Known for his “hockey stick” graph showing a steep climb in global temperature over the last century, top climate scientist Michael Mann can go ahead and sue two right-wing blogs for libel, a judge ruled last week.
The case stems from two separate blog posts that ran in July of 2012. The first appeared on the web site OpenMarket.org and was then quoted approvingly at length in the online version of the conservative magazine National Review.
Both posts referenced a supposed scandal that conservative media labeled “Climategate.” The scandal involved a series of e-mails stolen by hackers off various university computers that were said to reveal prominent climate scientists discussing how to cover up data that contradicted their theory of global warming.
The “Climategate” scandal was widely discredited and the e-mails were shown to be taken out of context.
Earlier, Ken Cuccinelli used taxpayer funds to investigate the then U-Va. professor whose research on climate change he opposed. Cuccinelli, a climate change denier, forced the university to spend over half a million dollars defending itself against its own attorney general.