More Than 15,000 Scientists Protest Kyoto Accord; Speak Out Against Global Warming Myth.
Just in time for Earth Day! Al Gore's much-touted "scientific consensus" on global warming has just been exposed as phony. An unprecedented number of American scientists -- more than 15,000, including over 10,000 with advanced academic degrees -- have now signed a Petition against the climate accord concluded in Kyoto (Japan) in December 1997. The Petition urges the US government to reject the Accord, which tries to force drastic cuts in energy use on the United States. This is in line with a U.S. Senate Resolution, passed by a 95-to-0 vote last July, which turns down any Kyoto agreement that damages the economy of the United States while exempting most of the world's nations, including such major emerging economic powers as China, India, and Brazil.
The Petition is also in line with resolutions passed by state legislatures, labor unions, industry associations, and consumer groups, who base their objections to Kyoto restrictions mainly on economic grounds -- an expected slow-down of economic growth and huge job losses, because of drastically higher energy costs, with gasoline prices rising by as much as a dollar. Many citizens and organizations also object to the prospective loss of national sovereignty -- with international inspectors monitoring energy use by businesses, municipalities, and even the US military, and with UN courts imposing sanctions and fines on Americans who do not abide by UN-established quotas and regulations.
In signing the Petition within a period of less than six weeks, the 15,000 basic and applied scientists also expressed their profound skepticism about the science underlying the Kyoto Accord. The available atmospheric data simply do not support the elaborate computer-driven climate models that are being cited by the United Nations and other promoters of the Accord as "proof" of a major future warming. A covering letter enclosed with the Petition, signed by Dr. Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and a past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, makes this quite clear: "The treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful."
The freely expressed vote of so many scientists against the warming scare propaganda should be contrasted with the claimed "consensus of 2500 climate scientists" about global warming. (LINK This facile and oft-quoted assertion by the White House is a complete fabrication. The contributors and reviewers of the 1996 report by the UN-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) actually number less than 2000, and only a small fraction -- who were never even polled -- can claim to be climate scientists. The IPCC lists them by nationality, ranging from Albania all the way to Zimbabwe -- countries not exactly in the forefront of atmospheric research. Further, many of the so-called consenting IPCC scientists are known to be critical of the IPCC report and have signed the Petition opposing the Kyoto Accord.
It was Dr. Seitz' essay in the Wall Street Journal ("A Major Deception on `Global Warming'," June 12, 1996), which first drew public attention to the textual "cleansing" of the UN scientific report that forms the basis for the Kyoto Accord. For details on the unannounced text changes and how they distorted the sense of the IPCC report, consult www.sepp.org/ipcccont/ipcccont.html.
In 1992, over 4000 scientists worldwide signed the Heidelberg Appeal to heads of states who were meeting in Rio de Janeiro to approve a Framework Convention on Climate Change; the Appeal warned of the inadequate scientific base for such a global treaty. The Oregon-initiated Petition drive is the latest and largest effort by rank-and-file scientists to express their opposition to schemes to subvert science to political agenda.
The Petition is a signal event; it has blown the claimed "scientific consensus" clear out of the water. Expect therefore to see a lot of attacks on various details surrounding the Petition -- not just from the Sierra Club and the Union of Confused Scientists. This Petition is going to upset a lot of people who have avoided debating the science and sought refuge by quoting numbers -- like the list glued together by Jane Lubchenco, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, who managed to link the AAAS to the eco-pressure group Ozone Action.
Tune in next week for a report on the action...
TW^2 is compiled by SEPP staff.
Click here to post a public comment on the Trash Talk Bulletin Board. Click here to send a private comment to the Junkman.
Material presented on this home page constitutes opinion of the author.
Copyright © 1998 Steven J. Milloy. All rights reserved. Site developed and hosted by WestLake Solutions, Inc.