The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, established last year to support climate scientists who are under attack by the global warming denial machine, has teamed up with a new sponsor, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. This is a good development ? a project that should be strengthened, under the wing of an organization that can?make that happen. The CSLDF?s first?action has been to help Michael Mann with legal expenses in a case involving the right-wing American Tradition Institute and the University of Virginia.

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund home page

From PEER?s January 25 press release:

CLIMATE SCIENCE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND GETS NEW BACKING

PEER Sponsors Effort to Counter Fossil-Fueled Attacks on Climate Scientists

Washington, DC ? The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund (CSLDF) has found a nonprofit home in Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) which provides it fiscal sponsorship and logistical support. CSLDF lets scientific colleagues and the public directly help climate scientists protect themselves and their work from industry-funded legal attacks.

In recent years, these legal attacks have intensified, especially against climate scientists. The fund is designed to help scientists like Professor Michael Mann cope with the legal fees that stack up in fighting attempts by climate-contrarian groups to gain access to private emails and other correspondence through lawsuits and Freedom of Information Act requests at their public universities.

The project is co-directed by physical sciences Professor Scott Mandia of Suffolk County Community College and Joshua Wolfe, co-author of ?Climate Change: Picturing the Science.? The Fund started this past fall after Prof. Mandia posted a ?Dear Colleague? appeal for support which generated more than $10,000 in less than 24 hours (http://bit.ly/qzg7X4). To date, CSLDF has raised $25,000. All contributions to CSLDF are tax-deductible.

?Academic salaries are not designed to support ongoing legal expenses in fights with corporate-funded law firms and institutes,? said Prof. Mandia. ?These legal battles also have taken many of our brightest scientific minds away from their research.?

?Our goal is not only to defend the scientist but to protect the scientific endeavor,? explained Wolfe. ?The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established to make sure that these legal claims are not viewed as an action against one scientist or institution but as actions against the scientific endeavor as a whole.?

In addition to its core mission of defraying legal fees, CSLDF will ?

? Educate researchers about their legal rights and responsibilities on issues surrounding their work;
? Serve as a clearinghouse for information related to legal actions taken against scientists; and
? Recruit and assist lawyers representing these scientists.

?The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund dovetails with the mission of PEER ? to protect those who protect our environment,? stated PEER executive Director Jeff Ruch. ?When individual researchers find themselves under intense legal assault, they often have few resources. Their universities do not necessarily represent their interests and may be disinclined to resist corporate fishing expeditions. We are stepping into this void to provide direct aid to both the scientists and their institutions.?

###

Visit the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund website

Support climate scientists ? give to the fund

Lauren Morello at ClimateWire (by subscription) writes (?Nonprofit group to help defend scientists facing legal actions?):

? The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund began last year as a grass-roots campaign to help defray the legal costs incurred by Mann as he fights a request from the conservative American Tradition Institute for emails he exchanged with other scientists while he was employed by the University of Virginia. ?

Scott Mandia, a professor of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College, jump-started the effort to aid Mann last year when he posted a “Dear Colleague” letter on his blog. ?

“Mike [Mann] is client number one,” Mandia said. “He still has outstanding legal fees.”

In addition to his legal battle against the American Tradition Institute, Mann is at the center of a fight between Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and the University of Virginia. Cuccinelli is seeking emails and other documents from the school as he investigates whether Mann, who received state grant money during his tenure at UVA, violated the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.

Coverage by Andy Revkin at DotEarth includes an exchange with PEER executive director Jeff Ruch: ?A Legal Defense Fund for Climate Scientists?

Andrew Freedman at Climate Central: ?Defense Fund Helps Scientists Targeted by Lawsuits?

On the CSLDF website:

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund:

Protecting the Scientific Endeavor

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established with one goal: to protect the scientific endeavor. Scientific research has brought us amazing advancements in technology, medicine, and in our basic understanding of the planet. Over the last twenty years, a small handful of politically-motivated think tanks and legal foundations, because they disliked certain scientific findings, have taken legal action against scientific institutions and individual scientists. In recent years, the legal attacks have intensified, especially against climate scientists.

The scientific method is designed around the belief that skepticism is good. Results should be subjected to the utmost scrutiny through the peer review process, followed by close examination and replication by others in the scientific community. Those whose ideas do not live up to the standards of rigorous science have instead chosen to litigate.

For the individual scientist these legal actions are a painful burden. Academic salaries were not designed to support ongoing legal expenses. Legal actions also have taken many of our brightest scientific minds away from their research to focus on frivolous lawsuits. This state of affairs is unacceptable. The United States of America should be the leader in science and technology, and it cannot do so if unscrupulous people subject our scientists to these actions.

The Climate Science Legal Defense Fund was established to make sure that these legal claims are not viewed as an action against one scientist or institution, but that they are seen as actions against the scientific endeavor as a whole. As such the Fund will defend climate scientists who are dragged into litigation and act aggressively to protect the interests of the scientific endeavor.

In addition, the Climate Science Defense Fund will create platforms and opportunities for members of the scientific community to gain a better understanding of the legal issues surrounding their work.

Earlier posts:

Favorable Virginia court procedural ruling in Michael Mann v. global warming denialist email raid

Letter calling on Univ. of Virginia to prevent inappropriate open records disclosure of climate scientists? exempt emails and documents [Union of Concerned Scientists, American Association of University Professors, American Geophysical Union, Climate Science Watch]

In defense of academic freedom against denialist FOIA inquisition tactics
[Letter to University of Virginia President Sullivan from American Association
of University professors, Virginia ACLU, Union of Concerned Scientists, and
nine other groups, including Climate Science Watch]

University of Virginia will seek to protect academic freedom in dealing with denialist FOIA inquisition [response to our letter]

National Science Foundation Inspector General report on Michael Mann investigation: ?No research misconduct. Case closed.? Don’t bother telling Rick Perry.

Climate Science Watch video interview with Michael Mann on the Penn State Final Report and the war on climate scientists

Washington Post editorial: Resist denialist ?freedom of information? harassment of climate change scientists

Cuccinelli denialist witch-hunt is about political ambition, not climate science (Part 1 of 2)

Cuccinelli denialist witch-hunt is about political ambition, not climate science (Part 2 of 2)

Nine ways to undermine Virginia AG Cuccinelli?s McCarthyite demand for scientists? communication

Archive category: Attacks on Climate Science and Scientists

Archive category: Global Warming Denial Machine

Source: http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2012/01/26/peer-adopts-the-climate-science-legal-defense-fund/

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A Christian Science perspective.

The arrest of a former college football coach accused of molesting boys has made headlines in the United States and abroad, but sexual predation of children isn?t new, and takes different forms in different cultures. In many cases, legislation, prosecution, and improved social mores haven?t proved to be sufficient deterrents. But prayer based on the law of God can forward healing.

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My framework for such prayer rests on valuing the spiritual nature of children. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, children are described in terms of their purity, innocence, wonder, courage, and humility. For example, the prophet Isaiah envisioned a time when ?the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them? (Isaiah 11:6).

Matthew?s Gospel tells of a conversation Jesus had with his disciples about who was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Calling a little child over to them, Jesus told his followers that they would not be able to enter the kingdom of heaven, unless they ?be converted, and become as little children.? He went on to say, ?Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven? (see 18:1-4).

This kingdom isn?t a theoretical concept or distant aspiration. It is our true homeland, whether or not we are aware of it. For the perpetrator and a child who has been molested, however, the peace of this kingdom may seem impossible to reach.

Both the Apostle Paul and Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, saw reconciling man to God through Christ as key to changing that view. Christ is the divine idea of God, His likeness. So reconciling man to God through Christ means restoring man ? a generic term that also includes women and children ? to his original stainless selfhood, which is eternally inseparable from his Maker. As Paul put it, ?[A]ll things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation? (II Corinthians 5:18). In ?Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,? Mrs. Eddy brought out the inseparability of God and man when she wrote, ?It was … Christ?s purpose to reconcile man to God, not God to man? (p. 19). So, rather than God coming down to fix what appears to be a pervasive problem, we can instead uplift our thought to the reality of His kingdom and our right to this pure and uncontaminated identity as His children. This insistence on purity, love, and joy ? along with other childlike qualities ? restores our, and everyone?s, original selfhood as God?s child.

In practical terms, this means that any child who has been molested or abused can rediscover his or her forever stainless selfhood. To reconcile themselves to God through Christ means to accept the permanent perfection that God has already given them. By doing this, they?ll find that their true selfhood ? constituted of spiritual qualities, not a physical body ? has never been compromised. They have never fallen away from God?s tender grace or lost their innate purity.

Those who abuse and molest need reconciliation to Christ also, but for them it requires reformation. One must stop identifying with a false selfhood that includes impurity, manipulation, and other unseemly characteristics. Reformation reveals the distance between these actions and one?s true spiritual selfhood. Reconciliation comes as one chooses and sticks with the path of Spirit, which will wash away the desire to continue in a mistake. Throughout his ministry, Jesus gave as key to demonstrating one?s inseparability from God: ?[G]o, and sin no more? (John 8:11).

For both the victim and the victimizer, the discovery of this true, perfect selfhood requires persistence, but is so worth the effort. It reveals the pure, unstained, satisfied, and unadulterated nature that each has through their citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.

This article, originally titled “Finding healing for victim and victimizer,” appeared in the Christian Science Sentinel dated Jan. 16 & 23.

To receive Christian Science perspectives daily or weekly in your inbox,?sign up today.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/4a60epB9RIo/Finding-healing-for-the-abused-and-abusers

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New York ? The Arizona Democrat formally resigns from Congress, vowing she “will recover and will return.” But return to where?

Amid tears and applause from her colleagues, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz) resigned from the House on Wednesday, a year after she was shot in the head during a Tucson shooting rampage that killed six people. After the House unanimously passed her final piece of legislation ? a bill that would increase prison sentences for smugglers flying drugs in from Mexico on ultralight aircraft ? Giffords received an emotional standing ovation from her congressional colleagues. “It’s clich? to say there wasn’t a dry eye in the room,” says Chad Pergram at Fox News. But in this case, “it’s also accurate.” Giffords’ replacement will be decided in a June special election. But what’s next for Gifford herself? Here’s what you should know:

First of all, how is Giffords’ recovery going?
Her family and doctors sound upbeat. Still, Giffords has trouble speaking and forming sentences, a condition known as aphasia. Nancy Helm-Estabrooks, who has been working with Giffords, says that while the Arizonan has trouble with long sentences, she uses “high-information words” that convey a lot of meaning. “Gabby’s understanding of language is relatively spared,” Helm-Estabrooks tells The Charlotte Observer. “She watches movies. She watches the news,” and her husband, Mark Kelly, reports that he “can almost carry on a conversation with her.” “She’s remembered every boy she’s ever kissed, every song she’s ever sang, every bill she’s ever passed,” Giffords’ mother, Gloria, tells the AP. “So upward and onward.”

SEE MORE: Tucson shootings: One year later, has America learned anything?

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What’s her prognosis?
“I don’t give false hope, and I’m pretty realistic in what I say about people with aphasia,” says Helm-Estabrooks.?”But I have no doubt she’s going to continue to recover and recover and recover…. You haven’t heard the last of her yet.” I’m very optimistic,?Kelly tells the AP. “She just needs some more time, whether it’s a year or two years or three years, I’m very confident she’s going to have a long and effective career as a public servant.”

Will Giffords run for Congress again?
She is certainly dropping hints that she might. In her resignation letter, read by friend Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Giffords says she has “more work to do on my recovery before I can again serve in elected office,” but that she “will recover and will return, and we will work together again, for Arizona and for all Americans.” In the meantime, says Alex Isenstadt at?Politico, Democrats expect Giffords to play “kingmaker” in the race to fill her House seat, anointing the Democrat she feels would best carry out her legacy, than giving that candidate a boost in what’s expected to be a very competitive general election.

SEE MORE: Gabrielle Giffords’ ‘bittersweet’ resignation video

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What if she doesn’t run again?
“We should take her at her word” that she’ll return, says Tom Zoellner at CNN, but “that doesn’t mean a return to elective office.” In fact, Congress may well “be too small for” the heroic Giffords. “She now has a golden opportunity to start a ‘Gabrielle Giffords Institute’ for the study of gun violence or mental health care reform or solar energy or whatever public policy issue she wants to emphasize. Her moral authority and influence may be better used outside… the daily grind of politics and partisanship.” Yes, “I?kind of think she’s transcended Congress,” says Gloria Giffords. But as to what’s next, “I don’t know where she’s going to end up.”

Sources: AP, Charlotte Observer, CNN, Fox News, Hot Air, Politico, Talking Points Memo

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