Bernie Sanders - Must Read: Scientists to Smithsonian: Cut ties with Koch brothers ...

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Three dozen scientists sent an open letter to museums of natural history calling on them to cut ties with the Koch brothers and anyone else with connections to the fossil fuel industry.

In the letter, and a subsequent petition related specifically to the billionaire Koch brothers, the scientists contend that museums of science and natural history should not be associated with “those who profit from fossil fuels or fund lobby groups that misrepresent climate science.”

The petition specifically calls for David Koch to be kicked off the boards of the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The movement is being organized by a new “mobile” museum called The Natural History Museum, on a 15-passenger bus.

They plan to present the petitions to the museums in New York and D.C. before their respective spring board meetings.

David Koch, the billionaire conservative donor and executive vice president of Koch Industries, donated $35 million in 2012 for a new dinosaur hall at the Smithsonian’s Natural History museum. He had previously given $15 million to the museum’s hall of human origins that is named for him. In New York’s museum, he donated $20 million to the dinosaur wing that is also named after him.