Who took exception to how he was portrayed. Besides being acknowledged as a generally unlikable snek, Dr Michael Mann is also a notoriously litigious pissant.

...Rand Simberg wrote a post for the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) over a decade ago. It was critical of Penn State's sham investigation of Mann's climatological "hockey stick" graph and the now truly suspect data behind it. Mark Steyn's subsequent article in the National Review Online (NRO) expanded on Simberg's, both the "hockey stick," the joke of an internal investigation, and Mann's despicable personal character. 

Prickly as a cactus, Dr. Mann took exception to both articles. He filed a defamation lawsuit against both men and the publications which had carried their nasty, ill-informed, climate crisis denying opinions.

... Dr. Mann's complaint claimed that the articles which criticized Dr. Mann's conclusions about global warming and accused him of deception and academic and scientific misconduct contained false statements that injured his reputation and standing in the scientific and academic communities of which he is a part.

The CEI and NRO were dropped from the suit after filing successful First Amendment appeals, but the case against Steyn and Simberg stuck...and dragged on for over a decade without either of them once ever being able to confront their accuser in a courtroom.

The whole nasty business finally wound up in a Washington, D.C. courtroom in February of last year. Justice moves slowly.

It quickly became a show trial thanks to Mark Steyn's irrepressible wit and his absolute rock-solid case contrasted with Mann's vindictive and often faulty testimony alleging the harm Steyn had caused his illustrious climate cult-based career.

...And the trial was off to the races with Dr Mann's wounded vanity up first.

When asked to show damages, about the best Mann has been able to come up with that hasn't been successfully refuted by the defense teams is...a mean look at a supermarket?

Life altering...except, unfortunately for Mann,  Steyn skewered him with it when he had the nerve to repeat the woeful anecdote as testimony in court.

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?

 Mann's infamous 'hockey stick graph' once again was in the limelight.

...A famous graph becomes a target

The climate scientist at the center of this trial is Michael Mann. The Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at University of Pennsylvania gained prominence for helping make one of the most accessible, consequential graphs in the history of climate science.

Right wing! Misinformation! Poor Scientists™ haven't found a good way to respond (read: can't lie like they used to and get away with it)! The graph's a useful tool!

Lord. It was a tool alright.

...The so-called "hockey stick graph" was successful in helping the public understand the urgency of global warming, and that made it a target, says Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity, a climate accountability nonprofit. "Because it became such a powerful image, it was under attack from the beginning," he says.

The "Climate Integrity" man says if it's "powerful," don't you dare question whether it's fake or not. That's an "attack."

"Integrity" doesn't quite mean what it used to, no? This is how they roll. And roll right over any legitimate inquiry.

Three days later, the trial wrapped up, with the D.C. jury doing their duty as they so often inexplicably do - finding for the wrong guy.

It was almost a QBVII award - almost. Real Mann of Science™ was awarded $1 for compensatory damages, but the punitive number had VURT DA FURK written all over it.

...Some way, somehow, those doltish D.C. denizens still returned a judgment in favor of the Real Mann of Science™, awarding him $1 in compensatory damages from both defendants for the single mean look in a supermarket he was subjected to. And the professional losses he never could quite quantify.

A Washington, D.C. jury has found that conservative writers Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg defamed climate scientist Michael Mann.

The jury deliberated for close to a full day before reaching its decision.

At issue were two blog posts, one by Steyn and one by Simberg, comparing the investigation into alleged academic misconduct by Mann, then a Penn State professor, to Penn State’s handling of Jerry Sandusky, the school’s former head of athletics who raped and molested children.

“If an institution is prepared to cover up systemic statutory rape of minors, what won’t it cover up?” Steyn wrote in his post, which quoted Simberg’s.

The jury awarded Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each plaintiff. It also awarded $1,000 in punitive damages from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Steyn said the $1 damages award proves the jury found Mann didn’t suffer any losses.

YOWSAHS

Of course, Mark Steyn appealed the awarded million buckarooskis, and yesterday, the D.C. judge handed down his final judgment.

I hope Mann hadn't gone on a pre-award spending spree and already cut the tags off his new sneakers.

In a stunning but not unexpected ruling today, Judge Irving of the DC Superior Court has reduced the unconstitutional punitive damages jury award against Mark from one million dollars to a mere $5,000.

Our brilliant legal counsel Christopher Bartolomucci reacted to the news, "We argued for Mark that the $1 million in punitive damages awarded by the D.C. jury was grossly excessive and unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Superior Court agreed, held that the award violated the Due Process Clause, and reduced it to $5,000."

Ain't five grand grand?

Particularly when the million bucks was meant to send a message, according to Mann's lawyer.

...However, Mark was a longtime guest host for Rush Limbaugh and – according to Mann's lawyer - it was necessary to send a message not to mess with "climate scientists"...

Yeah, you see? 

THE SCIENCE™ IS SETTLED, OR WE SUE THE CRAP OUT OF YOU

There's another wrinkle here for Dr Mann. He'd been petitioning the court for permission NOT to pay the over half a million dollar judgment against him in favor of the National Review Online (NRO) for lawyers' fees, etc., because Steyn's award was going to cover all of it just fine.

Oh.

I didn't tell you the NRO went after Mann for his BS harassment?

Lemme square that away right now.

After more than eight years of litigation, climate scientist Michael E. Mann has been ordered by a Washington, DC, court to pay National Review just over USD $530,800 (NZD $946,00) in legal fees and costs. 

Mann is a climatologist best known for the “hockey stick graph,” which suggests a sharp rise in global temperatures during the 20th century. 

Made famous by its inclusion in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, the graph became a key symbol of human-induced climate change. National Review criticised Mann’s work, leading Mann to file a defamation lawsuit against National Review and others.

The editors of National Review described the lawsuit as an attempt by Mann to “ruin” their publication through what they argue was a meritless attack on free speech.

Mann’s legal campaign, which spanned from 2012 to 2019, aimed to claim damages for defamation and emotional distress stemming from critiques of his scientific arguments. 

The editors called his conduct “shocking,” accusing him of weaponising the legal system against dissenting voices rather than engaging in open debate. The lawsuit forced National Review to spend significant resources defending itself, and while the recent award is a victory, it covers only a portion of the publication’s legal expenses.

'Emotional distress' because NRO dared to question The Science™.

There was a scathing op-ed written during the trial that included some pithy references to Mann.

...On the other hand, Mann has exploited the multimillion-dollar libel and defamation lawsuit – underwritten entirely by deep-pocket funding sources yet to be identified – to transform himself as America’s crusader against climate deniers, garnering lucrative speaking fees, book royalties and a paid film consultancy in Netflix’ Don’t Look Up climate satire starring Mann’s “bromance” buddy, Leonardo DiCaprio.

...The most damning testimony against Mann was by a fellow University of Pennsylvania professor, Wharton School of Business School statistician Abraham Wyner, who testified that Mann manipulated historic climate data (p-hacking) to create a misleading graph based on his own research of statistical data used in Mann’s original paper in 1998.

...Mann was repeatedly humiliated in court for his claims, including in his initial libel and defamation complaint, that he was the recipient of the Nobel Prize when it was awarded to the IPCC as an organization.

The presiding judge, Alfred Irving, on Thursday strongly rebuked Mann and his lawyers for knowingly submitting testimony and exhibits inflating the total sum of potentially lost grants by almost 50% and strongly hinted that he may instruct the jury only to consider nominal and not compensatory or punitive damages if they find for Mann.

...Far from impressing the jury that he is some kind of climate-saving superhero, Mann comes off to many as a balding, middle-aged Internet troll capable of blasting out 44 tweets a day.

THE SCIENCE™ IS SETTLED

Welp. Now Mann gets to try to figure out how to turn $5000 into $530,000+.

I suppose more of his Science™ could do it. It's produced plenty of unicorn farts and billions of government grant dollars up to now.

What's a couple more zeros?

Mann's going to need them, especially if his appeal over the reduction gets tossed and/or if CEI files for their court costs, etc., too.

...As my old pal Andrew Grossman - counsel for co-defendants Rand Simberg and CEI tweeted:

He's already paid CEI more in sanctions than he won in the final judgment, and that's not counting the $530k in fees he owes to National Review and any fee award to CEI."

In addition to reducing the punitive award, the judge denied our motion for a new trial on the basis that:

Yet, the clearest support that the jury was not improperly influenced by Dr. Mann's misrepresentations is the jury verdict for one dollar in compensatory damages.

At trial, Mann presented false evidence to the judge and jury which gave the impression of nine million dollars in "lost" grant funding. [That is the subject of a still-pending sanctions motion.]

In his reasoning for not granting a new trial, the judge acknowledged Mann's false evidence but basically says - hey, no harm, no foul - the jury didn't believe it anyway....

As the headline at SteynOnline says...

A Lousy Five Grand

...and that sounds pretty grand.

To dear, fearless Mark Steyn and his team - congrats a million.