WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY 27, 1992---As independent scientists, researching atmospheric and climate problems, we are concerned by the agenda for UNCED, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, being developed by environmental activist groups and certain political leaders. This so-called Earth Summit is scheduled to convene in Brazil in June 1992 and aims to impose a system of global environmental regulations, including onerous taxes on energy fuels, on the population of the United States and other industrialized nations.
Such policy initiatives derive from highly uncertain scientific theories. They are based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action. We do not agree.
A survey of U.S. atmospheric scientists, conducted in the summer of 1991, confirms that there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century. A recently published research paper even suggests that sunspot variability, rather than a rise in greenhouse gases, is responsible for the global temperature increases and decreases recorded since about 1880.
Furthermore, the majority of scientific participants in the survey agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record. Yet all predictions are based on such theoretical models.
Finally, agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.
We are disturbed that activists, anxious to stop energy and economic growth, are pushing ahead with drastic policies without taking notice of recent changes in the underlying science. We fear that the rush to impose global regulations will have catastrophic impacts on the world economy, on jobs, standards of living, and health care, with the most severe consequences falling upon developing countries and the poor.
David G. Aubrey, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Woods Hole Oceanographic InstituteNathaniel B. Guttman, Ph.D., Research Physical Scientist, National Climatic Data Center
Hugh W. Ellsaesser, Ph.D., Meteorologist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Richard Lindzen, Ph.D., Center for Meteorology and Physical Meteorology, M.l.T.
Robert C. Balling, Ph.D., Director, Laboratory of Climatology, Arizona State University
Patrick Michaels, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Environmental Sciences, University of Virginia
Roger Pielke, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University
Michael Garstang, Ph.D., Professor of Meteorology, University of Virginia
Sherwood B. Idso, Ph.D., Research Physicist, U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory
Lev S. Gandin, Ph.D., UCAR Scientist, National Meteorological Center
John A. McGinley, Chief, Forecast Research Group, Forecast Systems Laboratory, NOAA
H. Jean Thiebaux, Ph.D., Research Scientist, National Meteorological Center, National
Weather Service, NOM
Kenneth V. Beard, Ph.D., Professor of Atmospheric Physics, University of Illinois
Paul W. Mielke, Jr., Ph.D., Professor, Dept. of Statistics, Colorado State University
Thomas Lockhart, Meteorologist, Meteorological Standards Institute
Peter F. Giddings, Meteorologist, Weather Service Director
Hazen A. Bedke, Meteorologist, Former Regional Director, National Weather Service
Gabriel T. Csanady, Ph.D., Eminent Professor, Old Dominion University
Roy Leep, Executive Weather Director, Gillett Weather Data Services
Terrance J. Clark, Meteorologist, U.S. Air Force
Neil L Frank, Ph.D., Meteorologist
Michael S. Uhart, Ph.D., Meteorologist, National Weather Service
Bruce A. Boe, Ph.D., Director, North Dakota Atmospheric Resource Board
Andrew Detwiler, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof., Institute of Atmospheric Sciences, S. Dakota
School of Mines & Technology
Robert M. Cunningham, Consulting Meteorologist, Fellow, American Meteorological Society
Steven R. Hanna, Ph.D., Sigma Research Corporation
Elliot Abrams, Meteorologist, Senior Vice President, AccuWeather, Inc.
William E. Reifenyder, Ph.D., Consulting Meteorologist, Professor Emeritus, Forest
Meteorology, Yale University
David W. Reynolds, Research Meteorologist
Jerry A. Williams, Meteorologist, President, Oceanroutes, Inc.
Lee W. Eddington, Meteorologist, Geophysics Division, Pacific Missile Test Center
Werner A. Baum, Ph.D., former Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, Florida State University
David P. Rogers, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor of Research Oceanography, Scripps Institution of
Oceanography
Brian Fiedler, Ph.D., Asst. Professor of Meteorology, School of Meteorology, University of
Oklahoma
Edward A. Brandes, Meteorologist
Melvyn Shapiro, Chief of Meteorological Research, Wave Propagation Laboratory, NOM
Joseph Zabransky, Jr., Associate Professor of Meteorology, Plymouth State College
James A. Moore, Project Manager, Research Applications Program, National Center for
Atmospheric Research
Daniel J. McNaughton, ENSR Consulting and Engineering
Brian Sussman, Meteorologist
Robert D. Elliott, Meteorologist, Fellow, American Meteorological Society
H. Read McGrath, Ph.D., Meteorologist
Earl G. Droessler, Ph.D., North Carolina State University
Robert E. Zabrecky, Meteorologist
William M. Porch, Ph.D., Atmospheric Physicist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Earle R. Williams, Ph.D, Assoc. Prof. of Meteorology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
S. Fred Singer, Ph.D., Atmospheric Physicist, Univ. of Virginia, President, Science &
Environmental Policy Project
Please note: Affiliations listed are for identification purposes only.