Scientists to Congress: 'Sky is not falling'

A team of scientists with years of expertise in climate issues has written an open letter to Congress asserting the "sky is not falling" and there is no evidence man is causing global warming.

The letter was signed by physics professors Robert H. Austin and William Happer of Princeton, environmental sciences professor S. Fred Singer of the University of Virginia, retired manager for strategic planning at ExxonMobil Roger Cohen, physics professor (emeritus) Harold W. Lewis at UC-Santa Barbara and others.

Their names are tied to long lists of initials, including APS, or the American Physical Society; AAAS, or the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and AGU, or the American Geophysical Union.

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At issue is the pending "cap-and-trade" tax increase in Congress that would impose not only restrictions on the use of energy, but also taxes on that use. It narrowly was passed in the U.S. House but faces some hurdles in the Senate.

The letter is being publicized at the Climate Depot website, along with others.

It addresses a recent letter from the Woods Hole Research Center that demanded quick action by Congress to "avoid global disaster."

"The letter purports to be from independent scientists, but that center is the former den of the president's science adviser, John Holdren, and is far from independent," the new letter said.

"This is the same science adviser who has given us predictions of 'almost certain' thermonuclear war or eco-catastrophe by the year 2000, and many other forecasts of doom that somehow never seem to arrive on time."

The new letter said the facts are simple: "The sky is not falling; the Earth has been cooling for 10 years, without help. The present cooling was NOT predicted by the alarmists' computer models, and has come as an embarrassment to them.

"The finest meteorologists in the world cannot predict the weather two weeks in advance, let alone the climate for the rest of the century. Can Al Gore? Can John Holdren? We are flooded with claims that the evidence is clear, that the debate is closed, that we must act immediately, etc, but in fact THERE IS NO SUCH EVIDENCE; IT DOESN'T EXIST."

The legislation would, however, "cripple the U.S. economy, putting us at a disadvantage compared to our competitors," the scientists warned.

"For such drastic action, it is only prudent to demand genuine proof that it is needed, not guesswork, and not false claims about the state of the science," they wrote.

Finally, they wrote, "climate alarmism pays well."

"Many alarmists are profiting from their activism. There are billions of dollars floating around for the taking, and being taken," the letter said.

The Woods Hole letter had contended, "New information arrives daily to confirm what many specialists have known for three decades: human-caused climatic disruption is serious, moving rapidly, and gaining momentum with every delay in correcting the trend."

The Austin letter, however, said such instances of "consensus" simply are not proof.

Others signing the new letter were physics professor Laurence Gould of University of Hartford and meteorology professor Richard Lindzen of MIT.

Their diagnosis of the climate issue largely agreed with Alan Carlin, the senior operations research analyst at the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics.

Carlin submitted his research on the agency's greenhouse gases endangerment findings and offered a fundamental critique on the EPA's approach to combating CO2 emissions. But officials refused to share his conclusion in an open internal discussion, claiming his research would have "a very negative impact on our office."

Instead, his study was barred from circulation within the EPA and was never disclosed to the public for political reasons, according to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, or CEI, a group that has accessed four internal e-mails on the subject.

CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman told WND, "His boss basically told him, 'No, I'm not going to send your study further up. It's going to stay within this bureau.'"

A March 12 e-mail to Carlin warned him not to have "any direct communication with anyone outside NCEE on endangerment."

Carlin, a researcher who earned his doctorate in economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an undergraduate degree in physics from California Institute of Technology, informed officials that two-thirds of his references were from peer-reviewed publications and defended his inclusion of new research on the topic.

"It is also my view that the critical attribute of good science is its correspondence to observable data rather than where it appears in the technical literature," he wrote. "I believe my comments are valid, significant and contain references to significant new research … They are significant because they present information critical to justification (or lack thereof) for the proposed [greenhouse gas] endangerment finding."

WND also has reported on the Petition Project, which has compiled the signatures of more than 31,000 scientists, including some 9,000 Ph.D.s, who flatly reject the "global warming" agenda

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