For years, climate scientists have been assailed from many sides ? through e-mail hacking, death threats, politician?s demands for documents, Freedom of Information requests (many having the strong smell of a fishing expedition).
A Climate Science Legal Defense Fund set up last fall has taken on a formal affiliation with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, an established nonprofit group offering aid and advice to government whistleblowers and scientists working on environmental issues.
Below you can read a news release distributed by one of the organizers of the fund, Scott A. Mandia, a physical sciences professor* at Suffolk County Community College. There will be three focal points, according to the fund Web site:
Litigation: The Climate Science Defense Fund is taking an active interest in litigation. Currently several climate scientists have litigation in the courts. The Climate Science Defense Fund will play an active role in helping raise funds for their defense, serving as a resource in finding pro-bono representation, and providing support during difficult litigation proceedings.
Education: The Climate Science Defense Fund will work to educate the scientific community about their rights and their responsibilities with regard to legal issues surrounding their work.
Knowledge Bank: The Climate Science Defense Fund will serve as a clearinghouse for information related to legal actions taken against scientists. Our goal is to provide lawyers representing scientists with information about past cases and strategies.
I conducted a short e-mail interview with Jeff Ruch (video interview), the longtime executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:
Q.
Are you concerned that this stretches too far beyond PEER?s traditional role as protecting public employees, or is this a sign of PEER expanding beyond that sphere to any scientist working under public (federal) grants?
A.
PEER has always defended scientists working at public universities or working under federal grants (for example?). In addition, we have assembled legal defense funds for public employees facing legal costs (for example?).
So, we ? including our board of directors ? see the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund as a direct extension of our previous work. It is another arrow in our quiver to further our mission ? protecting public employees who protect our environment.
Q.
If that is the plan, are there specific foundation grants or other substantial initial individual contributions that have made this possible?
A.
No. All funds have come from individual contributions. We will likely seek foundation support for the non-litigation activities of the defense fund, such as educating climate scientists about their legal rights and responsibilities and assisting university counsel in responding to vacuum cleaner information requests.
Q.
Also most of the wording [in the news release] relates to ?corporate? or ?industry? funded efforts when in fact there are and have been substantial efforts backed by foundations and individuals who are not directly connected with industry. Is that an intentional distinction?
A.
The cases of which I am aware have a direct corporate connection, including the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Q.
Finally, when the issue is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), there?s a murky line between what is fishing and what isn?t. Many FOIA requests of green groups over the years could be cast as such. This is one reason the Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, has walked a fine line in its statements on abuse of FOIA. Should a researcher using a state university e-mail address and working under federal grants be entitled to presume his/her correspondence is ?private? (as described below)?
A.
?The central issue is whether the subject of the inquiry is public business. Generally, scientific articles submitted in the author?s name with a disclaimer that the work does not represent the institution falls outside what is official business. Our main concern is that industry-funded groups and law firms are seeking to criminalize the peer review process by obtaining internal editorial comments of reviewers as a means to impeach or impugn scientists.
The grants themselves and the grant reports are public but a federal grant does not transform a university lab into an executive branch agency ? which is the ambit of FOIA.
By the way, as an adjunct to our whistleblower practice, PEER makes extensive use of FOIA to force disclosure of matters other wise buried in agency cubicles. A good example of one our science-based FOIA [requesets] is this.
Here?s the news release from Mandia:
The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) has found a non-profit home in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which provides it fiscal sponsorship and logistical support. CSLDF lets scientific colleagues and the public directly help climate scientists protect themselves and their work from industry-funded legal attacks.
In recent years, these legal attacks have intensified, especially against climate scientists. The fund is designed to help scientists like Professor Michael Mann cope with the legal fees that stack up in fighting attempts by climate-skeptic groups to gain access to private emails and other correspondence through lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests at their public universities.
The project is co-directed by physical sciences Professor Scott Mandia of Suffolk County Community College and Joshua Wolfe, co-author of ?Climate Change: Picturing the Science.? The Fund started this past fall after Prof. Mandia posted a ?Dear Colleague? appeal for support which generated more than $10,000 in less than 24 hours (http://bit.ly/qzg7X4). To date, CSLDF has raised $25,000. All contributions to CSLDF are tax-deductible.
?Academic salaries are not designed to support ongoing legal expenses in fights with corporate-funded law firms and institutes,? said Prof. Mandia. ?These legal battles also have taken many of our brightest scientific minds away from their research.?
?Our goal is not only to defend the scientist but to protect the scientific endeavor,? explained Wolfe. ?The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established to make sure that these legal claims are not viewed as an action against one scientist or institution but as actions against the scientific endeavor as a whole.?
In addition to its core mission of defraying legal fees, CSLDF will ?
? Educate researchers about their legal rights and responsibilities on issues surrounding their work;
? Serve as a clearinghouse for information related to legal actions taken against scientists; and
? Recruit and assist lawyers representing these scientists.?The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund dovetails with the mission of PEER ? to protect those who protect our environment,? stated PEER executive Director Jeff Ruch. ?When individual researchers find themselves under intense legal assault, they often have few resources. Their universities do not necessarily represent their interests and may be disinclined to resist corporate fishing expeditions. We are stepping into this void to provide direct aid to both the scientists and their institutions.?
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 25, 2012
The initial post incorrectly identified Scott Mandia as a professor of physics. He is a professor of physical sciences (with his degree in meteorology).
Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/a-legal-defense-fund-for-climate-scientists/
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