Thursday, April 13, 2006

Canadian 'skeptics'

Heard the one about the '60 leading scientists' who don't think climate change is real?

The National Post published this letter from signed by 60 scientists (well, at least 2 are economists, but who's counting?).

I don't normally read the Post, but I found references in other media to these 'leading scientists', and tracked down the letter. I was curious who these people were - how do they know each other, and who coordinated this letter? Anyway, after a bit of searching I found that at least some of them are affiliated with a group called Friends of Science. Clearly, this is a group dedicated to not believing in global warming. I found at least one reference to the Fraser Institute on their website, which sent up another red flag.

According to the website SourceWatch, the FoS domain name "registered to Charles Simpson, a "retired oil industry employee"."

Follow the Money
There's more interesting information on Tim Ball (a FoS member, and signatory to the letter) in this article by Daniel Gutstein. It seems that a lot of Mr. Ball's work is sponsored by coal and oil companies. What a surprise!

And the other side...
Here is a more detailed description of what is wrong with this letter. Way to go Joanna! What she said!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Finally some good news. Released today, a letter from Canadian scientists to the PM urging action on climate change, and warning that the situation is much worse than feared. This is a good counter move to that letter from the 'oil lobby' scientists who probably all went to the Ronald Reagan School of Environmental Studies where they learned that trees cause acid rain.

denuma

LNeumann said...

Thanks for pointing this out. Here's a link to an article that talks about this letter.