After 12 years of delays, the defamation lawsuit brought by climate scientist Michael Mann and writer Mark Steyn finally began this week. Mann sued Steyn and others in 2012 claiming they libeled him when they mocked his infamous “hockey stick” graph that has been the lynchpin of climate alarmism for decades. Steyn compared the cover-up of Mann’s shoddy science at his then-employer Penn State University to the way the school covered up the horrible sexual abuse crimes conducted by disgraced football coach Jerry Sandusky and then whitewashed an internal investigation.

Steyn, who gave one of the greatest keynotes ever at a Heartland climate conference about this case a while back (see below for a link), has been itching for this trial to finally happen since Obama was just starting his second term. It was Mann who employed one delaying tactic after another in an attempt to scare Steyn off.

Steyn never backs down from a fight, and is putting Mann’s hockey stick itself on trial. And, in a twist that will be either brilliant or disastrous, Steyn is acting as his own attorney in this civil suit.

In episode 94 of Climate Change Roundtable, host Anthony Watts and panelists H. Sterling Burnett, Linnea Lueken, and (maybe) Jim Lakely will get you caught up on the Climate Trial of the Century. After opening statements on Thursday, the jury trial in the DC Superior Court is expected to last well into next week. Join us at noon CT (1 p.m. ET) for the kind of coverage of this trial you won’t find anywhere else.

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