Truth, reality, & free speech: Why Michael E. Mann's defamation case matters.

Everyone should follow Michael E. Mann's defamation case against the National Review, Competitive Enterprise Institute, & miscreant bloggers. It pits whether truth, reality, & how we know anything against a destructive & vicious caricature of the First Amendment. This is important, of course, because it has do with science & how we know things. What is responsible speech in a Constitutional republic with our First Amendment. But today, with the propagation of "The Great Lie," it matters because our nation’s soul is being laid bare. Who knew climate science would have a role to play? 

Mike has been one of the world’s leading climate scientists because of his & colleague’s analysis of historical data showing that recent warming is anomalous & that it corresponds to rising human-generated (read: developed nation) greenhouse gas emissions. That work was represented in the "hockey stick" graph bc the temperature trend over time looks like the handle & then the quick up-turning blade of a hockey stick.

It's a great heuristic for talking about the science. Clear & to the point. And it’s not the only one. There are about 20 other studies that have come to similar conclusions. So it’s not just one stick, it’s a hockey team or league (see previous link).

Leading up to the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks (COP 15), a group of miscreant bloggers hacked a climate science database & selectively released snippets from the exchanges. Mike’s emails & references to Mike’s methods were among them & definitely the most circulated. The cherry-picking was done in order to generate disinformation, sow doubt in the public’s mind, & destroy global will to act on climate. If you want to understand all of this read his book The Hockey Stick & the Climate Wars and Oreskes & Conway’s Merchants of Doubt. These actions were bad enough. But two more things would follow. 

The first would be investigations and reviews to determine whether or not Mike’s & his colleagues’ conclusions were warranted & his research ethical. Multiple investigations found them sound & ethical. By the time that happened, the merchants of doubt, funded by the Koch Brothers, fossil fuel companies like Exxon Mobil, their “think tanks,” media outlets, & astroturf campaigns, were already in full swing with an audience feasting on the disinformation. Quite literally, these people summoned mobs & tried to light the match. I know, because I was there in a counter-protest at Penn State where Tea Party Patriots, Young Americans for Freedom, & the Commonwealth Foundation called for Mike’s job. Later, a coal-backed astroturf campaign took to the airwaves to get Penn State to disinvite Mike from speaking about his book. Funny that all these “conservative” snowflakes are bitching about cancel culture today. They’ve been trying to cancel Mike—and by proxy climate scienctists—for decades now. 

None of these things worked. Universities, when they stand for inquiry & speech together, tell know-nothings to hose off. Mike still works at Penn State & we have vibrant free speech & inquiry. But since it didn’t work, the Armies of the Night had to double down. 

As the Inside Climate News story reports, authors at CEI & NRO compared Mike to Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky, in case you don’t know, was the defensive coordinator for Penn State’s football team and the founder of the Second Mile to help kids. In 2011, he was arrested for sexually abusing boys for years. As a lifelong Penn Stater, I can say that this hit my community like an asteroid. I was 35 when it happened. Nothing had upset the community like that in my lifetime and nothing has since. On a personal note, I went to school with someone in the Grand Jury report, with two of Sandusky’s sons, & taught his youngest in my first year of teaching. My neighbor down the street worked at the Second Mile. I was in basketball class with Sandusky defensive players (Lavar Arrington and Ron Graham) & later taught one, Paul Posluzny. My point isn’t to name drop. The point is that if you grew up here in my generation and are a lifelong Penn Stater, Sandusky was deeply threaded into the community’s fabric. 

So when it became clear that Sandusky was a sexual predator—a guiltily sexual predator—he became practically the worst person in the world. This was obvious to anyone watching news that fall. Penn State and State College were blanketed were blanketed with reporters from all over the world. When CEI’s Simberg published a blog saying that Mike “molested & tortured data in the service of politicized science.” Two days later, on July 15, 2012, NRO’s Steyn quoted the Simberg piece, “blaming Penn State for a “whitewash” around what he called “the fraudulent climate-change ‘hockey-stick’ graph.” 

It’s clear that Steyn & Simberg meant to defame Mike. They made materially false claims about the Mike’s research, something that even Mike’s detractors agree about. They used those false claims to back up a vile & baseless comparison, that somehow Mike = Sandusky. The point? To destroy his credibility by making him the same as a child molester. 

But will anyone hold these clowns to account? They should be.

This week, we will face a similar question: What are the responsibilities of those who use speak from a very public platform? And the more power you have, do you have more responsibility? I argue that you do and that the law should hold you to account for it, or, in the case of Donald Trump, the Senate. 

No matter the outcome in both cases, the United States must reckon with its toxic political & partisan environments, deal with the truth & reality, & set new norms. We need to be open-minded, but so open-minded that our brains fall out. We must be free to speak, but when you have power you have responsibility. Speak honestly. Be kind.

Mike is my friend. He is those things. You should be too.