Penn's Michael Mann and his lawyers get sanctioned for “extraordinary” misconduct in climate defamation case. Mann and Stanford’s Mark Jacobson are now 0-2 in using lawfare against their critics.
This is a comment made in part to a Manhattan Contrarian lawyer, Francis Menton on this same subject.
To my mind, the Root Cause of bad science traces to Professor Michael Mann and the "Hockey Stick" of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. people caused. Mann, has a PhD in geology and geophysics, but is primarily a political scientist who has lead a litany of unscientific efforts: Write a completely misleading Executive Summary for a United Nations IPCC report about global warming; refuse to let other competent scientists see your data; invent a statistical procedure to prevent Little Ice Age data from interfering with the shape of the hockey stick; gather likeminded Federal government grant recipients to coerce a scientific journal to fire their editors under threat of withholding submission of any further papers; establish a website to instantly smear any scientist who disagrees with AGW; changing the name from AGW to "climate change" which is a tautology or pleonasm, something which has always and will always occur from the beginning to the end of Earth (think of the term "climate change" as you would "burning fire", both words mean the same thing).
Mann's route to fame and fortune was discovering if you can scare enough people, our Federal government will give you boatloads of money to prevent the catastrophe. Hitch your wagon to Rham Emanuel and "never let [even an invented] crisis go to waste". Give Stacey Abrams NGO $2 billion to help out. It doesn't really matter who is President. Trump and Biden both directed boatloads of money against Covid as well, money they didn't have. Now we pass a $36 trillion debt to our children and grandchildren. And this isn't just in the US. Greta Thunberg, Angela Merkel and many others have raised fortunes around the world to prevent CO2 emissions. Here is a link to my prediction: https://billpound.substack.com/p/controlling-climate-change-via-wind?r=khw21
Richard Greene is welcome to adulate Mann's degree credentials if he wants. I DO NOT! And I welcome the Supreme Court decision to reverse Chevron. Americans of all levels of education and responsibility (Congress for example or jury members) must consider and render judgment on scientific matters because they impact all of us. This cannot be left to unelected, highly credentialed elites in our Federal bureaucracy or our universities. Getting a PhD requires researching the literature on a topic of interest, then proposing a thesis which is uniquely beyond current understanding. On completion the student must defend the work to receive the degree. (My colleague at Northwestern was criticized by his advisors for writing a highly mathematical 30-page dissertation for his PhD. He successfully asked his typist to reprint it space and one half. He ended as a highly credentialed Professor at Yale.) Most graduates simply move on to other universities where they continue their research and teach other graduate students working on their PhDs. Over time this leads our university Professors further and further out on the limb of knowledge until essentially no one knows what they are talking about. A Professor at the University of North Carolina applying for a grant to create a laboratory virus (and for testing its ability to infect bats in a laboratory in Wuhan China) may a great example. I challenge anyone to understand the grant applications let alone the results, but they can impact us all. If the science becomes too much like gibberish, don't fund it! Common understanding and legal issues which take more than a decade for resolution help no one. This is especially true in the Internet age when social media can be whipped into overnight mobocracy.
From a scientist who earned a Ph.D. in radiation biophysics in 1984. Your claims are not supported by what is actually happening to American citizen Ph.D.s in the United States. The U.S. economy has very limited positions for those that earn Ph.D.s. Most end up as poorly-paid adjunct professors with very little job security - or as poorly paid "postdocs" with equally tenuous job security. I urged my students (who asked me) to avoid the huge opportunity costs of earning a STEM Ph.D. A good summary of the problem was a short article titled "Black Hole Opens in Scientist Job Rolls" by G. Pascal Zachary in The Wall Street Journal on page B-1 of the April 14, 1993 print edition. The employment situation is much more dire 32 years later. Contact me to obtain a copy as the article has been suppressed on the internet.
GN - "The U.S. economy has very limited positions for those that earn Ph.D.s."
Hi Gene, you may be right about the market for PhDs in our universities and in the private sector as well. Perhaps we have pushed too far out on the limb of knowledge.
I have read some of the articles available from the Biophysical Society. Most are beyond my comprehension. But slowly it is becoming clear that biophysics supported in the US by government grants was used to design and develop a Covid virus, then with additional grants, tested in the Chinese Wuhan lab on a bat species of interest where it leaked and killed millions. Some scientific advances would do well to reduce speed.
The same may be true of BS degrees in Psychology, Sociology, or Computer Science. In short, maybe we have oversold the value of college and university education. I experience daily frustration with vendors who have automated customer service on websites which work in 10,000 different ways and are constantly updated challenging anyone to keep up even with simple things like receiving a monthly bill and coordinating with our bank setup to pay it. We waste endless hours this way.
I see you work for an advocate of nuclear power in California. Good, in fact much better than covering the country with solar panels and windfarms. Meanwhile, judges Kavanaugh and Randolph tried to apply mandamus to open the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada for storage of nuclear waste. They were opposed by judge Merrick Garland. It has been 38 years since Congress passed the law, 12 years since the writ of mandamus was granted, and $15 billion or more spent with no result. Yucca Mountain remains the only site designated for radioactive waste disposal in the USA, and it sits unused. In 2024 Energy Secretary Granholm was working on alternatives. The wheels of progress can turn too fast and too slow. It is a challenge for all Americans to understand and develop good opinions and results from science and sophistry. I say let Musk and NASA load a rocket with nuclear waste and fire it into the Sun. This could be done in the next few months.
Yes, please do send the WSJ article or a link. Thanks...WHP
Gene Nelson advances the same position, i.e. reprocess nuclear waste. I'm good with that. Where is it being done at scale? If reprocessing is safe and effective let's not throw studies and money and time at the idea for another 38 years. Maybe use the Yucca Mountain location and recoup some of the money spent there. You all know more about this than I by far. Nuclear power is a far better source of electricity than wind and solar.
I’m a ‘60s vintage California environmentalist who in the ‘80s became aware of the difference between nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel. My initial curiosity was prompted by Sierra Club’s about face in the ‘70s regarding nuclear energy and since then has been fueled by greenwashing realities and profiteering of alt-energy. Unfortunately for California, San Onofre is closed, but Diablo Canyon remains a positive example of a superior energy source. PhDs not required for skilled workforce to build and maintain a safe, clean, and reliable energy source that does not needlessly degrade vast amounts of Mother Earth to produce weather dependent output during a short production life span. Fortunately younger generations were not indoctrinated into nuclear fear by the Cold War “Duck and Cover” regime and technology is advancing with concepts like repurposing coal plants and spent fuel.
Some good news..... Mann's case was covered in The Washington Post on 14 March 2025. "A famous climate scientist won a $1M verdict. Then his case took a turn. A judge vastly reduced climate researcher Michael Mann's award, sanctioned his lawyers for presenting false evidence and ordered him to pay $530,000." https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/14/michael-mann-climate-lawsuit-defamation/
The damage by charlatans like Mann and Jacobson have done so much damage, when lifted into such high esteem that now we face the consequences of the myth of Mann's hockey stick hocus hocus. From all the flawed and inaccurate scientific findings of Mann and Jacobson and all these experts in climate hysteria moving into academia, media, into the big Kahuna of propaganda, the UN and its brilliant reports of the "climate enlightenment"! Of course, they form the Kyoto protocol, the Paris Climate Accord, the ESG born again religion of Devos' Klaus Schwab, with $4 trillion from Larry Fink of BlackRock and friends pushing corporate and financial institutions into the muck and mire of a fantasy of ESG, where the people pay the price to fight its zero carbon initiatives.
Honestly, if you have to wonder if anyone has an ounce of curiosity, you must pause and think, okay, "New Jersey: Orsted is constructing 1000' towers for wind turbines with 350' fiberglass and foam and other products for its blades offshore Ocean City to power 3 million homes". Okay, so how does Orsted build these towers? Where do its components comes from, if there is a turbine how can it run without lubrication? And aren't lubricants the same as I use in my car, or use to unstick the lock on my gate? How do they run the survey equipment to map the cables, etc. What impact on the environment, currents, tourism, increased costs to ratepayers, decommissioning, hurricane impact, and last but not least what happens when the wind does not blow.
If you sit down and think about it, it really is all a myth, with a propaganda machine built with trillions of dollars, and unbridled power and wealth hard to grasp. And so, it is no wonder that ideas touted so profusely by men such as Mann and Jacobson must revolt so vociferously against any slight to their climate enlightenment, is a must. And they only fight in certain arenas where they know they will remain top tier scientists by the true believers in the courts and media so they shall never be questioned. So, the time is coming to bring down the myth to reality, but the damage has been done and the years of pounding against reliable energy from all corners have made our systems to deliver reliable power a very serious challenge indeed. And as Texas residents still converse about their PTSD from the storm of the century in 2021, the gas powered plant in Sugar Land, Texas outside of Houston, was scrapped. The city passed the lease option agreement to begin surveys, but now after "Stop the Sugar Land Power Plant" stepped in, that PTSD turned into NIMBY with help, of course, from the environmental industry.
Well stated: ....So, the time is coming to bring down the myth to reality, but the damage has been done and the years of pounding against reliable energy from all corners have made our systems to deliver reliable power a very serious challenge indeed....
As a lawyer who has regularly worked with environmental experts, it’s refreshing to see a judge who is willing to take down a prominent activist pretending to be an expert. Hopefully this decision will remind people that science is a process and that there is no such thing as “settled science.”
Jacobsen is a civil engineer. A noble profession but completely out of his lane on electricity. We always used a civil for analyzing soil samples on a tower foundation, but Jacobsen is a PhD so he wouldn’t know what he was looking at.
These are the same universities that are saying how government cuts in indirect cost allowances for research grants is "anti-science." And they wonder why they have lost their social license.
Thank you for publicizing this important pair of cases against bullies, Robert. If you have not already done so, please read the Roger Pielke, Jr. article at https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/in-bad-faith. The comments at Pielke's article include a link to the 40-page-long text of the important decision, which is worth reading.
Thank you for disseminating this information via your Substack. I continue to *not* see reporting in "mainstream" media outlets regarding this important legal decision. I'm searching using both phrases "Michael Mann" and "In bad faith."
Very good news! Thanks to Pielke and Bryce for reporting this. Thanks to the scientists who have risked their careers and financial well-being to tell the truth. I hope that Judge Irving's ruling is the first step in shutting off the use of our legal system by Mann and Jacobson to silence critics.
Needless to say, this really had to happen, SLAPP these guys down hard, hit them in the pocketbook.
The deadbeat Piltdown Mann bankrupted canadian scientist Tim Ball with a similar suit then refused to pay Ball's legal costs as ordered by the court because Piltdown failed to provide evidence to prove his allegations so the case was tossed.
And of course, the climate/insane spin that as that Piltdown didn't lose the case.
If we had a real govt in canada, maybe soon if we have an election and finally be rid of the Chinese govt supported Liberals, maybe we can request Trump extradite him to Canada and then we hold him until he pays Ball's wife (he passed away, she is bankrupt because of it).
She should be paid before Steyn and the others. Needs it more.
Ah, Dr. Mann, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I knew when he blocked me after two or three simple tweets refuting his claims re OSW that he was extra special!
Good news and thanks for the details of the case, but...it is not a win for science as much as a win for the American court system. These cases were examples of egregious abuse it's amazing to me they even made it to trial.
Institutional science in America is still in shambles.
Robert, I found Power Hungry years ago and still use it as a reference to bludgeon my uninformed "Green" friends. Your simple explanations of why "sustainable" energy sources are not capable to replace hydrocarbons are easy for us non-scientists to relate. I'm a big Steyn fan. What the DC courts have done to this man is a crime against humanity. Mann is the personification of a charlatan.
This is a comment made in part to a Manhattan Contrarian lawyer, Francis Menton on this same subject.
To my mind, the Root Cause of bad science traces to Professor Michael Mann and the "Hockey Stick" of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), i.e. people caused. Mann, has a PhD in geology and geophysics, but is primarily a political scientist who has lead a litany of unscientific efforts: Write a completely misleading Executive Summary for a United Nations IPCC report about global warming; refuse to let other competent scientists see your data; invent a statistical procedure to prevent Little Ice Age data from interfering with the shape of the hockey stick; gather likeminded Federal government grant recipients to coerce a scientific journal to fire their editors under threat of withholding submission of any further papers; establish a website to instantly smear any scientist who disagrees with AGW; changing the name from AGW to "climate change" which is a tautology or pleonasm, something which has always and will always occur from the beginning to the end of Earth (think of the term "climate change" as you would "burning fire", both words mean the same thing).
Mann's route to fame and fortune was discovering if you can scare enough people, our Federal government will give you boatloads of money to prevent the catastrophe. Hitch your wagon to Rham Emanuel and "never let [even an invented] crisis go to waste". Give Stacey Abrams NGO $2 billion to help out. It doesn't really matter who is President. Trump and Biden both directed boatloads of money against Covid as well, money they didn't have. Now we pass a $36 trillion debt to our children and grandchildren. And this isn't just in the US. Greta Thunberg, Angela Merkel and many others have raised fortunes around the world to prevent CO2 emissions. Here is a link to my prediction: https://billpound.substack.com/p/controlling-climate-change-via-wind?r=khw21
Richard Greene is welcome to adulate Mann's degree credentials if he wants. I DO NOT! And I welcome the Supreme Court decision to reverse Chevron. Americans of all levels of education and responsibility (Congress for example or jury members) must consider and render judgment on scientific matters because they impact all of us. This cannot be left to unelected, highly credentialed elites in our Federal bureaucracy or our universities. Getting a PhD requires researching the literature on a topic of interest, then proposing a thesis which is uniquely beyond current understanding. On completion the student must defend the work to receive the degree. (My colleague at Northwestern was criticized by his advisors for writing a highly mathematical 30-page dissertation for his PhD. He successfully asked his typist to reprint it space and one half. He ended as a highly credentialed Professor at Yale.) Most graduates simply move on to other universities where they continue their research and teach other graduate students working on their PhDs. Over time this leads our university Professors further and further out on the limb of knowledge until essentially no one knows what they are talking about. A Professor at the University of North Carolina applying for a grant to create a laboratory virus (and for testing its ability to infect bats in a laboratory in Wuhan China) may a great example. I challenge anyone to understand the grant applications let alone the results, but they can impact us all. If the science becomes too much like gibberish, don't fund it! Common understanding and legal issues which take more than a decade for resolution help no one. This is especially true in the Internet age when social media can be whipped into overnight mobocracy.
From a scientist who earned a Ph.D. in radiation biophysics in 1984. Your claims are not supported by what is actually happening to American citizen Ph.D.s in the United States. The U.S. economy has very limited positions for those that earn Ph.D.s. Most end up as poorly-paid adjunct professors with very little job security - or as poorly paid "postdocs" with equally tenuous job security. I urged my students (who asked me) to avoid the huge opportunity costs of earning a STEM Ph.D. A good summary of the problem was a short article titled "Black Hole Opens in Scientist Job Rolls" by G. Pascal Zachary in The Wall Street Journal on page B-1 of the April 14, 1993 print edition. The employment situation is much more dire 32 years later. Contact me to obtain a copy as the article has been suppressed on the internet.
GN - "The U.S. economy has very limited positions for those that earn Ph.D.s."
Hi Gene, you may be right about the market for PhDs in our universities and in the private sector as well. Perhaps we have pushed too far out on the limb of knowledge.
I have read some of the articles available from the Biophysical Society. Most are beyond my comprehension. But slowly it is becoming clear that biophysics supported in the US by government grants was used to design and develop a Covid virus, then with additional grants, tested in the Chinese Wuhan lab on a bat species of interest where it leaked and killed millions. Some scientific advances would do well to reduce speed.
The same may be true of BS degrees in Psychology, Sociology, or Computer Science. In short, maybe we have oversold the value of college and university education. I experience daily frustration with vendors who have automated customer service on websites which work in 10,000 different ways and are constantly updated challenging anyone to keep up even with simple things like receiving a monthly bill and coordinating with our bank setup to pay it. We waste endless hours this way.
I see you work for an advocate of nuclear power in California. Good, in fact much better than covering the country with solar panels and windfarms. Meanwhile, judges Kavanaugh and Randolph tried to apply mandamus to open the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada for storage of nuclear waste. They were opposed by judge Merrick Garland. It has been 38 years since Congress passed the law, 12 years since the writ of mandamus was granted, and $15 billion or more spent with no result. Yucca Mountain remains the only site designated for radioactive waste disposal in the USA, and it sits unused. In 2024 Energy Secretary Granholm was working on alternatives. The wheels of progress can turn too fast and too slow. It is a challenge for all Americans to understand and develop good opinions and results from science and sophistry. I say let Musk and NASA load a rocket with nuclear waste and fire it into the Sun. This could be done in the next few months.
Yes, please do send the WSJ article or a link. Thanks...WHP
“It’s only waste if you waste it.” https://substack.com/@zionlights1/note/c-97854662?r=2eyh8o&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Gene Nelson advances the same position, i.e. reprocess nuclear waste. I'm good with that. Where is it being done at scale? If reprocessing is safe and effective let's not throw studies and money and time at the idea for another 38 years. Maybe use the Yucca Mountain location and recoup some of the money spent there. You all know more about this than I by far. Nuclear power is a far better source of electricity than wind and solar.
I’m a ‘60s vintage California environmentalist who in the ‘80s became aware of the difference between nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel. My initial curiosity was prompted by Sierra Club’s about face in the ‘70s regarding nuclear energy and since then has been fueled by greenwashing realities and profiteering of alt-energy. Unfortunately for California, San Onofre is closed, but Diablo Canyon remains a positive example of a superior energy source. PhDs not required for skilled workforce to build and maintain a safe, clean, and reliable energy source that does not needlessly degrade vast amounts of Mother Earth to produce weather dependent output during a short production life span. Fortunately younger generations were not indoctrinated into nuclear fear by the Cold War “Duck and Cover” regime and technology is advancing with concepts like repurposing coal plants and spent fuel.
Some good news..... Mann's case was covered in The Washington Post on 14 March 2025. "A famous climate scientist won a $1M verdict. Then his case took a turn. A judge vastly reduced climate researcher Michael Mann's award, sanctioned his lawyers for presenting false evidence and ordered him to pay $530,000." https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/03/14/michael-mann-climate-lawsuit-defamation/
Science takes a beating on a regular basis in the Climate Wars. Thanks for reporting some sanity being brought to bear.
The damage by charlatans like Mann and Jacobson have done so much damage, when lifted into such high esteem that now we face the consequences of the myth of Mann's hockey stick hocus hocus. From all the flawed and inaccurate scientific findings of Mann and Jacobson and all these experts in climate hysteria moving into academia, media, into the big Kahuna of propaganda, the UN and its brilliant reports of the "climate enlightenment"! Of course, they form the Kyoto protocol, the Paris Climate Accord, the ESG born again religion of Devos' Klaus Schwab, with $4 trillion from Larry Fink of BlackRock and friends pushing corporate and financial institutions into the muck and mire of a fantasy of ESG, where the people pay the price to fight its zero carbon initiatives.
Honestly, if you have to wonder if anyone has an ounce of curiosity, you must pause and think, okay, "New Jersey: Orsted is constructing 1000' towers for wind turbines with 350' fiberglass and foam and other products for its blades offshore Ocean City to power 3 million homes". Okay, so how does Orsted build these towers? Where do its components comes from, if there is a turbine how can it run without lubrication? And aren't lubricants the same as I use in my car, or use to unstick the lock on my gate? How do they run the survey equipment to map the cables, etc. What impact on the environment, currents, tourism, increased costs to ratepayers, decommissioning, hurricane impact, and last but not least what happens when the wind does not blow.
If you sit down and think about it, it really is all a myth, with a propaganda machine built with trillions of dollars, and unbridled power and wealth hard to grasp. And so, it is no wonder that ideas touted so profusely by men such as Mann and Jacobson must revolt so vociferously against any slight to their climate enlightenment, is a must. And they only fight in certain arenas where they know they will remain top tier scientists by the true believers in the courts and media so they shall never be questioned. So, the time is coming to bring down the myth to reality, but the damage has been done and the years of pounding against reliable energy from all corners have made our systems to deliver reliable power a very serious challenge indeed. And as Texas residents still converse about their PTSD from the storm of the century in 2021, the gas powered plant in Sugar Land, Texas outside of Houston, was scrapped. The city passed the lease option agreement to begin surveys, but now after "Stop the Sugar Land Power Plant" stepped in, that PTSD turned into NIMBY with help, of course, from the environmental industry.
Well stated: ....So, the time is coming to bring down the myth to reality, but the damage has been done and the years of pounding against reliable energy from all corners have made our systems to deliver reliable power a very serious challenge indeed....
As a lawyer who has regularly worked with environmental experts, it’s refreshing to see a judge who is willing to take down a prominent activist pretending to be an expert. Hopefully this decision will remind people that science is a process and that there is no such thing as “settled science.”
Jacobsen is a civil engineer. A noble profession but completely out of his lane on electricity. We always used a civil for analyzing soil samples on a tower foundation, but Jacobsen is a PhD so he wouldn’t know what he was looking at.
So incredible. Truth at last wins the day, year, the millenia
These are the same universities that are saying how government cuts in indirect cost allowances for research grants is "anti-science." And they wonder why they have lost their social license.
Thank you for publicizing this important pair of cases against bullies, Robert. If you have not already done so, please read the Roger Pielke, Jr. article at https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/in-bad-faith. The comments at Pielke's article include a link to the 40-page-long text of the important decision, which is worth reading.
Yes, I linked to the decision in my piece as well.
Thank you for disseminating this information via your Substack. I continue to *not* see reporting in "mainstream" media outlets regarding this important legal decision. I'm searching using both phrases "Michael Mann" and "In bad faith."
Another takeaway is this: Going to court is a gamble.
Very good news! Thanks to Pielke and Bryce for reporting this. Thanks to the scientists who have risked their careers and financial well-being to tell the truth. I hope that Judge Irving's ruling is the first step in shutting off the use of our legal system by Mann and Jacobson to silence critics.
Needless to say, this really had to happen, SLAPP these guys down hard, hit them in the pocketbook.
The deadbeat Piltdown Mann bankrupted canadian scientist Tim Ball with a similar suit then refused to pay Ball's legal costs as ordered by the court because Piltdown failed to provide evidence to prove his allegations so the case was tossed.
And of course, the climate/insane spin that as that Piltdown didn't lose the case.
If we had a real govt in canada, maybe soon if we have an election and finally be rid of the Chinese govt supported Liberals, maybe we can request Trump extradite him to Canada and then we hold him until he pays Ball's wife (he passed away, she is bankrupt because of it).
She should be paid before Steyn and the others. Needs it more.
This reported conduct reveals Dr. Mann's true character.
Ah, Dr. Mann, couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. I knew when he blocked me after two or three simple tweets refuting his claims re OSW that he was extra special!
Good news and thanks for the details of the case, but...it is not a win for science as much as a win for the American court system. These cases were examples of egregious abuse it's amazing to me they even made it to trial.
Institutional science in America is still in shambles.
That's a good point. The US court system has many flaws, but this case shows that -- eventually -- good things can happen.
Shutting off the legal route to silence critics is a critical step in reforming science so this means everything.
How much $$$ are those backing Mann willing to burn to support this?
We are going to find out.
Should be charges filed by the state against Mann, lying in court. New govt in usa, get it on.
The special interests backing Dr. Mann likely have an economic (and other dimensions) motive for doing so. :-(
Robert, I found Power Hungry years ago and still use it as a reference to bludgeon my uninformed "Green" friends. Your simple explanations of why "sustainable" energy sources are not capable to replace hydrocarbons are easy for us non-scientists to relate. I'm a big Steyn fan. What the DC courts have done to this man is a crime against humanity. Mann is the personification of a charlatan.
Thanks.
Did a Google News Search Dr. Michael Mann. Nothing in Corporate Media. Therefore I guess this didn't happen.