A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann, who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester.

Mann, a professor of climate science at the University of Pennsylvania, rose to fame for a graph first published in 1998 in the journal Nature that was dubbed the “hockey stick” for its dramatic illustration of a warming planet.

The work brought Mann wide exposure but also many skeptics, including the two writers Mann took to court for comments that he said affected his career and reputation in the U.S. and internationally.

“It feels great,” Mann said Thursday after the six-person jury delivered its verdict. “It’s a good day for us, it’s a good day for science.”

  • seSvxR3ull7LHaEZFIjM@feddit.de
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    9 months ago

    How would it even occur to you to compare climate science to child molestation? Unless you just think that everything you don’t like is child molestation.

    • IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      I think it’s probably got more to do with the “every accusation is a confession” principle that modern conservatism seems to operate under.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      How would it occur to you that a guy rescuing kids trapped in a cave is a pedophile? Who knows, but Elon did anyway.

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        This is apparently what started many people realizing that he is actually an idiot and not a genius.

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        9 months ago

        Hey now, let’s be fair! He was also visiting Thailand a lot, and we all know the singular, only valuable thing in the entire country is young twink boys you can confuse for a girl.

        … /s, just in case.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      Its shit heel behavior, but there was the Jerry Sandusky revelations at Penn state, the same university where Mann worked at the time.

      These shit heads just used an actually evil bastard that was in the news to drum up clicks and vilify Mann in the worst way possible at the same time.

    • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      They actually like child molestation, but only when their side is doing it, otherwise they use it as an insult.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      When I was a kid everything my family didn’t like was satanic. Boy getting a piercing, wearing a sweatband, non-baby boomer music.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Conservatives really do build up this whole terrible world in which they are the only heroes and anything they do is ok. They don’t think he is a child molester, they said it for shock value alone and are now giving us the shocked Pikachu face.

    • rayyy@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Wackos used to call everything they hated, “communist” but switch names because their beloved Putin is pretty communist.

      • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Russia stopped being a communist state with the fall of the USSR (and Gorbachev loosened that up even before the fall). It’s more of a right wing kleptocracy today.

        • CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I mean Russia stopped being communist within about 5 minutes of beccoming communist, which is generally the problem with communism. Its a system that only works in a theoretical world where everyones nice and the first strongman to show up doesn’t sieze control and turn it into an autocracy.

          • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Yeah, even without the strongmen or cults of personality that can completely upend things, communism is a system that just breeds resentment, I think even more so than capitalism plus social safety nets (as inadequate as they might be).

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          And he was that even when he was an official communist. Nothing has changed. The economic system used in a place doesn’t make people good or bad.