My Research into “Climate Denier” Letters, Reports

Last weekend I looked into some of the signers of the most recent letter to Congress from scientists who believe we should not take action to protect against climate change. This letter, dated February 8, urges congress to not take action on climate change and has 41 signers and 41 endorsers that come from backgrounds ranging from marketing (Scott Armstrong) to geophysics (like Syun-Ichi Akasofu) to an expert on combustion from the bureau of mines (Martin Hertzberg). The names that stick out to me are Anthony Lupo (MU Professor), Patrick Michaels, Roger Cohen, and Fred Singer among others because they have reportedly received funding from Exxon-supported foundations like Competitive Enterprise Institute according to Greenpeace.

Additionally, an alarming number of the signers are retired, 14 of the 41. That means over a third of the signers are no longer engaged in the current science. I also looked through desmogblog’s examination of the singers of this letter and their subsequent profiles on many of the signers. Desmogblog pins Tom Harris as the organizer of the letter, a person characterized as a PR man, who is also not engaged in the science.

When Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) introduced his amendment to the budget that defunded the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), he mentioned that 700 scientists have challenged the claims of the IPCC. Indeed all the scientists listed have disputed the idea of man-made warming, but not all scientists are equally credible.  TheDailyGreen.com takes a look at the names on the list of 400 that was originally published in 2007 and found 84 of them with connections to fossil fuel industry and 70 with no background in climate science.

I also found the “740 page report” that Luetkemeyer refers to in his speech on the House floor called “Climate Change Reconsidered”. He actually held this book up and claimed, “More than 700 acclaimed international scientists have challenged the claims made by the IPCC in this comprehensive, independent, 740 page report.” The report is actually written by 39 dissenting scientists from the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. This group receives funding from the Heartland Institute, which in turn received $676,500 between 1998 and 2006 from Exxon Mobil.

This information is part of an ongoing look into certain claims made by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer. It is part of an assignment for my ‘Covering Energy and Climate Change Class’. This is not a final report, just a piece of the pertinent research I found interesting.