Many of you have probably heard of Ron Paul’s recent statement in Congress regarding a petition signed by thousands of scientists claiming that there was no scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, no evidence that burning hydrocarbons was harmful, and, in fact, evidence that burning hydrocarbons would be beneficial for the Earth. The purpose of this statement was to persuade the American people to reject the cap-and-trade bill being negotiated in Congress.
I was skeptical of this petition. I did a little research to find out its legitimacy. Before long I discovered that it was an updated edition of the Oregon Petition, which was created to persaude America to reject Kyoto.
The Oregon Petition has some major problems. Firstly, attached to the petition was an article supporting its claims. The article was designed to look just like an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a reputable peer-reviewed journal. However, the article was created by three skeptics and was not peer-reviewed at all. The NAS was subject to a lot of inquiries and controversy following the publication of this petition. It eventually had to publish a statement saying that the NAS had nothing to do with the article.
Secondly, the petition could be signed by scientists from any discipline, even if they had no experience studying climatology. As British physics student Michael Ashcroft writes,
“The problem is that, as science is such a vast field, you can spend your entire life studying one branch of science and still know absolutely nothing about another. For example, I am a physics student, and I can honestly say that I know nothing about medicine. I also wouldn’t expect an ecologist to understand the processes behind the formation of stars, for example.This is precisely what the Petition Project does assume, though. If we look at the qualifications of the signers, we see that even medical doctors are eligible to sign. Take a look. Some of the more amusing backgrounds, that supposedly give these people enough special knowledge about global warming to deny its existence, include:
Mathematics – without a special interest in the climate, this is worthless in the field.
Physics – I have almost finished a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and there has been only one, optional course about “Environmental Physics”, so I can argue from experience that a degree in Physics does not necessarily equip someone with the information they may need to decry global warming.
Biology – unless there’s a large degree of specialisation of the effects of climate change on some biological variable (growth, change of ecosystems etc), this has no bearing on the subject.
Medicine – What?!
Aerospace Engineering – I happen to live with an Aeronautical Engineering student, who has had no training in any environmental subjects whatsoever.
Computer Science – see Aerospace Engineering
It is like asking celebrities what they think of the economy of Chad. They may be famous, and therefore carry some weight, but their opinions are nothing more than opinion. Asking “Dr X” what he thinks of the manufacture of steel may be all well and good, except that “Dr X” has a PhD in ancient history. He may be qualified in something, but it is misleading to assume that because he is a doctor of something, he must know everything about everything.”
Thirdly, the scientists who did sign may have been misrepresented. An article in Scientific American conducted a study regarding the participants.
“Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition—one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers; a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.”
The Seattle Times also investigated the Orgeon Petition, and found that some questionable people had signed.
“Several environmental groups questioned dozens of the names: “Perry S. Mason” (the fictitious lawyer?), “Michael J. Fox” (the actor?), “Robert C. Byrd” (the senator?), “John C. Grisham” (the lawyer-author?). And then there’s the Spice Girl, a k a. Geraldine Halliwell: The petition listed “Dr. Geri Halliwell” and “Dr. Halliwell.”
Asked about the pop singer, Robinson said he was duped. The returned petition, one of thousands of mailings he sent out, identified her as having a degree in microbiology and living in Boston. “It’s fake,” he said.
“When we’re getting thousands of signatures there’s no way of filtering out a fake,” Robinson, 56, said in a telephone interview from Oregon.”
Finally, for a more thorough and visually appealing analysis of the Oregon Petition, including the motives and credibility of its creators, I’d encourage you all to watch this video by Peter Sinclair.
We should all assess the credibility of the Petition Project. Its first revision has some major problems. Should we trust it a second time? Can it compare with the G8 Statement, the Joint Academies’ Statments versions I and II, the survey of individual climatologists by Doran and Zimmerman, and the dozens of other organizations that have made indepent statements?
Which statements truly reflect the opinion of the scientific community?
ClimateSight 
Consensus doesn’t matter!
Unless its the one we like!
Mister Kettle meet Mister Pot!
Did Richard Linzen sign this petition? That would be so wonderfull.
Pat
My point if it is not clear is that Mr. Lindzen and other skeptics have reacted with what I would call scorn to the consensus position. Without evidence that has stood the test of scientific scrutiny.
Pat
Is an alphabetical list available of those who signed the Oregon Petition?
You’re right the Oregon Petition is not trustworthy at all. As a matter of fact, I know a fellow environmentalist who fraudulently signed the petition just to help sabotage and discredit it. With this kind of subterfuge going on, no wonder the public has lost it trust in the Green Movement. We seem to find a way of self destructing just when get to the end-zone. Remember when we got some US Judge to declare C02 a toxic pollutant? I think that was the worst mistake we’ve ever made, even the most die-hard environmentalists didn’t believe that one, neither did anyone else, and it continues to damage our credibility.
Hi Ken, thanks for your comment. I’m not sure if “toxic pollutant” is the right word for carbon dioxide, as it is not directly harmful to health – it’s only when its concentration changes dramatically that harmful events occur. It’s very different from something like dioxin!
I had a reminder recently that not everyone who cites the petition or the “numerous dissenting scientists” really knows the petition or can name a scientist. This type of person isn’t practiced in denialism, but rather just a victim of the propoganda. I was giving a climate-related presention (amateur stuff) recently and I had a person ask about “all the dissenting scientists”. I told the story of one climatologist’s press release about his paper, the failure of the paper to turn up in Nature, and it’s pillory by Tim Lambert (scienceblogs.com/deltoid/) for mixing degrees and radians; and that one detailed story, face-to-face, weighed equally if not more with this person.
jg
Hi John,
I haven’t heard that story before, and couldn’t find the relevant post on the blog you linked to. Can you give me more detail? It sounds interesting.
Here’s a link to Deltoid in regard to the Mckitrick and Michaels (degrees-radians mix-up) paper I alluded to in the first comment:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2004/08/mckitrick6.php
Deltoid
Somewhere I have an electronic copy of the press release. If I can find it, I’ll share, but Deltoid covers the issue well enough.
jg
Oh my goodness…what an isane story! I can’t believe it actually passed through peer-review….what an elementary mistake…..or deliberate deception?……
…and so when I shared this story with the person who asked “what about all the dissenting scientists….” I ended with “I don’t judge M&M by the error–that happens; rather, I judge them by the tone of the press release made before the article was accepted.”
jg
Found you by way of your comment at IllConsidered. I’m another of those (petitioning on climate, in two parts last July) who’ve taken a look at the petition project. My line being to consider whether the ‘30,000’ signers constitute a large number. Outcome is, since they include anybody who ever got at least a bachelor’s degree in engineering or medicine, or a number of other areas, 30,000 is a very small number. Just counting engineering and medicine, more than 2.8 million (the number of people currently working in those fields) people are considered ‘eligible’ to sign. So only at most 1% of the people OISM consider eligible, have signed. That’s junk mail.
n.b. some other comments:
I included links to the OISM petition itself (a work of art, you’ll discover no science content is involved) and the lists of signatories in my posts last july.
I believe that Lindzen has indeed signed the petition. (again, see what the statement actually is).
Hi Robert, thanks for coming. I really like your website; I’ve added it to my favourites and plan on reading through all the archives. You have some great posts; I’d encourage all ClimateSight readers to go check it out (click on the link attached to Robert’s name).
the problem with the whole debate is there is none. The “As British physics student Michael Ashcroft writes” statement above is classic, here we have a physics student with no discipline in climatology saying that those who have signed have no discipline in climatology. The IPCC includes in its list of groups that agree with it’s findings as varied as Vet’s,Medical,Farming and so on while we argue that you can not include a Medical group on the against side as it does not have climatology credentials. I am on the fence and believe that the politicians and enviro groups should all shut up and let the scientists do what they are supposed to do investigate.
[inflammatory re CRU]
[inflammatory]
[inflammatory]
[citations needed – scientists don’t consider solar activity or past climate change]
It is patently obvious which side the vast majority of the evidence lies: that human beings are changing the climate as a rate unprecedented in the planet’s history save for a few catastrophic events like meteor collisions. Anyone arguing against this perspective is either naive, conflicted or ignorant. But putting that COMPLETELY aside, it is obvious that using limited resources like fuel in an efficient way and limiting negative side effects like pollution is the most economic, intelligent and sustainable approach any society can take. It can only be assumed that the deniers just really hate America or perhaps hate humankind and wish an early demise.
How is the comment from “Rational Independent” not inflammatory? He says that anybody who disagrees whith him hates America or perhaps even hates humankind? Seriously? Rational? Independent? What a joke!