A more realistic bit of information on the suit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volo ... s-own-way/In late 2012, climate scientist Michael Mann sued Mark Steyn, National Review, Rand Simberg and the Competitive Enterprise Institute for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Mann, creator of the infamous “hockey stick” climate temperature graph, objected to a blog post authored by Simberg on a CEI blog and quoted by Steyn on National Review Online. So he took them to court. The defendants refused to back down, and filed an anti-SLAPP motion seeking to dismiss Mann’s suit.
Those with an interest in climate policy have lined up on their respective sides — environmentalists supporting Mann, skeptics supporting Steyn, et al. — with some notable exceptions. University of Berkeley law professor Dan Farber, for example, clearly shares Mann’s view of climate science and the urgency of climate change as a problem, but he nonetheless thinks Mann should lose his suit. The offending blog comments, however tasteless or mistaken, represented the sincerely held beliefs of the authors, and the First Amendment protects even wrong-headed opinions. This is even true when individuals wish to disagree with — or criticize — expert opinion.