Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Climate Science?
"You have signed the death warrant of science."
Last week a group of 20 very alarmed climate scientists revealed that they had sent a letter to President Barack Obama, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director John Holdren asking for a civil investigataion into companies and organizations that publicly express doubt about predictions of impending catastrophic man-made global warming pursuant to the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act. The letter specifically urged that the administration launch …
…a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America's response to climate change. …
The methods of these organizations are quite similar to those used earlier by the tobacco industry. A RICO investigation (1999 to 2006) played an important role in stopping the tobacco industry from continuing to deceive the American people about the dangers of smoking. If corporations in the fossil fuel industry and their supporters are guilty of the misdeeds that have been documented in books and journal articles, it is imperative that these misdeeds be stopped as soon as possible so that America and the world can get on with the critically important business of finding effective ways to restabilize the Earth's climate, before even more lasting damage is done.
Georgia Tech climatologist Judith Curry quotes an email her colleague Peter Webster sent to one of the letter's signatories: You have signed the death warrant for science. Maybe not a death warrant, but certainly a new low in politicizing science.