Strong disagree with the OP’s premise, but with nuance. It wasn’t (IMHO) so much justified for breaking the ban, but that a dozen posts earlier, @Miller explicitly gave them a pass on missing it was banned EVEN in the pit, and then, bam, still does it, even if they didn’t consider it climate change. Granted, it was 4 days, but only a dozen posts or so.
So more for breaking a recent and direct mod instruction.
ETA - And this was AFTER (as stated in the onebox) @What_Exit gave them a semi-friendly reminder.