It is not often that a letter by a politician makes me laugh out loud, but Roger Helmer's latest attempt to claim that there is no scientific consensus about man-made climate change was exceptional. He quotes the same two tired, discredited sources, Fred Singer and the Oregon Declaration.
First let me deal with Fred Singer, the 'distinguished American atmospheric physicist'. Notorious would be a more accurate description; now 83 years old, he has made a career of being sceptical about the need for environmental protection measures. Cu
rrently best known for his vociferous denial that there is any link between burning fossil fuels and climate change, he has been equally active in denying any links between CFCs and ozone depletion, and between tobacco smoke and lung cancer.
He is currently director of the Science and Environmental Policy Project, which he founded, and is associated with a number of other lobby groups, including the American Council on Science and Health, Frontiers of Freedom, the George C Marshall Institute, the National Centre for Policy Analysis, all of which have received generous grants from the oil giant ExxonMobil. His original degree is in electrical engineering, with a PhD in Physics. He is not and never was a climatologist, so it is not so surprising that the expert climatologists responsible for producing the IPCC report do not accept his 'corrections'.
The Oregon Declaration is more commonly referred to as the Oregon Petition, first circulated in 1998, calling on the US government to reject the Kyoto Treaty and all similar proposals. Anyone can sign, the only requirement is that signatories should have a degree; this does not even have to be a science degree, let alone have any relevance to climatology. When the first list of signatories was published it included such eminent 'scientists' as Ginger Spice and the cast of MASH. It is circulated by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, run by bio-chemist and fundamentalist Christian Arthur Robinson. OISM also markets a home-schooling kit for "parents concerned about socialism in the public schools" and sells books on how to survive a nuclear war. Requests to sign the petition come with a letter from Frederick Seitz, chairman of the Science and Environmental Policy Project and Chairman Emeritus of the George C Marshall Foundation.
Yes, that's the same SEPP that Fred Singer founded and directs; the same Marshall Institute that Fred Singer has worked for. Contrary to what Roger Helmer would have us believe, the world of the climate sceptics really is very small indeed.
Janet Miller
Buxton
The full article contains 429 words and appears in Buxton Advertiser newspaper.
