Fifteen years ago, on this day, September 12th, 2011, Climate Defence Fund inspired by blog
“On September 12, 2011, Scott Mandia posted a “Dear Colleagues” letter on his blog. It started, “Climate researchers are in need of immediate legal assistance to prevent their private correspondence from being exposed to Chris Horner and the American Tradition Institute who are using Freedom of Information (FOI) to harass researchers.” The outpouring of support was overwhelming. In less than 24 hours, Scott received $10,000 in small donations from scientists, students, and other concerned individuals. This went a long way toward helping solve immediate legal needs. Legal bills for scientists continued to mount, so it became apparent that a permanent organization was needed.” http://climatesciencedefensefund.org/about-us/
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 392ppm. As of 2026, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that opponents of climate action had been targeting individual scientists in what Michael Mann, one of the targets, called the “Serengeti Strategy” since the mid 1990s. The first prominent target was Ben Santer, though there were others. Targeting of individuals and of organisations continued, especially with the so-called “climategate” hacks.
And when there are attacks, there is defence, hopefully, and here we see the birth of the Climate Defence Fund.
What I think we can learn from this is that the war is never ending, and one side has the facts on its side, and the other side has money, access to media, etc.
What happened next – the denialism, defunding and destruction have reached new highs (or lows) under Trump 2.
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On this topic, you might like these other posts on All Our Yesterdays
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References
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You can see the chronological list of All Our Yesterdays “on this day” posts here.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
If you want to get involved, let me know.
If you want to invite me on your podcast, that would boost my ego and probably improve the currently pitiful hit-rate on this site (the two are not-unrelated).
Also on this day:
September 12, 1958 – Letter in The Times about … carbon dioxide build-up
September 12, 1994 – Greenpeace lays into Keating government over climate failure
September 12, 2003 – Newcastle Herald thinks the future of coal looks ‘cleaner’…