“Few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change.The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear.”
— PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, NOVEMBER 19 , 2008
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
We, the undersigned scientists, maintain that the case for alarm regarding climate change is grossly overstated. Surface temperature changes over the past century have been episodic and modest and there has been no net global warming for over a decade now.1,2 After controlling for population growth and property values, there has been no increase in damages from severe weather-related events.3 The computer models forecasting rapid temperature change abjectly fail to explain recent climate behavior.4 Mr. President, your characterization of the scientific facts regarding climate change and the degree of certainty informing the scientific debate is simply incorrect.
- Yun Akusofu, Ph.D University Of Alaska
- Arthur G. Anderson, Ph.D, Director Of Research, IBM (retired)
- Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D Anderson Materials Evaluation
- J. Scott Armstrong, Ph.D, University Of Pennsylvania
- Robert Ashworth, Clearstack LLC
- Ismail Baht, Ph.D, University Of Kashmir
- Colin Barton Csiro (retired)
- David J. Bellamy, OBE, The British Natural Association
- John Blaylock, Los Alamos National Laboratory (retired)
- (The list includes over 85 scientists of worldwide renown.)
Footnotes
- Swanson, K.L., and A. A. Tsonis. Geophysical Research Letters, in press: DOI:10.1029/2008GL037022.
- Brohan, P., et al. Journal of Geophysical Research, 2006: DOI: 10.1029/2005JD006548. Updates at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature.
- Pielke, R. A. Jr., et al. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2005: DOI: 10.1175/BAMS-86-10-1481.
- Douglass, D. H., et al. International Journal of Climatology, 2007: DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651.
Tom Motherway