By Julia Conley. Cross-posted from Common Dreams, CC BY-SA 3.0 US

More than 200 scientists have called on the American Museum of Natural History to cut ties with board member Rebekah Mercer, the billionaire backer of President Donald Trump who has also funded “climate denial” groups in order to protect the fossil fuel industry's pollution-causing extraction of oil and gas.

“We ask the American Museum of Natural History, and all public science museums, to end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation, and to have Rebekah Mercer leave the American Museum of Natural History Board of Trustees,” wrote the group, which includes James Hansen, who first brought climate change to the U.S. government's attention in 1988, and other prominent researchers.