A guest blogger posted a very interesting article at the climate science website Watts Up With That?. The essay discusses not only that a climate alarmist trolling the website debunked Dr. Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick chart in two sentences but also on the decline and fall of the climate scientist himself. In his essay, the guest blogger points out some interesting events that have occurred in the life of Dr. Michael Mann whose graph is credited with establishing the link between climate change and human activity:

But the truth is, the last few years haven’t been t that kind to Michael Mann. No longer does his Hockey Stick graph adorn the front covers of major WMO and IPCC reports. The Nobel Prize committee itself has repudiated his claim to a Nobel Prize. His science has been shredded by Steve McIntyre’s work on Climate Audit, and exposed as flawed in front of the Wegman congressional committee. Even his once comrade in arms, Keith Briffa, has published new tree ring chronologies that restore the Medieval Warm Period that Mann apparently worked so hard to erase. There was a brief moment when Mann thought he would be vindicated and back in the lime light with the publication of Marcott et al, but that paper was savaged almost instantly by McIntyre, Eschenbach and others, to the point that even Marcott admitted that it was not robust enough to draw any conclusions about the modern era. Mann’s presence in the climate debate is a pale shadow of what it once was, though he still shows up at speaking engagements with much the same slides, which it seems he hasn’t bothered to update since 2005. It’s like he isn’t even trying anymore.

Dr. Mann is also intolerant to criticism as well. During July of 2012 he filed a libel lawsuit against the Competitive Enterprise Institute (aka CEI), National Review and Rand Somber. Mann’s suit is that Mark Steyn’s hyperbolic comment published at CEI’s website stating that Mann is the Jerry Sandusky of climate science for molesting and tortured data in the name of politicized science and Steyn’s remark at National Review Online that Mann is the poster boy of the corrupted and disgraced climate science echo chamber and Steyn’s quoting and linking to an article by CEI analyst Rand Simberg are vivid online criticism worth of libel.

In 2010, Mann threatened to sue the group Minnesotans for Global Warming (M4GW) when they did a parody video entitled Hide the Decline. In his correspondence to the group, Mann stated that M4GW’s use of his image defamed him. I highly doubt that Mann will be successful in his lawsuit against CEI, National Review and Mark Steyn. As near as I can tell the comments made about Dr. Mann, while tasteless and inflammatory, were opinions that are Constitutionally protected free speech. The controversy surrounding the 2012 lawsuit has resulted in a number of groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, jumping to the defense of the defendants.

None the less, the awards and recognition Mann has recently received including his public appearances are nothing but fluff. As the article from Watts Up With That? points out, Mann is washed up as a scientist who resorts to threats and intimidation against his critics. As an expression of solidarity with the parties who have been the subject of scorn at the hands of Dr. Michael Mann, Hide the Decline is posted below for your enjoyment.

If you would like a more detailed overview of the controversy surrounding Dr. Mann’s research, the best source is the book The Hockey Stick Illusion: Climate Gate and the Corruption of Science.