Recently, invasive open records requests, defamation lawsuits, and other misuses of the legal system threaten climate scientists’ ability to freely conduct research and openly share it with the public. In my work as a lawyer with the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, I defend climate scientists against this type of harassment, which often comes at great cost to their personal and professional lives. The weaponization of these legal tools—by those whose very intent is to stymie action on climate change—derails scientific work, inhibits the free exchange of ideas, and causes immense levels of stress to climate scientists (and sometimes their families) as they must sideline their research to address these anxiety-inducing legal issues. More significantly, it hinders climate progress at a time when, as this latest IPCC report illustrates, some climate impacts are already so severe that adaptation is no longer possible.
One recent example of the misuse of the law to hamper free discussion and exploration of climate change comes from the State of Ohio. The Ohio Senate has now passed SB 83, a bill that would limit the teaching of “controversial beliefs” including “climate policy” in Ohio higher education schools. The bill is now pending in the Ohio Assembly. In chilling language, SB 83 requires that regulated Ohio schools “affirm” that their faculty will allow students to reach their own conclusions about the defined “controversial beliefs” and “shall not” seek to inculcate any political belief. But when it comes to climate change, “both sides” arguments are often false or misleading industry misinformation, and it is a fool’s errand to discern what constitutes a faculty member “inculcating” a political comment on climate policy.
At the same time that we are seeing state interference with climate change and open discussion, open records laws are being used in particularly pernicious ways against scientists. These laws provide the public with vital information about policy makers and other state and federal business, and are used to positive effects by investigative journalists, watchdog groups, and taxpayers who candidly seek information about government operations. But, because the laws permit people to request public university records, they are also increasingly used to target climate scientists and disrupt their legitimate work. In my experience, the majority of these invasive requests come from anti-science politicians and partisan groups with hostile motives and ties to the fossil fuel industry. These groups and individuals regularly abuse open records laws to harass publicly funded climate scientists by demanding emails and documents—sometimes for a period of 10 years or more—simply because of the area of research within which these scientists work.
Many of the country’s state open records laws were poorly written and did not anticipate the waterfall of documents that researchers would need to sift through given the rise of technology. Massachusetts’s public records law, for example, dates back to 1851, before public universities even existed in the state. For prolific researchers who have been working in their field for decades, open records requests can sometimes yield hundreds of thousands of documents. Fossil fuel–funded interests then cherry-pick data and conversations from these emails or studies—including “what if” arguments and devil’s advocate debates that are integral to the scientific process—and use them to confuse the public or embarrass climate scientists to prevent climate progress.