From Climategate to Courtroom – How Climate Activists Tip the Scales of Justice – Watts Up With That?

Let’s not mince words: What’s been unearthed in this Fox News exposé “Unearthed chat sheds light on cozy ties between judges, climate activists, raising ethical concerns” is nothing less than a blueprint for how climate activists have sought to quietly “capture” the American judiciary, in a style remarkably reminiscent of the infamous Climategate affair of 2009, which we first broke here on this very website. If Climategate was the exposure of insular groupthink, manipulation, and data gatekeeping in the scientific community, what we’re seeing here is the systematic application of those tactics—this time, targeting the judges who ultimately decide climate-related lawsuits.

At the center of this latest scandal is the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP), an initiative launched in 2018 by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI)—itself a left-wing nonprofit flush with activist funding, some of it allegedly traceable to China. CJP’s mission? To provide what it calls “authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.” What this means in practice is quietly coaching judges on the “consensus” climate narrative, prepping them to be more sympathetic to creative activist litigation—then, lo and behold, those very same funders bankroll the lawsuits that land before these freshly-indoctrinated judges.

As Senator Ted Cruz aptly put it: “This is like paying the players to play and paying the umpire to call the shots the way you want”.

The article lays out the mechanics: in September 2022, CJP launched a “listserv”—an email group with direct, ongoing communication between CJP leaders and judges nationwide. By July 2024, there were 29 members, including at least five sitting judges. The forum, innocuously called “Judicial Leaders in Climate Science,” included private sharing of climate lawsuits, congratulatory messages for activist wins, and guidance for other judges on how to run similar programs in their states.

One Delaware judge even posted a private YouTube link to a presentation giddily predicting climate lawsuits could one day bankrupt the fuel industry, with the explicit warning: “Please do not forward or use without checking with me. I suspect that goes without saying, but the powers that be will be happier that I said it.” The closed-door, chummy dynamic is obvious—and telling.

This is nothing more than indoctrination masquerading as education. CJP and its defenders, of course, insist their purpose is purely educational and objective. They claim their curriculum is “fact-based and science-first, grounded in consensus reports and developed with a robust peer review process”. But let’s be real: what’s passed off as neutral “climate education” is heavily slanted to reinforce a specific worldview, presenting worst-case climate scenarios as settled science, and framing any dissent or nuance as heresy. The program even encouraged judges to go through CJP’s prepackaged “Climate Science 101” and “Climate Litigation 101” courses, and send feedback to help make them even more effective.

There’s a distinctly unseemly aspect here: the very people training the judges are often also involved in crafting and arguing the lawsuits that appear before those same judges. The ELI and CJP’s “experts” include university professors and lawyers who have filed numerous amicus briefs in climate litigation. The potential for bias isn’t just present—it’s the entire point.

Let’s not sugarcoat it: what we’re witnessing is an effort to purchase not just favorable coverage in the press or within academia, but to buy the rulebook and the referees themselves. In the wake of Climategate, we saw how a tight circle of activists could warp the scientific process by excluding dissenting voices and manufacturing consensus. Now, the same techniques—gatekeeping, narrative control, the selective sharing of “evidence”—are being applied in a backdoor campaign to ensure judges are only exposed to the “right” sort of climate science and litigation logic.

It’s a method that could be described as “judicial capture,” and Senator Cruz was absolutely correct to raise alarm bells. The CJP’s program, far from being an innocuous continuing education effort, is a systematic campaign to get judges to “set aside the rule of law, and rule instead according to a predetermined political narrative”.

The parallels to Climategate are striking:

• Secrecy: Both scandals relied on private communication channels—email servers, listservs, or “chats” out of public view.
• Consensus Enforcement: Dissenting voices are shunned, and only the party line is reinforced.
• Manipulation of Process: In Climategate, it was peer review and grant allocation; here, it’s the judicial training process.
• Downplaying of Bias: In both cases, organizers insist their motives are objective, but the outcomes and incentives are plainly not.

The article highlights that even some judges expressed unease at the ethical implications. Back in 2019, a federal judge who hit “reply all” to an ELI climate seminar invite was chastised by colleagues, some of whom considered it an ethics violation. Others, predictably, said there was nothing to see here. But as Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Zack Smith points out, the trend of “educating” judges on hot-button issues they will later preside over is, in itself, an invitation to bias and a violation of impartiality.

And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. The surge in climate litigation over the past several years—including multimillion-dollar lawsuits against oil companies and federal agencies—has coincided with the CJP’s ramped-up training and networking among judges. The timing is no coincidence.

The CJP claims its curriculum is developed with “robust peer review” and “meets the highest scholarly standards.” Where have we heard this before? The same line of bullshit was used to defend the emails and manipulations unearthed in Climategate—right up until it became clear that the process was anything but open and objective.

The reality is that so-called “consensus science” on climate change is precisely what is being weaponized here. The CJP’s material leans heavily on government reports that emphasize “impacts of climate change are being felt throughout all regions of the United States, and these impacts are expected to worsen with every fraction of a degree of additional warming”—ignoring the massive uncertainties, the role of natural variability, and the checkered history of failed predictions.

Why does this matter? Because, just as with Climategate, when process is corrupted and objectivity is lost, the damage ripples far beyond a single forum or group chat. Judicial decisions informed by activist “training” can result in massive financial penalties, policy overreach, and the further erosion of public trust in both science and the courts. And it’s always done under the guise of saving the planet—no matter the economic or human cost.

The secretive networking exposed by Fox News is not an isolated slip-up; it’s a feature, not a bug, of the activist playbook. When the same group of climate partisans can train the judges, coordinate the lawsuits, and then claim neutrality all the while, we have gone far beyond the realm of legitimate policy debate. This is judicial capture by stealth.

If Climategate taught us anything, it’s that sunlight remains the best disinfectant. Only by exposing these networks and demanding transparency can we hope to restore some semblance of integrity to both climate science and the courts.

Let’s call it what it is: not education, but indoctrination—an attempt to buy the judiciary, one closed-door “training” at a time.

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