“Really? Exactly how would paleoclimate research from then affect energy policy?”
recall I also wrote:
“Later papers have confirmed the general findings, while refining them, as is normal in real science. This is all part of the never-ending attack on the 1999 hockey stick paper..”

The point is that if MBH99 were retroactively vanished from history, the reality would still be there in science. If you follow the sequence of IPCC(1992, 1995, 2001, 2007) there is a steady progression of more and better reconstructions of last millennium or two. For more discussion, see Strange Scholarship in the Wegman Report, p.5, 13-17, 136-142.

Joe E, that’s not actually what is going on here. This was not expressing opinions or the usual banter. There’s plenty of that. This was a case of a specific accusation by a major (respected by some) media outlet of specific criminal acts, not couched in any sort of qualifying terms. This is not a subtle difference.

Thanks for the link. Harassing and training others to harass is what they do and what they’re paid to do.

One brief comment. Re. the Mann/UVA case the ATI writes:

“We expect this matter will end up in the Supreme Court of Virginia and if successful its discovery and production will prove invaluable to energy policymaking [282] at the state and federal levels domestically, as well as internationally.”

Your response is this:

“[282]
Really? Exactly how would paleoclimate research from then affect energy policy?”

The ATI/Energy & Environment Legal Institute and similar organizations exist to support the interests behind a fossil fuel based status quo. That’s why they oppose climate science and renewable energy. The hockey stick is the easy to understand graphic incarnation of the consequences of burning fossil fuels, so it has to be delegitimized. One way of doing this is by postulating that the MWA has the same status as the current warming, thus demonstrating the insignificance of CO2 emissions and the natural variability of the climate. (The climate is always changing.) Another is to invalidate the research by impugning the integrity of the researchers: Michael Mann is guilty of fraudulent manipulation, climate scientists reach the results they reach because it’s to their economic advantage, there’s a conspiracy of unimaginable proportions. The hockey stick affects energy policy by showing the difference between then – pre fossil fuels – and now. If you remove or create significant doubt about that difference, you remove the climate argument for phasing out fossil fuels.

“The American Tradition Institute a.k.a. ATI a.k.a. Energy & Environmental Legal Institute is a “think” tank that supports or engages in climate science denialism.’

That’s correct, but as usual, behind the scences is more complex and intertangled. Key players at ATI were David Schnare and Chris Horner, the latter a long-time Competitive Enterprise Institute / Cooler Heads Coalition guy.

Meanwhile, Schnare started the George Mason Environmental Law Clinic, which later changed its name to Free Market Environmental Law Clinic,

For history and some details, see pp.63-67 in
this PDF.
Schnare has taught a course at GMU, apparently in how to run such lawsuits.

Anyway, organization names change, but the same people do the same things.

My impression is that Steyn was playing to a septic audience for whom the hockey stick represents a political, ideological, and economic threat, and also a threat against their way of life. Encouraged by readers who didn’t need to understand the hockey stick, who viscerally knew it had to be a fraud, and supported by powerful conservative interests, Steyn evidently felt that he could take established septic libels for granted. Bickmore makes it clear that Steyn made his accusation without even bothering to understand what the hockey stick depicted:

“The other day I posted another commentary on the case, in which I brought up the fact that Steyn had explained Mann’s Hockey Stick graph to his readers as a “climate model” whose “predictions” had failed to pan out. In fact, I think I mention that gaffe in every post I do about this case, because it’s MADE OF AWESOME! When the standard of proof Mann has to meet is to show that the defendants acted with reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of their accusations against Mann, it’s like manna from heaven when one of the defendants demonstrates that he didn’t have a clue what the Hockey Stick even was before deciding to accuse Mann of producing it via fraudulent data manipulation for political ends.”
http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/take-notes-mr-steyn/

So Steyn can’t prove his accusations and he’s left with a humiliating defense. The only thing he can do is continue to squirm in the hope that his supporters are stupid enough to continue their contributions. As in the ATI case, Michael Mann has stood up to the bullies.

And concerning a previous comment claiming the defendants’ defamatory attack on Dr. Mann is protected speech because it was their “opinion” — accusing a public school teacher of being a child molester because you think he or she is a child molester could cost you big time — unless of course you can prove he or she is a child molester.

In its 1990 Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co. ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court said that couching speech as opinion does not protect its author from liability. Instead, liability can and should be imposed if the purported opinion implies defamatory facts.

On top of all that! Steyn, National Review, and CEI did NOT publish their defamatory statements as opinion — they were clearly asserted as provable fact.