You don't have to be sued by Michael E Mann to have a certain antipathy toward him. It's been fascinating to discover how many people there are who believe in "anthropogenic global warming" and believe in climate science but really, strongly dislike Mann, his methods, and his promotion of himself as sole proprietor of Global Warming, Inc. I quoted a few of them the other day, but you have to be both secure in your career and have a certain toughness to come out against him in public. Here's a small case study.

Michael Liebreich lives in London. He's a visiting professor at Imperial College and advisory board chairman of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, whose broad disposition you can adduce from its name. He's also on the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on the New Energy Architecture and the UN Secretary General's High Level Group on Sustainable Energy for All. He was also on the Clinton Global Initiative's Energy and Climate Change working group. Get the picture? He believes in global warming. But he doesn't believe in Michael Mann.

On Tuesday, a Mann-child called Christian Thalacker was Tweeting fellow climate cultists with his petition against a notorious member of the #DenialMachineKochMachineMurdochScaifeToxicDenialist conspiracy. Who was it? Stephen McIntyre? Nigel Lawson? No, it was that notorious right-wing denier and Big Oil shill, NPR's Diane Rehm. Apparently, Ms Rehm is guilty of "Giving Toxic Front Groups Unlimited Hall-Passes", so MoveOn.Org has got up a petition to force her to stop. Naturally, as it involves banning people, Michael E Mann supported it.

So Christian Thalacker then forwarded Mann's endorsement to a zillion other climate bigshots, including Mr Liebreich:

@ MLiebreich MoveOn petition! Help Science Heroes like Professor Michael Mann

Mr Liebreich replied:

The @ MichaelEMann who withheld data and conspired to exclude competing authors from journals is no science hero of mine.

This was not the response Christian Thalacker expected to receive. He was outraged, and Tweeted back:

Fyi: i'm letting Mike Bloomberg know IDENTITY FRAUD-Twitter at Bloomberg New Energy Finance

And he did:

@ MikeBloomberg @ BloombergLP Michael Liebreich, NEF Chairman AGAINST climate science?

Get that? If you're against Michael Mann you're against climate science. As we know, Mann's view (as expressed in his absurd legal filings) is that le climat, c'est moi. And he means it. Nevertheless, Mr Liebreich pushed back at the charge that he was "AGAINST climate science":

Nope. I'm against abuse of academic power just as I am against abuse of any power. No exceptions, for any cause.

Christian Thalacker was having none of it, and spent the next few hours furiously Tweeting not only Michael Bloomberg but everyone whose Twitter handle he had, including Vice-President Joe Biden and the TV series House of Cards to protest this fellow Liebreich having the effrontery to be "anti-climate scientist @MichaelEMann".

What Joe Biden and Kevin Spacey and Michelle Obama and Stephen Colbert and Hillary Clinton and all the other people Mr Thalacker Tweeted made of this outrageous behavior is unknown. But Mann himself decided to weigh in at this point and took time off from whining about all the one-star reviews of his lousy book to recommend that Liebreich "should read my book".

Mr Liebreich responded that he'd read it - and more:

Michael Liebreich believes in anthropogenic global warming, but he also believes Michael Mann is "sloppy and unethical", "no science hero", "withheld data" and is guilty of "abuse of academic power". These two positions are not inconsistent, as will become plain in the upcoming trial. But, for Mann and his Mann-child Thalacker, Liebreich and his "Toxic Front Group" Bloomberg are just another two names to add to the conspiracy. We're gonna need a longer hashtag! #KochMurdochScaifeBloombergNPRDenialMachine.

To reprise Judith Curry yet again:

Michael Mann is having all these problems because he chooses to try to muzzle people that are critical of Mann's science, critical of Mann's professional and personal behavior, and critical of Mann's behavior as revealed in the climategate emails. All this has nothing to do with defending climate science or academic freedom.

~If you'd like to chip in and buy a SteynOnline gift certificate or one of our other fine products, it will help prop up my legal offense fund. When I'm back from my trip to Ottawa, we'll be serving Dr Mann with my initial discovery requests.