Climate Science Legal Defense Fund – Spread the Word & Logo

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund Logo

Update (01/22/12): Visit the new home page for Climate Science Legal Defense Fund at http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/.  If you are using the CSLDF banner above on a Web page please edit the link to point to the new URL.

Update (12/21/11): The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) is now an affiliate of the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) so I have removed the Pay Pal button from the donation page.  Donations are now tax-deductible and can be sent to PEER.  For those with a Pay Pal account, please send donations to info@peer.org and be sure to record “CSLDF donation” in the memo field.  Donations can also be mailed to PEER at the address below.  Be sure to record “CSLDF donation” in the memo line of your check.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
2000 P Street, NW
Suite 240
Washington, DC 20036

John Abraham and I are grateful for the generous response to our appeal for legal defense fund support. We are happy to inform everyone that we have met, and exceeded the initial goal of $10,000. This appeal is a great start for a long-term plan to develop a permanent fund for defending scientists against these attacks. Consequently, we are working to develop a funding structure that allows donations to be made to a 501c3 non-profit entity.

All funds that are in excess of those currently needed will be placed into this entity for future use defending climate scientists. We believe that the existence of this fund will send a strong message that groups like ATI cannot bully scientists.

Please consider adding the logo above to your blogs, web pages, Face Book posts,etc. The image URL is:

http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/global_warming/images/defense_fund_logo.gif

and the link to direct people to is:

https://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/donation/

It will take time to establish the 501c3 so in the meantime please keep sending your support via PayPal or personal checks.

GOOD NEWS: A positive development has already resulted from this effort in the case of Dr. Mike Mann.

On Friday, a Virginia judge ruled to stay the current court order indefinitely, with a followup hearing to take place on Nov. 1st. Chris Horner and the fossil-fuel front group ATI cannot view the exempted personal emails from 39 climate scientists.  This is definitely a victory, which wouldn’t have happened without the funding to intervene.

For background on this case, see: http://climscifoi.blogspot.com/2011/09/ati-uva-intervention.html and my letter to U.VA President Teresa Sullivan.

Chris Horner and American Tradition Institute (ATI) try to appear as though they are a grassroots citizen group but as the links below show, this is hardly the case.

American Tradition Institute was formerly Western Tradition Partnership.  For background on WTP and ATI see:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Western_Tradition_Partnership  and follow the links found within and

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Tradition_Institute

see also:

http://coloradoindependent.com/57656/colorado-political-group-western-tradition-linked-to-nasty-montana-race

http://coloradoindependent.com/75102/anti-green-group-crows-about-squashing-radical-environmentalist-newt-gingrich-in-cpac-straw-poll

The ATI “staff” are among the world’s greatest climate change misinformers and are connected to many of the notorious think tanks (Competitive Enterprise Institute, Cooler Heads Coalition, Heartland Institute, etc.) that have been fooling people for years.

Chris Horner, see:

http://www.desmogblog.com/chris-horner

http://motherjones.com/environment/2011/02/koch-brothers-media-beck-greenpeace

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Chris_Horner

Chris Horner's Well-Oiled Connections

David Schnare:

http://www.desmogblog.com/david-schnare

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1364

Paul Chesser:

http://www.desmogblog.com/paul-chesser

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_Chesser

FOIA requests are the latest tactic used by ideologues such as Chris Horner to try to confuse the public and grind climate science discovery to a halt.  Rachel Levinson-Waldman,  senior counsel of the American Association of University Professors, writes about FOIA abuse in her American Constitution Society for Law and Society Issue Brief:

“…pose a significant risk of chilling academic freedom by making scholars reluctant to discuss and explore controversial issues or to collaborate with each other, thereby constraining one of the primary services offered by publicly funded colleges and universities”

The harassment of climate scientists cannot be tolerated and the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund is our vehicle to fight back.