Groups Want David Koch Unseated from Smithsonian, AMNH Boards

A new campaign urging science museums to cut ties with David Koch has thrown a spotlight on the billionaire Koch brothers' enormous philanthropic footprint and their oil interests, as they continue to undercut climate science, environmental regulations and clean energy.

Fifteen non-profits, including the Sierra Club, Greenpeace and Daily Kos, launched a petition calling on the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum and the American Museum of Natural History in New York to remove David Koch from their boards of directors, because "he bankrolls groups that deny climate science."  The non-profits cite a letter to museums, also sent Tuesday, by more than 30 scientists asking for a severing of ties to all fossil fuel interests.

David Koch's considerable donations to the country's two premier natural history museums are part of the Koch family's wide-ranging philanthropy.  The family has delivered hundreds of millions of dollars to leading cultural, medical and academic institutions over the last 40 years, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lincoln Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

David and his brother Charles have also emerged as the nation's top donors to a vast array of libertarian-conservative politicians and causes, creating and sustaining a large, influential network of advocacy groups and right-wing think tanks.  Among the top causes championed by Koch-backed groups and individuals are climate denial and opposition to climate-friendly policies.

As the Kochs' political agenda has grown clearer and more muscular, their philanthropy is raising questions about how museums, medical centers and universities can accept money from donors whose business and political dealings are often in direct opposition to the institutions' missions.

"It is one thing for David Koch to give money to Lincoln Center or Carnegie Hall, but it is quite another to support a science/natural history museum that has a role to play in doing research on, and helping educate the public about, climate change, the greatest threat ever to confront humanity," Nobel laureate Eric Chivian, a signer of the letter, said in a statement. "The philanthropy serves to silence any criticism of the practices of the donor, and even, any critical discussion of the issue."

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