely celebrated within the scientific community as ‘a victory for climate researchers’ reveals the putative hero to have engaged in misconduct involving the presentation of empirically-verifiable facts — Which was supposed to have been the focus of the case against the anti-heroes.”

Judith Curry called it “A stunning (and righteous) judgment in Mann v Steyn/Simberg”. And Matt Ridley asked, appropriately:

“How can the reputation of a scientist, who dragged others through the courts for years, survive this?”

How indeed? Will his backers now pull a Pontius Pilate and sneer “What is truth?” Going out on a limb, RPJ says “You most surely won’t read about today’s ruling in Science, Nature, the NYT, or WP.”

In point of fact, as Tony Heller observed, the Washington Post did mumble:

“A famous climate scientist won a $1M verdict. Then his case took a turn.”

Yeah. As did Al Capone’s career after he was sent to jail for tax evasion. Following that disingenuous headline the Post went with a subhed “A judge vastly reduced climate researcher Michael Mann’s award, sanctioned his lawyers for presenting false evidence and ordered him to pay $530,000.” Bad? Heck no.

The actual story began:

“For defenders of climate science, the court ruling was a big victory in the fight against misinformation.”

It then explained that the judge in question was appointed by a Republican president. And it conceded that:

“These developments amount to a remarkable reversal in legal fortunes for Mann, best known for his ‘hockey stick’ chart showing how global temperatures have risen sharply since humans began burning massive amounts of fossil fuels during the Industrial Revolution.”

Showing. Not arguing. And there was no mention of critiques of the hockey stick. Instead it went on that:

“Steyn’s team said the recent rulings are a victory for free speech and evidence that Mann’s defamation claims were without merit. ‘[F]inally — the lies caught up with him,’ Steyn’s manager, Melissa Howes, wrote of Mann on Steyn’s website this week. But the climate scientist’s legal team said it was preparing to fight the setbacks in court. Peter J. Fontaine, one of Mann’s attorneys, wrote in an email that Mann ‘believes that the court committed errors of fact and law and will pursue these matters further.’ Fontaine emphasized that the original decision – that Mann was defamed by the commentary – still stands.”

Incredibly, it did not mention that Fontaine was one of the lawyers found to have lied in court on purpose, which some might think relevant to the story. Nor did it suggest that Mann’s reputation was in any way undermined, including his reputation for integrity, by being singled out and sanctioned for lying in court.

As far as we can tell the Times has preferred to shield its readers from any awareness of this inconvenient outcome. So alas, it seems that Mann’s defenders are, as we worried last week, very much like what they accuse Donald Trump of being, people not so much hostile to the truth as uninterested in it.

P.S. A piece in Forbes by Larry Bell almost 13 years ago, when Mann was threatening to sue Steyn, warned “ClimateGate Star Michael Mann Courts Legal Disaster”. You said it, buddy.