The board of a prominent U.S. science association has issued a strongly-worded statement decrying the personal attacks, death threats and increasing levels of harassment against climate scientists.
“AAAS vigorously opposes attacks on researchers that question their personal and professional integrity or threaten their safety based on the displeasure with their scientific conclusions,” reads the statement from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, issued Tuesday. “The sharing of research data is vastly different from unreasonable, excessive Freedom of Information Act requests for personal information and voluminous data that are then used to harass and intimidate scientists.”
The death threats to which the board refers are happening in Australia, but the “harassment” refers to ongoing litigation and demands for huge amounts of information regarding the daily communications and work of climate scientists in the United States.
The AAAS specifically points to an organization called the American Tradition Institute, and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli:
Lawmakers and activist groups also have sought detailed disclosure of records from climate researchers. The American Tradition Institute (ATI) has asked the University of Virginia to turn over thousands of e-mails and documents written by Michael E. Mann, a former U-Va. professor and a prominent climate scientist. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a climate change skeptic, demanded many of the same documents last year in an effort to determine if Mann had somehow defrauded taxpayers in obtaining research grants. ATI also has sued NASA to disclose records detailing climate scientist James Hansen’s compliance with federal ethics and disclosure rules.
The board concluded its statement with the observation that such harassment could have the effect of deterring scientists from conducting “research that intersects with policy-relevant scientific questions.”
Asked for comment at the New York Times, ATI’s Director of Litigation Christopher Horner responded:
“The notion that application of laws expressly covering academics are an ‘attack’ on academics is substantively identical to Hollywood apologists’ calling application of other laws to Roman Polanski an attack on Polanski.”
In an interview with TPM, Raymond Orbach, director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, said the ATI’s response was “a little over the top.”
“We were careful to point out in our statement that excessive Freedom of Information Acts is what we’re talking about. Obviously anyone is able to request anything they want through a Freedom of Information Act, but when that’s coupled with what we’re seeing as the intimidation of scientists who are working in the climate area, that’s what concerned us.”
