When I started interviewing farmers in the midwest about their difficulties in getting clean energy sited on their land, what hit me like a two by four was the similarities to the stories I heard 10 years before from climate scientists.
Both groups were being subjected to death threats, harassment, vilification in the press (local papers for the farmers), rumor campaigns on line, accusations of wrongdoing.
For instance, scientists like Michael Mann was threatened with prosecution by Republican Senator James Inhofe for nonsense accusations of wrongdoing.
One farmer I spoke to told me about someone calling the Michigan DNR and falsely reporting him for improper burning.
Both scientists and farmers spoke of death threats against themselves and their families.
It turns out there was a common thread.
We know that the very same organizations that targeted scientists a decade ago, have been involved organizing the threats against farmers and landowners today.
In 2012, The Guardian published documents describing a conference in Washington DC that brought together right wing activists from across the country, and trained them in a set of tactics to deploy against clean energy in their communities.
The conference organizer, then known as the American Traditions Institute, had been active in harassing and persecuting climate scientists. ATI has since been rebranded as “E & E Legal”. One of the leading organizers of anti clean energy activity in the midwest, Kevon Martis, was one of the original trainees, and continues to be extremely active in this space. Mr Martis had made legal threats against me and several others I know who have had the temerity to question him.
Susan Goldenberg in the Guardian, 2012:
A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama’s energy agenda.
A number of rightwing organisations, including Americans for Prosperity, which is funded by the billionaire Koch brothers, are attacking Obama for his support for solar and wind power. The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), which also has financial links to the Kochs, has drafted bills to overturn state laws promoting wind energy.
Now a confidential strategy memo seen by the Guardian advises using “subversion” to build a national movement of wind farm protesters.
The strategy proposal was prepared by a fellow of the American Tradition Institute (ATI) – although the thinktank has formally disavowed the project.
ATI is part of a loose coalition of ultra-conservative thinktanks and networks united by their efforts to discredit climate science and their close connections to the oil and gas industry, including the Koch family. Those groups include the Heartland Institute, the John Locke Foundation, and Americans for Prosperity, the organising arm of the Tea Party movement.
ATI is a relatively new entrant, coming to national attention only last year when it filed lawsuits against climate scientists including Michael Mann and James Hansen.