Judge denies National Review's Motion to Reconsider ruling in Michael Mann's defamation case

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Climate Science Watch

Superior Court of the District of Columbia

"The Court finds that there is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits," said a DC Superior Court judge in her latest procedural ruling in the defamation case of Michael Mann v. National Review, et al. "The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that 'actual malice' is present in the [National Review's] conduct." 

On August 30 the Court denied the Defendants' Motion for Reconsideration of the Court's July 19 order, which had affirmed Prof. Mann's right to proceed in his defamation lawsuit. The text of the August 30 Court Order is here in PDF.

Some excerpts from the Court Order denying Defendants' Motion for Reconsideration:

Defamation

... The Court finds that there is sufficient evidence in the record to demonstrate that Plaintiff is likely to succeed on the merits. As the Court stated in its previous Order, the NR Defendants’ reference to Plaintiff “as the man behind the fraudulent climate change ‘hockey stick’ graph” was essentially an allegation of fraud by Plaintiff. ...

The Court clearly recognizes that some members involved in the climate-change discussions and debates employ harsh words. The NR Defendants are reputed to use this manner of speech; however there is a line between rhetorical hyperbole and defamation. In this case, the evidence before the Court demonstrates that something more than mere rhetorical hyperbole is, at least at this stage present. Accusations of fraud, especially where such accusations are made frequently through the continuous usage of words such as “whitewashed,” “intellectually bogus,” “ringmaster of the tree-ring circus” and “cover-up” amount to more than rhetorical hyperbole. ...

The evidence before the Court indicates the likelihood that “actual malice” is present in the NR Defendants’ conduct. ...

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress ("IIED")

... The Court finds that Plaintiff’s claim for IIED is similar to that for defamation. There is sufficient evidence before the Court to indicate “actual malice.” The NR Defendants have frequently accused Plaintiff of academic fraud regardless of their awareness that Plaintiff has been investigated by several bodies and his work found to be proper. The NR Defendant’s persistence despite the findings of the investigative bodies could be likened to a witch hunt. In fact, Plaintiff had nothing to do with the Sandusky case yet the NR Defendants seized upon that criminal act by a pedophile and did more, this Court finds, than simply comment on another article.

The Court agrees with the arguments advanced by Plaintiff. To place Plaintiff’s name in the same sentence with Sandusky (a convicted pedophile) is clearly outrageous.

Stay tuned.

Earlier posts of documents in the case:

August 19: Michael Mann v. National Review et al. defamation lawsuit - new Plaintiff's briefs
July 19: DC Court affirms Michael Mann's right to proceed in defamation lawsuit against National Review and CEI

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2013/08/30/judge-denies-national-reviews-motion-to-reconsider-in-mann-defamation-case/

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77 ALEC Bills Advance Big Oil, Big Ag Agenda in 2013

by Brendan Fischer, EcoWatch, August 2, 2013

Crude oil and greed fuel much of the ALEC agenda.

At least 77 bills to oppose renewable energy standards, support fracking and the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, and otherwise undermine environmental laws were introduced in 34 states in 2013, according to a new analysis from the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), publishers of ALECexposed.org. In addition, nine states have been inspired by ALEC’s Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act to crack down on videographers documenting abuses on factory farms. 

ALEC, Fueled by Fossil Fuel Industry, Pursues Retrograde Energy Agenda

For decades, ALEC has been a favored conduit for some of the world’s largest polluters, like Koch Industries, BP, Shell, Chevron and Exxon Mobil, and for decades has promoted less environmental regulation and more drilling and fracking. 

ALEC bills in recent years have pulled states out of regional climate initiatives, opposed carbon dioxide emission standards, created hurdles for state agencies attempting to regulate pollution and tried to stop the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation introduced in 2013 carries on this legacy. ALEC bills favor the fossil fuel barons and promote a retrograde energy agenda that pollutes our air and water and is slowly cooking the planet to what may soon be devastating temperatures.

“Disregarding science at every turn, ALEC is willing to simply serve as a front for the fossil fuel industry,” says Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org. “Given the stakes—the Earth’s climate—that’s shabby and sad.”

ALEC Tours the Tar Sands

In October 2012, ALEC organized an “Oil Sands Academy” where nine ALEC member politicians were given an all-expenses-paid trip to Calgary, Canada and flown on a tour of the Alberta tar sands while accompanied by oil industry lobbyists. The trip was sponsored by pipeline operator TransCanada and the oil-industry funded American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. Email records obtained by CMD show that after the trip, ALEC urged legislators to send “thank you” notes to corporate lobbyists for their generosity.

2012 ALEC Academy attendees (Photo via Twitter).

At least 10 states in 2013 have introduced variations on the ALEC Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline, calling on the President and Congress to approve the controversial project. Environmentalists oppose the pipeline because extracting oil from Canadian tar sands would unlock huge amounts of carbon, increasing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Despite being promoted as a “job creator,” the pipeline would only create between 50 and 100 permanent positions in an economy of over 150 million working people.

In Nebraska, CMD filed an ethics complaint against state senator Jim Smith, the ALEC state chair for Nebraska, who never revealed to his constituents that he had gone on the “Oil Sands Academy,” and failed to disclose over a thousand dollars of travel expenses paid for by the government of Alberta, Canada. Sen. Smith has been exceptionally vocal when it comes to his support for the Keystone XL pipeline. For example, he sponsored a 2012 Nebraska law that would—if it survives a continuing legal challenge—bypass the U.S. State Department and allow TransCanada to start building the Nebraska portion of the pipeline right away, regardless of any future decision by the federal government.

ALEC Partners with Heartland Institute for Rollback of Renewables

Even more extraordinary is ALEC’s push this year to repeal Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), which require that utility companies provide a certain amount of their total energy from renewable sources like wind.

“ALEC’s long time role in denying the science and policy solutions to climate change is shifting into an evolving roadblock on state and federal clean energy incentives, a necessary part of global warming mitigation,” says Connor Gibson, a research associate at Greenpeace. 

In Germany, where the nation has set a goal of getting 35% of its energy from renewables by 2020,  public commitment to clean energy technologies is transforming markets, driving innovation and generating huge numbers of jobs. Even in the U.S., where there has been less public investment, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says 3.1 million clean energy jobs have been created in recent years. 

Perhaps because of RPS’ job-creating qualities, ALEC’s bill to repeal renewable standards, the Electricity Freedom Act, was too much even for the most conservative legislatures. It failed to pass in every state where it was introduced—even in North Carolina, where it had the backing of Grover Norquist, and whose Republican-dominated legislature has been rolling multiple ALEC bills into law in 2013.

It may be little surprise that ALEC’s attack on renewables was spearheaded by one of its looniest members: the bill was brought to ALEC in May 2012 by the Illinois-based Heartland Institute, a group best known for billboards comparing people who believe in climate change to mass murderers like the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski.

ALEC is usually very secretive about its model legislation and its efforts in the states, but ALEC did not disguise the fact that it had made the Electricity Freedom Act a priority for the 2013 session. ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Director Todd Wynn published blog posts on the topic and was quoted in the press discussing how ALEC was working with Heartland to promote the repeal bills. 

In many of the states that have proposed versions of the Electricity Freedom Act, the right-wing infrastructure has sprung into action, almost according to a script. The Beacon Hill Institute publishes a study (using discredited analysis) claiming that a state’s renewable standards lead to higher energy costs, as it did in states like Maine, Ohio, Wisconsin and Arizona. The David Koch-founded and-led Americans for Prosperity organizes an event to “educate” its members about how renewables are “punishing” consumers, as they did in Nebraska, and perhaps invite a guest from the Heartland Institute to make similar claims, as they did in Kansas.

ALEC, the Heartland Institute and the Beacon Hill Institute all have received money from foundations associated with Charles and David Koch, and each are also part of the State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella group of right-wing organizations that claim adherence to the free market. SPN has received at least $10 million in the past five years from the mysterious Donors Trust, which funnels money from the Kochs and other conservative funders. SPN was also a “Chairman” level sponsor of ALEC’s 2011 Annual Conference and ALEC is an Associate Member of SPN.

But even though the ALEC/Heartland anti-renewable energy fight found little success in 2013, the group is not giving up.

New Avenue Sought to Rollback Renewables 

“I expect that North Carolina and Kansas will probably pick up this issue again in 2014 and lead the charge across the country once again,” Wynn said.

ALEC now appears to be modifying its strategy to find a more palatable way to attack renewable standards.

At its August 2013 meeting, ALEC will consider a watered-down version of the Electricity Freedom Act with a bill called the Market Power Renewables Act. That legislation would phase-out a state’s RPS and instead create a renewable “market” where consumers can choose to pay for renewable energy, and allow utilities to purchase energy credits from outside the state. This thwarts the purpose of RPS policies, which help create the baseline demand for renewables that will spur the clean energy investment necessary to continue developing the technology and infrastructure that will drive costs down.

But, it would satisfy ALEC’s goal of preserving reliance on dirty energy from fossil fuels.

ALEC Bills Undermine Environmental Regulations, First Amendment

ALEC energy, environment and agriculture bills moving in the first six months of 2013 include:

• The Electricity Freedom Act, introduced in six states, repealing (or in some states weakening) Renewable Portfolio Standards. The standards have been a key component driving renewable energy growth—which threatens the profits of ALEC’s polluter members. 

• Variations on the Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline (introduced in 10 states) calling on the federal government to approve the controversial project to transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada across the U.S. It is no coincidence that pipeline operator TransCanada is an ALEC member and funder.

• The misleadingly-named Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act (introduced in five states) which would actually make it harder to find out what chemicals are being pumped underground through the fracking process. The bill, which was brought to ALEC by Exxon Mobil, carves out a giant loophole for “trade secrets”—potentially concealing the information the public might want to know.

• The Environmental Literacy Improvement Act (introduced in five states) seeks to sow doubt in the minds of young people about man’s role in the warming planet by requiring that educators “teach the controversy” when it comes to topics like climate change, where the science is beyond dispute.

• The Environmental Services Public-Private Partnership Act (introduced in two states) would give for-profit companies control of vital public health services like treating wastewater and drinking water—the last place where you want a company to cut corners to increase profits.

• The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act (variations of which were introduced in nine states) have come to be known as “Ag-Gag” bills, as they criminalize investigations into abuses on factory farms and deem videographers “terrorists.” 

• The Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act (considered in seven states) was modeled after a Utah law from 2012 and is an updated version of the ALEC Sagebrush Rebellion Act, where Western states assert control over federal lands that are being protected as wilderness preserves, in many cases to allow for resource extraction.

ALEC Corporations Reap the Rewards

The corporations bankrolling A[merican]LEC and benefiting from bills advanced by the Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force include [note that the first three are non-U.S. corporations]:

• Keystone XL pipeline operator TransCanada, a member of the ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force and which sponsored ALEC’s Spring Task Force Summit at the “Vice Chairman” level. It was one of the sponsors of the ALEC “Oil Sands Academy” where nine ALEC member legislators were given an all-expenses-paid trip to Calgary and flown around the Alberta tar sands while accompanied by oil industry lobbyists. 

• Shell Oil, one of the largest fossil fuel conglomerates in the world, operates a tar sands extraction facility and sponsored lunch at the ALEC “Oil Sands Academy.” Shell has long been an ALEC member and funder, for example sponsoring ALEC’s 2011 annual meeting at the “Chairman” level (which in the past has cost $50,000) and hosting plenary sessions. Shell is also a member of the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force, presumably to advance legislation that would protect it from liability in case of oil spills or other disasters.

• British Petroleum (BP), the United Kingdom’s largest corporation and the company responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, has long supported ALEC, including sponsoring ALEC’s 2011 meeting in New Orleans—not far from the site of BP’s oil spill—at the “Presidential” level (which in the past has cost $100,000). 

• Peabody Energy is the largest producer of coal in the U.S. and boasts that it generates 10 percent of the country’s energy, and also has a lobbyist representative on the ALEC corporate board; it was the 2011 winner of ALEC’s “Private Sector Member of the Year” award and has sponsored ALEC meetings and events. In 2007, it spun-off coal mines it owned in West Virginia and Kentucky into an independent company, which then filed for bankruptcy and sought to be released from its pension and retirement operations.

• Duke Energy is one of the largest electric utility companies in the U.S., and has publicly expressed concern about global warming and support for clean energy, but its continued support for ALEC undermines those rhetorical positions. A coalition of environmental groups have been urging Duke to drop ALEC for the past year, so far to no avail.

• Koch Industries, the privately-held multinational corporation owned by billionaire financiers David and Charles Koch, is involved in an array of industries including petroleum refining, fuel pipelines, coal supply and trading, oil and gas exploration, chemicals and polymers, fertilizer production and commodity speculation. Koch Industries has long funded ALEC, sponsored its meetings and had a lobbyist representative on the ALEC Private Enterprise Board. Charitable foundations associated with David and Charles have also been ALEC funders, with the Charles G. Koch Foundation giving ALEC a half-million-dollar loan in 1996.

Average Americans Pay the Price

The ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force has not only promoted anti-environmental bills, but also legislation to help industrial farms escape public accountability—which would prevent a twenty-first century Upton Sinclair from going undercover and creating a documentary work like The Jungle, which led to a new wave of food safety regulations in the early 1900s.

ALEC’s Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act was the ideological ancestor for “ag-gag” laws, introduced in nine states in 2013 to quash the First Amendment rights of reporters, investigators and videographers by making it harder for them to document issues with food safety and animal cruelty. The bills take many forms, but generally make it a crime to shoot video of a farm or slaughterhouse, or to apply for employment at these facilities under “false pretenses.”

Modern-day Upton Sinclairs have been using similar techniques as The Jungle’s author to document food safety issues—Sinclair got a job at a Chicago slaughterhouse under false pretenses so he could write his book—but are using twenty-first century tools. 

In 2007, for example, an undercover video investigation by the Humane Society showed sick “downer” cows—which are banned from human consumption because they were implicated in the spread of mad cow disease—being pushed towards slaughter with forklifts and cattle prods, leading to the largest meat recall in U.S. history.

The ALEC-influenced “ag-gag” bills seek to criminalize this type of investigation. 

In March, ALEC spokesman Bill Meierling defended the laws, telling the Associated Press,”at the end of the day it’s about personal property rights or the individual right to privacy.”

Utah passed an ag-gag law in 2012, which led to charges against a young woman named Amy Meyer, who did nothing else besides film the outside of a slaughterhouse from public land. Meyer regularly passed the slaughterhouse on her way to volunteer at an animal sanctuary, and began filming when she witnessed what appeared to be animal cruelty with possible public health repercussions: a sick (but still living) cow being carried away from the building on a tractor. The slaughterhouse owner asserted that she had trespassed, despite there being no damage to the barbed wire fence surrounding his property.

“This was the first time anyone has been charged under the ag-gag law,” Meyer told CMD. “But as long as these ag-gag laws are around, this won’t be the last prosecution, unfortunately.”

Less than 24 hours after journalist Will Potter publicized her story—but months after she was first charged—the prosecution dropped its case against Meyer.

“The only purpose [of ag-gag laws] is to punish investigators who expose animal cruelty and journalists who report on the ag industry,” she said. “These laws are intended to keep consumers in dark and shield factory farms from scrutiny.”

As written, the ALEC model bill could also criminalize environmental civil disobedience, such as when activists “obstruct” the business operations of a logging or mining facility through tree-sits or road blockades. A bill reflecting these provisions was introduced in Oregon this year to outlaw most civil disobedience against logging operations.

Polluters Stand With ALEC

Over the past year-and-a-half, at least 49 global corporations have dropped their ALEC membership—including companies like Coca-Cola, Wal-Mart and Amazon—but oil and energy companies have stood by ALEC.

“Despite its terrible reputation, ALEC is still valued by polluting companies like ExxonMobil, Duke Energy and Koch Industries, which finance and help craft ALEC’s state policies to smother competition from clean energy industries and offer handouts to fossil fuel companies at every turn,” says Greenpeace’s Gibson.

“ALEC’s guise of ‘free market environmentalism’ is just a code word for its real mission in our states’ legislatures: to allow dirty energy companies to pollute as much as they want, to attack incentives for clean energy competitors and to secure government handouts to oil, gas and coal interests,” Gibson says. “That’s not a free market.”

View the full list of 2013 bills from the ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force bills here.

ALEC Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Bills 2013

State	ALEC Bill	State Bill
AL	Energy Efficiency and Savings Act	HB 191
AZ	Environmental Literacy Improvement Act	SB 1213
AZ	Regulatory Costs Fairness Act	HB 2319
AR	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	SB 13, SB 14
AR	Property Investment Protection Act	SB 367
CO	Environmental Literacy Improvement Act	HB 13-1089
CO	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	SB 13-142
FL	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	H 745, SB 1776
ID	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	HCR 21
ID	Resolution Demanding that Congress Convey Title of Federal Public Lands to the States	HCR 22
IL	Resolution Urging the President and Congress to Act Expeditiously in Procuring a Siteor Sites for the Storage of High-Level Radioactive Waste	SR 142
IL	State Implementation Plan Requirements for Ozone and Particulate Matter Attainment	SB 1704
IL	The Common Sense Scientific and Technical Evidence Act	HB 2221
IL	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	HB 2615
IN	Agriculture Bio-Security Act	HB 1562
IN	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	SB 373, SB 391
IN	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SCR 38, SR 41
IN	Right to Farm Act	SB 571
KS	Electricity Freedom Act	HB 2241
KS	Environmental Literacy Improvement Act	HB 2306
KS	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	HCR 5014
KY	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SCR 273, HR 122
KY	Environmental Literacy Improvement Act	HB 269
LA	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SCR 115, SCR 125
MD	Environmental Services Public-Private Partnership Act	HB 560, SB 538
MI	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SCR 6
MI	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	HB 4061
MN	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SF 479, HF 987
MN	Electricity Freedom Act	HF 306
MS	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	SC 543, SR 3
MO	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	HCR 19
MO	Energy Efficiency and Savings Act	SB 26
MT	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	SJR 15
NC	Electricity Freedom Act	HB 298
NC	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	SB 648
NE	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	LB 204
NJ	Environmental Services Public-Private Partnership Act	A 4082
NM	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	SB 552
NM	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	HB 292
NM	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	HB 136
NV	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	AB 227
NY	Energy Efficiency and Savings Act	A 52, S 3854, A 758, S 2635
NY	Regulatory Costs Fairness Act	A 3216
OH	Electricity Freedom Act	SB 34
OH	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	HCR 9, SCR 7
OK	Environmental Literacy Improvement Act	HB 1674
OR	Climate Accountability Act	HB 2806
PA	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	HB 683
SC	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	HR 3552
SD	Resolution in Support of the Keystone XL Pipeline	HCR 1006
TN	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	SB 1248, HB 1191
TX	Energy Efficiency and Savings Act	HB 2746
TX	Electricity Freedom Act	HB 2026
TX	Performance Based Permitting Act	HB 2949
TX	Protecting Property Rights to Facilitate Species Conservation	SB 468, HB 3509
VT	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	S 162
WV	Verifiable Science Act	HB 3129
WV	Electricity Freedom Act	HB 2609
WY	The Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act	HB 126
WY	Resolution Supporting the Private Ownership of Property	HJ 3
WY	The Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act	SF 157
WY	Disposal and Taxation of Public Lands Act	HB 228

Visit EcoWatch’s ENERGY page for more related news on this topic.

http://ecowatch.com/2013/77-alec-bills-big-oil-ag-agenda-2013/

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Open letter from Google fellows: Google’s Troubling Alliance with Senator James Inhofe

The company betrays core principles and risks its own business success

Matthew Nisbet, Alan Townsend, Jonathan Koomey, and Julia Cole

Climate change is a grave moral challenge that cannot be addressed without smart government policy, corporate innovation, and public participation.  Leaders and citizens must collaborate in ways that transcend differences, and call out those who impede progress by denying the reality of the problem.

Recently, Google Inc. failed in this duty by hosting a July 11, 2013, fund-raiser in support of Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe’s re-election campaign.  The political gridlock that has derailed efforts to address climate change in the US owes much to Senator Inhofe.  His denial of the problem and fact-free assaults on the scientific community are designed to promote political dysfunction, to destroy the reputation of scientists, and to undermine our ability to find common ground.

Such strategies conflict with Google’s successful evidence-based, problem-solving culture, and are arguably contrary to its corporate philosophy of “Don’t Be Evil.”

In 2011, as participants in Google’s science communication fellows program, we were inspired by the company’s unique culture and investment in climate change education.  We left the Mountain View headquarters eager to apply the new tools we learned to our public outreach activities.

But Google’s recent support for Senator Inhofe forces us to seriously question the company’s commitment to climate change leadership.  This week, joined by 13 other distinguished fellows, we released an open letter to Google calling on the company to reconsider its fund-raising efforts on behalf of Senator Inhofe’s re-election.

Not only does supporting Senator Inhofe go against Google’s core principles, the company also risks its reputation.  Increasingly, consumers expect their most admired companies to “walk the walk” on climate issues.  According to a recent survey, about a quarter of Americans say that they have used their purchasing power to either reward or punish companies for their climate change track record.  An equivalent number say they have discussed what they see as a company’s irresponsible environmental behavior with friends or family.

Google’s support for Senator Inhofe has already angered consumers and looks especially bad in comparison to the recent actions of a major competitor.  In 2009, Apple quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the group’s opposition to limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.  “We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue and play a constructive role in addressing the climate crisis,” the company wrote in a letter announcing its resignation.

Earlier this year, Apple hired former Environmental Protection Administrator Lisa Jackson to expand the company’s environmental and energy initiatives.  As Apple CEO Tim Cook declared in a statement, Jackson would make Apple the “top environmental leader in the tech sector,” using its influence to “push electric utilities and governments to provide the clean energy that both Apple and America need right now.”

Apart from the possible damage to its reputation, Google’s support for Senator Inhofe matters in other ways as well. To power its operations, Google has invested heavily in energy efficiency strategies and renewable energy projects.  These investments are predicated on the idea that climate change creates business risks, and among the best actions for managing those risks is to reduce emissions.

Yet absent the proposed climate policies that Senator Inhofe and his allies have so effectively blocked, these technologies will remain more costly than they otherwise would be, limiting Google’s return on investment.  Political paralysis also muddles the ability of Google and other companies to engage in long-term planning, creating further financial risk.

The lack of international cooperation on meaningful actions to address climate change poses an even greater threat to global companies like Google, since their profits are closely tied to the performance of the world economy.  Each year we delay acting, the more vulnerable our economies become to potentially catastrophic climate change impacts and the more costly it becomes to transform our global energy system.

Large companies must – and should – work with political leaders on both sides of the aisle.  Moreover, vigorous debate over policy options and technological trade-offs will be needed if we are going to identify effective paths forward and build broad support for action.

But when political leaders like Senator Inhofe deny the problem of climate change, they do not make the problem disappear—instead, they compound it by blocking constructive solutions.  And when corporations like Google support these same political leaders, they endanger our ability to manage the climate crisis before it exacts even greater costs.

In the face of overwhelming evidence and the growing number of groups working together to address the problem, the politics of climate change are shifting.  For both economic and moral reasons, Google needs to stand on the right side of history and stop supporting those who are best known for attacking scientists, denying reality and obstructing government action.

Responsibility, however, also rests with scientists, civil society leaders, and the public.  Indeed, this may be the enduring lesson of Google’s mistake.  By speaking out when our admired companies and political leaders let us down, we are the only ones who can create the conditions where the morally right thing to do is also good for politics and business.

Matthew Nisbet is Associate Professor of Communication at American University, Washington D.C.; Alan Townsend is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado-Boulder; Jonathan Koomey is Research Fellow at the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, Stanford University; and Julia Cole is Professor of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences at The University of Arizona.

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