An incredible 31,072 Americans with university degrees in
science, including 9,021 Ph.D.s, have signed a petition that
flatly denies Al Gore’s claims that human-caused global
warming is a settled scientific fact.
Gore calls scientists and others who question the reality
of human-caused global warming “deniers” and claims they are a
tiny minority among the scientific community who he insists
almost universally agree that the planet is being threatened
by the alleged warming of the earth.
Gore told CBS’ Leslie Stahl on "60 Minutes" recently, "I
think those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with
their point of view. They're almost like the ones who still
believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in
Arizona and those who believe the world is flat."
These 31,072 scientists do not believe the world is flat,
and they say there is no convincing scientific evidence that
so-called greenhouse gasses are causing catastrophic heating
of the earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s
climate.
On Monday, Dr. Arthur Robinson of the Oregon Institute of
Science and Medicine, (OISM) announced the results of a drive
asking scientists to sign a petition stating: “We urge the
United States government to reject the global warming
agreement that was written in Kyoto Japan in December 1997,
and any other similar proposals. The proposed limit on
greenhouse gasses would harm the environment, hinder the
advance of science and technology, and damage the health and
welfare of mankind.”
The petition went on to say, “There is no convincing
scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide,
methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s
atmosphere and disruption of the earth’s climate. Moreover,
there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in
atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects
upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”
Robinson explained that the purpose of OISM’s petition
project is to demonstrate that the claim of “settled science”
and an overwhelming “consensus” in favor of the hypothesis of
human-caused global warming and consequent climate damage is
wrong.
Despite Gore’s extravagant claims, the petition shows that
no such consensus or settled science exists.
In 2001, OISM circulated what was known as the Oregon
Petition, and according to Lawrence Solomon, executive
director of Energy Probe and author of “The Deniers: The
World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming
Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud,” that effort,
spearheaded by Dr. Frederick Seitz, past president of the
National Academy of Sciences and of Rockefeller University,
gathered an astounding 17,800 signatures.
To establish that the effort was bona fide, and not spawned
by kooks on the fringes of science, as global warming
advocates often label the skeptics, the 2001 effort was
spearheaded by Dr. Seitz, a towering figure in the world of
science.
Solomon wrote, “The Oregon Petition garnered an astounding
17,800 signatures, a number all the more astounding because of
the unequivocal stance that these scientists took: Not only
did they dispute that there was convincing evidence of harm
from carbon dioxide emissions, they asserted that Kyoto itself
would harm the global environment because increases in
atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects
upon the natural plant and animal environments of the earth.”
According to Dr. Robinson, “As indicated by the petition
text and signatory list, a very large number of American
scientists reject this hypothesis.”
Solomon asked, “How many scientists does it take to
establish that a consensus does not exist on global warming?”
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