In the second most famous defamation trial of the week, University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann gets his day(s) in court to combat the alleged defamation he experienced from climate change deniers whose work sought to subvert the impact of his research by besmirching his reputation.
[NOTE: The Donald Trump/E. Jean Carroll case is the defamation case getting the most attention in recent news, supplanting December’s nearly $150 million judgement against Rudy Giuliani for defamation.]
Sharing an article originally appearing in The Guardian, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) virtually testifies on Mann’s behalf, asserting that the description of Mann’s antagonists (“detractors”) isn’t strong enough.
Whitehouse writes that “fossil fuel’s flunkies and front groups…harassed, degraded, demeaned and defamed [Mann] for years, all in an effort to silence his voice about what their fossil fuel pollution is actually doing.”
Not sure “detractors” is the right word here for fossil fuel’s flunkies and front groups. They’ve harassed, degraded, demeaned and defamed him for years, all in an effort to silence his voice about what their fossil fuel pollution is actually doing.https://t.co/XtVViE3gnG
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) January 20, 2024
When Whitehouse, who has long called out the fossil fuel industry’s transgressions, says “for years,” he means it. Mann filed his lawsuit more than a decade ago. (A livestream of the case can be followed here.)
As The Guardian reports:
“The litigation targets two writers: Rand Simberg, analyst at the rightwing thinktank Competitive Enterprise Institute, who published a piece comparing Mann to a convicted serial child molester, and the National Review blogger Mark Steyn, who in a blog post favorably quoted Simberg and called Mann’s research ‘fraudulent.’”
The Guardian
