PRESS

So widespread has been the harassment against scientists that an organisation was set up to counter it: the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund.

One needs a scorecard to track the devastation wreaked on scientific efforts by the current administration. As it happens, one exists: the Silencing Science Tracker, co-managed by CSLDF and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

Lauren Kurtz (CSLDF) joins Court Accountability Action’s Lisa Graves to talk about CSLDF’s work to protect scientists against all kinds of attacks, how their work has changed since the first Trump administration, and just how difficult it has become in the second.

A law firm with ties to the conservative movement has asked for the retraction of research on opposition to offshore wind, saying it is preparing to escalate the matter to the Trump administration.

A law firm with ties to the conservative moment has demanded that Brown University retract research linking the fossil fuel industry to anti-wind groups. “It definitely struck me that they were dangling the possibility of getting the Trump administration involved,” Lauren Kurtz said.

Although cloud-seeding has been practiced quietly across several states, it is now becoming tangled up in bad faith and worse science by conspiracy theorists like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Researchers should not have to endure death threats or public attacks when they engage publicly and try to combat misinformation.

Scientists like me are not trained in legal warfare. So when the notice arrived that I was being sued for defamation, it just did not compute.

Climate scientist Kate Marvel joined a group of special guests, including CSLDF Director Lauren Kurtz, to share insights, data, and stories that reflect how it feels to live in a changing world.

“Every administration has its anti-science moments,” says Lauren Kurtz, CSLDF Executive Director. “Some are worse than others.”

Given that we're all harmed by rampant administrative violence being inflicted on the scientific world, it's important that we know why and how we're intentionally being made more ignorant.

“[The Trump Administration]'s efforts are focused on removing as many federal employees as possible, not in any organized, strategic way, like a controlled demolition or surgery,” Kurtz said. “Just a really sloppy arson job."