Climate scientists face deluge of public-records requests about fossil-fuel studies
A Nature investigation identified more than 30 requests since 2024 to US universities in a campaign questioning climate attribution science.
Last month, a climate scientist working in the University of California system received an unsettling message from her institution. University officials asked her to submit all correspondence related to a study she had published linking emissions from fossil fuels to environmental harms caused by climate change. The university had received a public-records request from a law firm representing the Patriots Foundation in Des Moines, Iowa, which describes itself on its website as a government watchdog.
It was the fifth such request connected to the organization that the scientist, who requested anonymity to avoid further demands, had received this year….
… The volume of requests for climate researchers has noticeably increased this year, says Lauren Kurtz at the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund in New York City, an organization that helps scientists to address legal issues in this field. “It’s totally a surge,” she adds.