Internecine Climate-Denier Lawsuit Settles for $630K

In a saga to warm the hearts of environmentalists everywhere, the board of directors of an aggressive climate-change skeptic group called the “Free Market Environmental Law Clinic” has been embroiled in a legal battle with its former board chair, David Schnare. FMELC has made a name for itself by obtaining emails from climate scientists and alleging fraud. According to an article in the Canada-based website DeSmogBlog, Schnare was accused of “financial misconduct, of trying to conceal the group’s financial history, and then of demanding payments in return for staying quiet.” Further details about the lawsuits and the events that precipitated them were laid out several months ago in a New York Times article. “Neither side recognized the other’s claim of control, so the fight began with Free Market essentially suing itself,” the Times said, adding that the judge appeared relieved when he was able to consolidate what were then three lawsuits under a single judge who would not be him. After the settlement was announced, Schnare told DeSmog that the allegations against him were baseless, a contention that he maintained was essentially memorialized in the settlement. But a current board member of the FMELC, Matthew Hardin, disagrees. He told DeSmog that Schnare settled “to get out from under” the lawsuit, and that his comments about it “seem to bear no relation to either the suits or the settlement.”