In March 2015, an Arizona trial court validated the University of Arizona’s denial of massive records requests by Energy & Environment Legal (“E&E Legal”), which sought 13 years of climate scientists’ emails under Arizona open records laws.[1] E&E Legal, formerly named the American Tradition Institute, claimed it wanted these emails […]
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The federal Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) and state open record law equivalents are designed to promote government transparency by allowing citizens to request copies of administrative records. Increasingly, they are also used to obtain otherwise private documents from government or public university scientists. FOIA laws can expose misconduct,[1] but […]
A new psychology study has strongly linked rejection of the scientific consensus on climate change to conspiratorial thinking. The study, led by Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky, builds on his previous research connecting a general belief in conspiracy theories with denial of established findings on climate change – research that has been, […]
A recently passed Wyoming law now criminalizes certain kinds of data collection: specifically, unauthorized collection of natural resource data. The new Wyoming Senate Enrolled Act No. 61 outlaws the collection of “resource data”[1] on any “open land” – private, state, or even (under some interpretations) federal land – if the […]
In the newest variation of legal attacks on climate science, tandem lawsuits were filed against climate science blogger and computer scientist John Mashey,[1] in retaliation for his work to uncover academic misconduct by several researchers who disputed widely-accepted findings on global warming. (There is a 97% scientific consensus that man-made climate change is […]
On March 24, after years of litigation, the Arizona Superior Court, Pima County, ruled in favor of the University of Arizona and its efforts to protect climate scientists’ correspondence and prepublication work.[1] In particular, in Energy & Environment Legal Institute v. Arizona Board of Regents, et al., the court upheld […]
On February 5, a trial court in British Columbia awarded $50,000 CAD (roughly $40,000 USD in current exchange rates) to distinguished climate scientist Dr. Andrew Weaver, finding that a collection of articles had defamed him.[1] The judgment is controlling authority only within British Columbia, but it is still significant: the […]
Italian Scientists’ Convictions for Not Predicting Earthquake Reversed In the early hours of April 6, 2009, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck central Italy, with the epicenter near the medieval city of L’Aquila. The 20-second earthquake left over 300 people dead, over 1,500 injured, and over 65,000 homeless in L’Aquila and […]