Idso

=note colorprimary 920 on fork 3 b 43 pivot 180a whole clansee various CO2 BS orgs:  <a href="https://www.desmog.com/center-study-carbon-dioxide-and-global-change/">https://www.desmog.com/center-study-carbon-dioxide-and-global-change/</a>ASUhtml Warrick 2=api 2003 B&S BS paper --> 3rd fork B43 180=<div>=</div><div>https://www.desmog.com/2012/02/23/what-passes-brain-trust-heartland/</div><div><h3 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 1.5rem; margin-bottom: 1.5rem; line-height: 1.2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Has beens, also-rans, deniers-for-hire on retainer at “think tank”</h3>Update: <a href="http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/february/story63491.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none; font-weight: 500;">13th scientist disavows Heartland connection</a> (See: Watkins at bottom of this post)The Heartland Institute maintains a stable of 13 scientists on retainer for the express purpose of attacking the work of the Nobel Prize winning <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> (IPCC), according to <a href="https://www.desmog.com/wp-content/uploads/files/%281-15-2012%29%202012%20Heartland%20Budget%20%282%29.pdf" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">budget</a> information released last week in the <a href="https://www.desmog.com/heartland-insider-exposes-institute-s-budget-and-strategy" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Heartland document dump</a>.The scientists, ranging from one of the world’s least credible deniers-for-hire (<a href="https://www.desmog.com/no-apology-is-owed-dr-s-fred-singer-and-none-will-be-forthcoming" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Dr. S. Fred Singer</a>) to a sessional lecturer on the evolution and history of the domestic dog (<a href="http://anthropology.uvic.ca/people/faculty/adjunct_and_sessional.php" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Susan Crockford</a>), include no top climate scientists currently publishing in the peer-reviewed literature.The best paid “expert” on the Heartland list is <a href="https://www.desmog.com/craig-idso" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Craig Idso,</a> a former Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy (the largest coal company in the world). Heartland pays Idso $11,600 a month through his <a href="http://motherjones.com/environment/2009/12/dirty-dozen-climate-change-denial-11-idso-family%20%20" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Center for the Study of CO2 & Global Change</a>, which like the Heartland Institute, has charitable status and therefore operates with an effective subsidy from the American taxpayer. (Funny how quick libertarians are to fleece old Uncle Sam when THEY get to kick the money back to their rich friends.)Coming in at $5,000 a month is Idso’s principal partner in the regular IPCC attack, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/s-fred-singer" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Fred Singer</a>, who for the last 20 years has denied pretty much any health threat with a corporate sponsor: the health impacts of second-hand smoke; coal’s role in creating acid rain; the danger of asbestos; or DDTCFCs in creating the ozone hole; and, of course, the human cause and potential consequences of climate change. (See Naomi Oreskes excellent book, <a href="http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Merchants of Doubt</a> for the full, devastating story ot Singer’s lucrative denial business.)Together, Idso and Singer developed what they call the <a href="http://www.skepticalscience.com/denialgate-highlights-heartlands-selective-nipcc-science.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change</a> (NIPCC), which Heartland funds as “the most comprehensive and authoritative rebuttal of the United Nations’ IPCC reports.”Number 3 on the list of Heartland’s beneficiaries, at $1,667 a month, is the Australian <a href="https://www.desmog.com/rm-bob-carter#s3" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Robert Carter</a>, a geologist at James Cook University in Queensland and a staff member for the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Public_Affairs" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;"> Institute of Public Affairs</a>, an Australian think tank which, like the Heartland Institute,<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=1134" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;"> takes funding from the tobacco and oil industries</a>.The fourth, fifth and sixth experts on Heartland’s anonymous donor dole, all at $1,000 a month, are <a href="https://www.desmog.com/madhav-khandekar" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Madhav Khandekar</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/congressman-calls-hearing-heartland-institute-payments-federal-employee-indur-goklany" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Indur Goklany</a> and <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=5" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Robert Balling</a>. Khandekar is another think-tank double-dipper, a retired Environment Canada researcher who <a href="http://www.fraserinstitute.org/author.aspx?id=14931&txID=2833" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">also shows up</a> on the experts list at the Canadian think tank, the Fraser Institute, which subsidized an earlier IPCC attack called the <a href="http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Independent_Summary_for_Policymakers" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Independent Summary for Policymakers</a>. Khandekar has also been an “expert” on other discredited climate change denial organizations, including<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Friends_of_Science" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;"> Friends of Science and the Natural Resources Stewardship Project.</a>Goklany, a Senior Advisor at the U.S. Interior Department, is <a href="https://www.desmog.com/congressman-calls-hearing-heartland-institute-payments-federal-employee-indur-goklany" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">currently under scrutiny</a> over whether the funding he has accepted from Heartland violates U.S. law against federal employees taking payments that could put them in conflict with their governmental duties.And <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Balling" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Robert Balling</a> is a geography professor at Arizona State who turns up as an expert on several industry funded<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=5" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;"> (taxpayer subsidized) policy hothouses</a> masquerading as “think tanks” and educational organizations. Balling was a trendsetter among climate-change deniers for hire, working as early as the late 1990s for the coal barons of the Western Fuels Association on its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greening_Earth_Society" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Greening Earth Society</a> project.Coming in with a lower profile and a lower monthly retainer ($750 a month) are <a href="https://www.desmog.com/anthony-lupo" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Anthony Lupo</a>, and Canadian “Terrestrial Animal” specialists Crockford (the dog expert from the University of Victoria) and   Mitch Taylor, a <a href="http://geography.lakeheadu.ca/taylor/taylor.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">contract lecturer </a>at the Lakehead University who has argued that polar bears are in no danger from climate change.The weather forecaster <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_D%27Aleo" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Joe D’Aleo</a> gets just $500 a month, (kid-stuff compared to the <a href="http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/some-notes-on-the-heartland-leak/" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">$88,000 that Heartland is kicking over</a> to D’Aleo’s meteorological colleague <a href="https://www.desmog.com/anthony-watts" target="blank" rel="noopener external noreferrer" data-wpel-link="external" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Anthony Watts</a>). D’Aleo,  co-founder of The Weather Channel, predicted in the 2008 Farmers Almanac that the world was entering a cooling phase. (No word whether he updated that prediction after <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-analysis-2009.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">2009 was the second hottest year on record</a> and <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2011/jan/HQ_11-014_Warmest_Year.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">2010 tied for the hottest</a>.)It must be disappointing to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Soon" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Willie Soon</a>, at just $125 a month. Soon is an astrophysicist at the <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard-Smithsonian_Center_for_Astrophysics" title="Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics</a>. But his credibility has sustained a series of terrible blows. It was reported last year, for example, that he took took more than $1 million in funding from oil and coal companies, including the Koch Foundation, Southern and Exxon. He’d earlier been reportedly taking money from the American Petroleum Institute and he and <a href="https://www.desmog.com/sallie-baliunas" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Sallie Baliunas</a> had a paper discredited in the journal Climate Research (it was so bad, <a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Storm-Brews-Over-Global/27779" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">the editor resigned in protest</a>).Also budgeted at $125 a month are <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Craig_Loehle" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">Craig Loehle</a>, a pulp and paper industry scientist, and <strike style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a href="http://www.hu.mtu.edu/hu_dept/faculty_staff/single_fac_pages/watkins.php" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">David Watkins,</a> who appears to be a water resources specialist in the civil and environmental engineering department at Michigan Tech. </strike>There being no obvious public record of Watkins having said anything embarrassingly silly about climate science, it’s not immediately clear what his name is doing on the Heartland list.Update: David Watkins, Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director at Michigan Tech contacted the DeSmogBlog today to say:<blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">I have had no contact with the Heartland Institute, have not received [nor have been offered] any funding from them, and have no idea how I ended up in their 2012 budget.  M(y) university administration is trying to contact Heartland to find out how this misuse of my name occurred.  </blockquote>Apologies to Dr. Watkins for any embarrassment we might have caused him by repeating the erroneous, and potentially damaging, contention that he was accepting money from Heartland. Read the <a href="http://www.mtu.edu/news/stories/2012/february/story63491.html" data-wpel-link="external" target="blank" rel="external noopener noreferrer" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: none;">official response from Michigan Tech University</a>.</div><div>=</div><div>=</div><div>mashey 2012</div><div><div>
</div><div>p 74</div><div>idso co2 BS (long)</div><div>
</div><div>Princeton atomic physicist Will Happer is a quite-distinguished expert in</div><div>that field, but has been Chairman of GMI since 2006, was one of the</div><div>organizers of the APS petition 369 and is vocal in his rejection of</div><div>mainstream climate science. He testified about climate change to the US</div><div>Senate, 02/25/09370 and a 2nd copy is found at GMI in Happer’s profile. 371</div><div>Ferguson annotated it, inserting many links to CSCDGC and SPPI articles,</div><div>including pieces by Monckton, but disclaiming:372</div><div>
</div><div>“All footnoted cross references added by SPPI; not in original and not by or</div><div>associated with Dr. Happer. Their intent is to provide interested readers with</div><div>related material for consideration.”</div><div>
</div><div>Ferguson calls this a “Reprint,” but the net effect is to “meme-wash” lowcredibility anti-science by modifying Senate testimony so it looks official.</div><div>The Happer Lab website at Princeton features:373</div><div>
</div><div>“On February 25th, 2009, Will Happer spoke before the Committee on</div><div>Environment and Public Works in the U.S. Senate about climate change and</div><div>carbon dioxide. There are several places on the web where you can find his</div><div>testimony—here are two:</div><div>
</div><div> The Environment and Public Works Blog</div><div> The Science and Public Policy Institute”</div><div>The annotated “Reprint” was acceptable to the Happer Lab. The reader</div><div>might wonder that the Happer Lab did not link to the copy at GMI, but</div><div>maybe that connection was deemed unimportant.</div><div>
</div><div>K.4 Summary</div><div>“Charity” donations come to CSCDGC from unspecified sources, but the</div><div>fragmentary data includes ExxonMobil, Scaife, {Lambe, Bradley, and</div><div>DONORS}, of which the latter group sent money to CSCDGC, but at</div><div>Ferguson’s address. IRS-7F. The IRS might inquire about that.</div><div>CSCDGC’s governance is the Idso family. IRS-6G</div><div>I allege that CSCDGC needs investigation for possible violations of charity</div><div>rules on governance and finances, IRS-6G, IRS-7F.</div><div>Craig Idso is listed as a “science advisor” for SPPI, but, in his role as</div><div>CSCDGC Treasurer, pays Ferguson as an employee, unusually well for</div><div>executing a tiny operation.</div><div>
</div><div>I allege that CSCDGC and Ferguson violate charity rules on education</div><div>and research, IRS-0E. The nature of SPPI would have been difficult to</div><div>reconcile with CSCDGC’s claims to do science.</div><div>In any case, SPPI is a fake organization, a front for CSCDGC. The staff is</div><div>essentially Ferguson, with a cast of the usual “advisors.</div><div></div></div>=oreskes:

In 2003, Soon and Baliunas published an article, partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute, in a small journal called Climate Research. Presenting a review of existing literature rather than new research, the two concluded “the 20th century is probably not the warmest nor a uniquely extreme climatic period of the last millennium.” They had, in effect, challenged both Mann and the IPCC, and in so doing presented global warming skeptics with a cause to rally around. Another version of the paper was quickly published with three additional authors: David Legates of the University of Delaware, and longtime skeptics Craig and Sherwood Idso of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change in Tempe, Arizona. All have ExxonMobil connections: the Idsos received $40,000 from ExxonMobil for their center in the year the study was published, while Legates is an adjunct scholar at the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis (which got $205,000 between 2000 and 2003).Calling the paper “a powerful new work of science” that would “shiver the timbers of the adrift Chicken Little crowd,” Senator Inhofe devoted half of a Senate hearing to it, bringing in both Soon and Legates to testify against Mann. The day before, Hans Von Storch, the editor-in-chief of Climate Research—where the Soon and Baliunas paper originally appeared—resigned to protest deficiencies in the review process that led to its publication; two editors soon joined him. Von Storch later told the Chronicle of Higher Education that climate science skeptics “had identified Climate Research as a journal where some editors were not as rigorous in the review process as is otherwise common.” Meanwhile, Mann and 12 other leading climate scientists wrote a blistering critique of Soon and Baliunas’ paper in the American Geophysical Union publication Eos, noting, among other flaws, that they’d used historic precipitation records to reconstruct past temperatures—an approach Mann told Congress was “fundamentally unsound.”----<h3 style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" em="em" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Pruitt's prospects</h3><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Here are some of the skeptical nominees under consideration:<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Joseph D'Aleo, a certified consultant meteorologist and co-founder of the Weather Channel: He has run climate skeptic websites and has appeared as a speaker at Heartland conferences. D'Aleo said his priority on the board would be attacking the endangerment finding, the legally binding document that holds that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases harm human health and must be regulated by the executive branch. He said he wants to challenge the finding because it could otherwise be used later to build back Obama-era environmental regulations.<aside id="image_asset_layout_21609" class="left span4 image_asset_layout" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" float="float" left="left" max-width="max-width" width="width">
Edwin Berry. edberry.com</aside><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">"We're going to push for reconsideration, start from scratch and put together the best science," he said. "If CO2 is not a serious pollutant, let's focus the attention of the EPA on other issues."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Edwin Berry, a meteorologist and atmospheric scientist: He has funded his own climate research and says human carbon dioxide emissions do not cause climate change. He has compared those who believe in human-caused climate change to "Aztecs who believed they could make rain by cutting out beating hearts and rolling decapitated heads down temple steps." On his Twitter account, he has called Islam "a death cult" and has encouraged motorists to drive into protesters.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Berry, in an email to E&E News today, described his tweet as a joke and said he does not advocate violence.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">"Clearly, my tween says to slowly drive to not hurt anyone," Berry said in the email, misspelling "tweet."<aside id="image_asset_layout_21607" class="right span5 image_asset_layout" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" float="float" right="right" max-width="max-width" width="width">brn
<p class="caption" style="margin: 3px 2px; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Kevin Dayaratna. Heritage Foundation</aside><p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Berry, who confirmed that he and a number of other skeptics were nominated by Heartland, said he wants to use his position on the board to show that humans barely contribute to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, which he claimed are mostly driven by natural factors.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">"Let's get over this whole thing about climate change being an important thing, because in fact we humans have a negligible impact on climate," he said. "And if we had the Paris Agreement and everything else, it wouldn't do any good anyway."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Alan Carlin, a retired EPA employee who is affiliated with Heartland: He fought the agency's crafting of the endangerment finding. Carlin, an economist, was at the center of a political firestorm under Obama after he produced a widely criticized 93-page report comprising cherry-picked scientific data and blog entries concluding that regulating carbon dioxide was "the worst mistake that EPA has ever made."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Kevin Dayaratna, a statistician at the conservative Heritage Foundation: His report was cited by Trump as a reason to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. It claimed that the agreement could shrink U.S. gross domestic product by $2.5 trillion within two decades (though Trump stated the impact as coming within a decade). The report was criticized by some as being misleading, because that amount is less than 1 percent of the aggregate GDP over that period and the report did not account for the cost of taking no climate change action. Dayaratna was invited to attend Trump's withdrawal announcement in June in the White House Rose Garden.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-image="background-image" initial="initial" background-position="background-position" background-size="background-size" background-repeat="background-repeat" background-attachment="background-attachment" background-origin="background-origin" background-clip="background-clip" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline"><strong style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Craig Idso, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute: He has researched the benefits of atmospheric carbon dioxide. His work has centered on highlighting how increased carbon dioxide will benefit plants.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Paul Driessen, a senior policy adviser at the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a libertarian environmental think tank: His organization handed out leaflets at a climate protest this year in Washington, D.C., that said, "CO2 is not the 'control knob' of the climate." He also co-founded Climate Exit, or "Clexit," which criticized the science behind the Paris climate agreement and holds that spiking levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide benefit the Earth. "The world must abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade," the group stated in its founding statement. "Man does not and cannot control the climate."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Gordon Fulks, a physicist and adviser to the Cascade Policy Institute, an Oregon-based libertarian think tank: He has denied that net sea ice melt is occurring and that the Earth is warming. He has said those who express concern about climate change are like a "societal pathogen that virulently spreads misinformation in tiny packages like a virus."<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Anthony Lupo, another founding member of Clexit: He has received support from the Heartland Institute and helped in the unsuccessful fight against the endangerment finding in court.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Leighton Steward, a former energy company executive and a founder of groups that promote the rise of carbon dioxide as a benefit: He has also encouraged the United States to drop out of the Paris climate accord and says that natural warming is raising the temperature of the Earth.<p style="margin: 1em 0px; font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">David Legates, a professor of climatology at the University of Delaware: He has denied that human-caused climate change could have catastrophic consequences and has co-authored climate research claiming polar bears are not harmed by human-caused climate change that was quietly funded, at least in part, by Koch Industries Inc.<h3 style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" background="background" rgb="rgb" border="border" px="px" margin="margin" em="em" outline="outline" padding="padding" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">Critics want to boot EPA 'cronies'</h3> Encyclopedia of Global Warming Science and Technologyhttps://books.google.com › booksBruce Elliott Johansen · 2009 · ?ScienceThree greenhouse skeptics (Sherwood Idso, Robert Balling, and R. S. Cerveny) have challenged Emanuel's theories (Idso, Balling, and Cerveny 1990)<h2 style="padding: 10px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">FACTSHEET: INSTITUTE FOR BIOSPHERIC RESEARCH,</h2><h3 style="padding: 10px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">DETAILS</h3>631 E. Laguna Drive, Tempe, Arizona 85282
Phone: 602-379-4356
Run by climate skeptic Sherwood Idso, the Institute for Biospheric Research produces videos and publishes books on global warming. 

The Institute for Biospheric Research produced the first "Greening of Planet Earth" video in 1991 for the Greening Earth Society. The video featured the Institutes' president , Sherwood Idso. The Western Fuels Association paid for the video. (http://www.greeningearthsociety.org/transcript.html)

<h3 style="padding: 10px; margin: 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">PEOPLE</h3><a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=14" style="text-decoration: none;">Sherwood Idso</a>
President
Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=99#src" style="text-decoration: none;">
</a>omg dozens: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/2013_year.pdfsepp bookstore includes:The Many Benefits of Atmospheric CO2Enrichment:How humanity and the rest of the biosphere will prosper from this amazing trace gas that so many have wrongfully characterized as a dangerous air pollutant!<blockquote>Craig D. Idso & Sherwood B. Idso (Vales Lake book).Global warming alarmists tell us the horrors of increasing atmospheric CO2concentration.  Skeptics tell us that it's not all that bad.  Finally, there is a non-apologetic treatise that tells us of thebenefits of atmospheric CO2 enrichment in an alphabetical format.  This extensively referenced 360-page color book by Drs. Idso and Idso tells us of fifty-five benefits of atmospheric CO2enrichment, and  belongs in the library of all who study CO2 and climate.That's 55 benefits.  Fifty-five!The benefits are not squeezed out of computer models, but are based on real data.  CO2, after all, is plant food, absolutely necessary for all of the biosphere.</blockquote>Judith CurryScott Doney’s testimonyExcerpts from Doney’s recent congressional testimony [<a href="http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=afb04836-4f2f-4715-9ffc-f89765126ca1" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">link</a>]Rebuttal Craig Idso has written comprehensive rebuttal to the NRDC film<a href="http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/acid_test.html?Itemid=0" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">“Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification</a>.” [<a href="http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/originals/acid_test.pdf" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">link</a>]So what’s the story here? Are coral reefs really in their last decades of existence? Will the shells of other calcifying marine life also dissolve away during our lifetimes? The NRDC film certainly makes it appear that such is the case; but a little scientific sleuthing reveals nothing of substance in this regard. In fact, even a cursory review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature reveals that an equally strong case – if not a more persuasive one – can be made for the proposition that the ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration will actually prove a boon to calcifying marine life. Sadly, however, the NRDC chose to present an extreme one-sided, propagandized view of ocean acidification; and in this critique we present the part of the story that they clearly don’t want you to know.[25 pages of text, 13 pages of references]From the Conclusions:In conclusion, based on the many real-world observations and laboratory experiments described above, it is clear that recent theoretical claims of impending marine species extinctions, due to increases in the atmosphere’s CO2 concentration, have no basis in empirical reality. In fact, these unsupportable contentions are typically refuted by demonstrable facts. As such, the NRDC’s portrayal of CO2-induced ocean acidification as a megadisaster-in-the-making is seen, at best, to be a one-sided distortion of the truth or, at worst, a blatant attempt to deceive the public.
Finally, if there is a lesson to be learned from the materials presented in this document, it is that far too many predictions of CO2-induced catastrophes are looked upon as sure-to-occur, when real-world observations show such doomsday scenarios to be highly unlikely or even virtual impossibilities. The phenomenon of CO2-induced ocean acidification is no different. Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are not the bane of the biosphere; they are an invaluable boon to the planet’s many life forms.Surely, the NRDC and the scientists portrayed in their film should have been aware of at least one of the numerous peer-reviewed scientific journal articles that do not support a catastrophic – or even a problematic – view of the effect of ocean acidification on calcifying marine organisms; and they should have shared that information with the public. If by some slim chance they were not aware, shame on them for not investing the time, energy, and resources needed to fully investigate an issue that has profound significance for the biosphere. And if they did know the results of the studies we have discussed, no one should ever believe a single word they may utter or write in the future. JC comment:  So whose view of the ocean acidification is correct:  Doney’s or Idso’s?  In this instance, it is instructive for me to describe  my own reasoning process, since I come to this topic with very little first hand knowledge, beyond understanding the basic chemistry of the problem.When I saw Scott Doney listed as a witness for this hearing, I was very pleased, since he is a scientific heavy hitter on this subject.  However, upon reading the first page of his testimony, the following statement raised my skeptical hackles, especially since their was no evidence or reference to support this:Today the surface ocean is almost 30% more acidic than it was in pre-industrial times.I found Doney’s testimony to be highly <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2013/02/16/congressional-testimony-and-normative-science/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">normative</a>, something that I am not a fan of in testimony by scientists.  I did a word search, looking for ‘uncertain’, ‘disagreement’, ‘debate’, ‘unknown’.  The only statements I found were:Decisions should incorporate precautionary considerations to account for the fact that potential carbon dioxide thresholds are presently unknown for many aspects of ocean acidification.The potential biological consequences due to acidification are slowly becoming clearer at the level of individual species, but substantial uncertainties remain particularly at the ecosystem level.For these reasons, Doney’s testimony didn’t score too high on my credibility meter, in spite of my acknowledgement of his expertise and stature in the field.I figured that there has to be another side to this story, so I did a quick google search and spotted Idso’s document.  Idso’s document clearly states that there is another side to this story.  Idso’s approach is more credible IMO, since he acknowledges that there are two sides to the story, that at this point may be equally plausible.    I searched for the same 4 words; only spotted one use of ‘unknown’, so I am not sure how useful my little litmus test was.The issue is this:  failure of the ‘mainstream’ experts to adequately discuss uncertainty and alternative viewpoints leaves a void to be filled by the likes of Idso, with the inadvertent effect of elevating Idso’s essay more than it probably deserves.That said, I cannot personally judge whether Doney’s or Idso’s arguments are better scientifically, without digging into the primary literature myself; and even then I am not sure how confident I would be in my own ability to assess this.If we use the <a href="http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/28/waving-the-italian-flag-part-i-uncertainty-and-pedigree/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Italian Flag method </a>(Michael Tobis will go ballistic if he spots this), we have:<ul style="margin: 15px 30px; padding: 0px; line-height: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Evidence for (green):  Doney’s arguments</li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Evidence against (red):  Idso’s arguments</li><li style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Uncertainty and ignorance (white): there must be plenty here, but I haven’t seen any document that articulates the known unknowns.</li></ul>I suspect that red and white add up to more than 50%, that is as close as I can come to making an assessment on this.I would appreciate any good references on this topic, and I look forward to your comments.<div>=</div><div>WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF SCOTT C. DONEY, Ph.D. WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION1 HEARING ON Climate Change: It’s Happening Now BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT & PUBLIC WORKS UNITED STATES SENATE JULY 18, 2013 </div><div>
</div><div>Introduction Good morning Chairman Boxer, Ranking Member Vitter and members of the Committee.</div><div> Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today on climate change, the ocean carbon cycle and ocean acidification.</div><div>
</div><div> My name is Scott Doney, and I am a Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole MA. My research focuses on interactions among climate, the ocean and global carbon cycles, and marine ecosystems, and I have published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific journal articles and book chapters on these and related subjects. I have served on the U.S. Carbon Cycle Science Program Scientific Steering Group and the U.S. Community Climate System Model Scientific Steering Committee. I was the inaugural chair of the U.S. Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry (OCB) Program and am currently on the steering committees for the Ocean Carbon and Biogeochemistry Program and the U.S. CLIVAR/CO2 Repeat Hydrography Program. I am also a convening lead author for the Oceans and Marine Resources chapter of the U.S. 2013 National Climate Assessment.</div><div>
</div><div>curry writes of idso rebuttal  http://sppiblog.org/news/idsos-rebuttal-to-scott-doneys-senate-testimony-on-ocean-acidification</div><div></div><div>
</div><div><h1 class="title" id="page-title-inner" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px; background: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scientists Oppose Global Warming Legislation</h1><div>
</div><div id="node-29326" class="node" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 19.5px; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><div class="content clear-block" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><div class="field field-type-nodereference field-field-authors" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><a href="https://www.heartland.org/craig-idso" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; background: transparent;">Craig Idso</a> – </div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-authors-legacy" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Craig D. Idso – </div><div class="field field-type-date field-field-date" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><div class="field-items" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; background: transparent;"><div class="field-item odd" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; display: inline; background: transparent;">February 9, 2011</div></div></div><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style " addthis:url="https://www.heartland.org/policy-documents/scientists-oppose-global-warming-legislation" addthis:title="Scientists Oppose Global Warming Legislation" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:addthis="addthis"><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Craig Idso, Keith Idso, and Sherwood Idso drafted and submitted the following letter to Congress in response to a letter recently submitted by 18 scientists urging Congress to pass legislation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. The Idsos are scientists who operate the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. Thirty-five scientists signed this letter and another 38 scientists endorsed this letter.</div><div class="node-body" style="margin: 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">February 8, 2011<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate:<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">In reply to “The Importance of Science in Addressing Climate Change”<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">On 28 January 2011, eighteen scientists sent a letter to members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate urging them to “take a fresh look at climate change.” Their intent, apparently, was to disparage the views of scientists who disagree with their contention that continued business-as-usual increases in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions produced from the burning of coal, gas, and oil will lead to a host of cataclysmic climate-related problems.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">We, the undersigned, totally disagree with them and would like to take this opportunity to briefly state our side of the story.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">The eighteen climate alarmists (as we refer to them, not derogatorily, but simply because they view themselves as “sounding the alarm” about so many things climatic) state that the people of the world “need to prepare for massive flooding from the extreme storms of the sort being experienced with increasing frequency,” as well as the “direct health impacts from heat waves” and “climate-sensitive infectious diseases,” among a number of other devastating phenomena. And they say that “no research results have produced any evidence that challenges the overall scientific understanding of what is happening to our planet’s climate,” which is understood to mean their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">To these statements, however, we take great exception. It is the eighteen climate alarmists who appear to be unaware of “what is happening to our planet’s climate,” as well as the vast amount of research that has produced that knowledge.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">For example, a lengthy review of their claims and others that climate alarmists frequently make can be found on the Web site of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (see<a target="blank" href="http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/prudentpath.php" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/prudentpath/prudentpath.php</a>). That report offers a point-by-point rebuttal of all of the claims of the “group of eighteen,” citing in every case peer-reviewed scientific research on the actual effects of climate change during the past several decades.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">If the “group of eighteen” pleads ignorance of this information due to its very recent posting, then we call their attention to an even larger and more comprehensive report published in 2009, Climate Change Reconsidered: The 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC). That document has been posted for more than a year in its entirety at <a target="blank" href="http://www.nipccreport.org/" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">www.nipccreport.org</a>.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">These are just two recent compilations of scientific research among many we could cite. Do the 678 scientific studies referenced in the CO2 Science document, or the thousands of studies cited in the NIPCC report, provide real-world evidence (as opposed to theoretical climate model predictions) for global warming-induced increases in the worldwide number and severity of floods? No. In the global number and severity of droughts? No. In the number and severity of hurricanes and other storms? No.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Do they provide any real-world evidence of Earth’s seas inundating coastal lowlands around the globe? No. Increased human mortality? No. Plant and animal extinctions? No. Declining vegetative productivity? No. More frequent and deadly coral bleaching? No. Marine life dissolving away in acidified oceans? No.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Quite to the contrary, in fact, these reports provide extensive empirical evidence that these things are not happening. And in many of these areas, the referenced papers report finding just the opposite response to global warming, i.e., biosphere-friendly effects of rising temperatures and rising CO2 levels.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">In light of the profusion of actual observations of the workings of the real world showing little or no negative effects of the modest warming of the second half of the twentieth century, and indeed growing evidence of positive effects, we find it incomprehensible that the eighteen climate alarmists could suggest something so far removed from the truth as their claim that no research results have produced any evidence that challenges their view of what is happening to Earth’s climate and weather.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">But don’t take our word for it. Read the two reports yourselves. And then make up your own minds about the matter. Don’t be intimidated by false claims of “scientific consensus” or “overwhelming proof.” These are not scientific arguments and they are simply not true.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Like the eighteen climate alarmists, we urge you to take a fresh look at climate change.  We believe you will find that it is not the horrendous environmental threat they and others have made it out to be, and that they have consistently exaggerated the negative effects of global warming on the U.S. economy, national security, and public health, when such effects may well be small to negligible.<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Signed by:<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Syun-Ichi Akasofu, University of Alaska1
Scott Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania
James Barrante, Southern Connecticut State University1
John Boring, University of Virginia
Roger Cohen, American Physical Society Fellow
David Douglass, University of Rochester
Don Easterbrook, Western Washington University1
Robert Essenhigh, The Ohio State University1
Martin Fricke, Senior Fellow, American Physical Society
Lee Gerhard, University of Kansas1
Ulrich Gerlach, The Ohio State University
Laurence Gould, University of Hartford
Bill Gray, Colorado State University1
Will Happer, Princeton University2
Howard Hayden, University of Connecticut1
Craig Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Sherwood Idso, USDA, U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory1
Richard Keen, University of Colorado1
Doral Kemper, USDA, Agricultural Research Service1
Hugh Kendrick, Office of Nuclear Reactor Programs, DOE1
Richard Lindzen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology2
Anthony Lupo, University of Missouri
Patrick Michaels, Cato Institute
Donald Nielsen, University of California, Davis1
Al Pekarek, St. Cloud State University
John Rhoads, Midwestern State University1
Nicola Scafetta, Duke University
Gary Sharp, Center for Climate/Ocean Resources Study
S. Fred Singer, University of Virginia1
Roy Spencer, University of Alabama
George Taylor, Past President, American Association of State Climatologists
Frank Tipler, Tulane University
Leonard Weinstein, National Institute of Aerospace Senior Research Fellow
Samuel Werner, University of Missouri1
Thomas Wolfram, University of Missouri1<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">1 - Emeritus or Retired
2 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Endorsed by:<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Rodney Armstrong, Geophysicist
Richard Becherer, University of Connecticut1
Edwin Berry, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Joseph Bevelacqua, Bevelacqua Resources
Carmen Catanese, American Physical Society Member
Roy Clark, Ventura Photonics
John Coleman, Meteorologist KUSI TV
Darrell Connelly, Geophysicist
Joseph D'Aleo, Certified Consulting Meteorologist
Terry Donze, Geophysicist1
Mike Dubrasich, Western Institute for Study of the Environment
John Dunn, American Council on Science and Health of NYC
Dick Flygare, QEP Resources 
Michael Fox, Nuclear industry/scientist
Gordon Fulks, Gordon Fulks and Associates
Steve Goreham, Climate Science Coalition of America
Ken Haapala, Science & Environmental Policy Project
Martin Hertzberg, Bureau of Mines1
Art Horn, Meteorologist
Keith Idso, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change
Jay Lehr, The Heartland Institute
Robert Lerine, Industrial and Defense Research and Engineering1
Peter Link, Geologist
James Macdonald, Chief Meteorologist for the Travelers Weather Service1
Roger Matson, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists
Tony Pann, Meteorologist WBAL TV
Ned Rasor, Consulting Physicist
James Rogers, Geologist1
Norman Rogers, National Association of Scholars
Rene Rogers, Litton Electron Devices1
Thomas Sheahen, Western Technology Incorporated
Andrew Spurlock, Starfire Engineering and Technologies, Inc.
Leighton Steward, PlantsNeedCO2.org
Soames Summerhays, Summerhays Films, Inc.
Charles Touhill, Consulting Environmental Engineer
David Wojick, Climatechangedebate.org<p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">1 - Emeritus or Retired</div></div></div></div>11/13Craig Idso, the former president and current chairman of the board of the <a href="http://www.co2science.org/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: ease; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change,</a> and lead author of the reports of the <a href="http://nipccreport.com/" target="blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: ease; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change</a> (NIPCC) talked with Alex Epstein on his show,<a href="http://industrialprogress.com/2013/11/15/power-hour-craig-idso-on-the-benefits-of-co2/" target="_blank" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; outline: 0px; transition-duration: 0.2s; transition-timing-function: ease;"> Power Hour</a>.Idso and Epstein discuss the benefits of CO2, something that Idso grew up studying, and still studies to this day. The issue of CO2 has been going on for decades, but society’s sentiments have changed. It used to be (back in the 1970’s) that excess CO2 was a good thing, but throughout the decades, it has come to be seen as a negative thing.People now consider CO2 as a pollutant, in fact they call excess CO2 “carbon pollution”. But, Epstein and Idso are wondering why people believe this to be true. CO2 is considered the “elixir of life”, and throughout all of scientific history, excesses in CO2 has caused spurts of growth for the earth.Idso battles the climate change alarmists, and seeks to present the world with scientific-based information about climate change.Listen to the full interview in the player above.===rfk2: cd not get mtg w/ b2, but rice and and card ok on co2 reg. after crossfire, 4 sen Hagel, pat roberts, idso, larry craig WU, helms sent ltr (may have been prompted/written by DC; b2 met but held up ltr in reply. kyoto wd hurt us economy

related to ex? congressman?

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Chairman of the Board, Founder and Former President, Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.

Graduate Research Associate, office of Climatology, Arizona State University.

C. Idso's current research focus is on carbon sequestration. He is the son of the Center for the Study of CO2 and Climate Change's President Sherwood Idso and brother of VP Keith.

From 2001-2002, C. Idso served as Director of Environmental Science at Peabody Energy in St. Louis, MO. According to a newsletter from Basin Electric, a Western Fuels Association member company, Craig and Keith Idso produced a report, "The Greening of Planet Earth : Its Progression from Hypothesis to Theory," in January 1998 for the Western Fuels Association. Western Fuels Association is the suspected funder of the Center, though there is nothing more than circumstantial evidence. The Center does not reveal its funding sources.

B.S. in Geography from Arizona State University, M.S. in Agronomy from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, Ph.D. in Geography from Arizona State University.

<h3>KEY DEEDS</h3>

3 November, 2003

With father Sherwood and brother Keith, co-authored a report entitled "Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World," which argues that global warming and an increase in atmospheric CO2 would be a boon to humanity.

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src2">"Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World" 11/03</a>

<h3>ORGANIZATIONS</h3>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=24">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src1">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change website 4/04</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=25">CFACT - Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src0">Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow CFACT Website 5/03</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=41">Heartland Institute</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src7">Heartland 2010 Climate Conference Speaker List</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=36">George C. Marshall Institute</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src4">George Marshall Institute website 5/06</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=15">Arizona State University Office of Cimatology</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src3">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change website</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=136">Western Fuels</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src5">Fredrick Palmer, Senate Testimony (2006)</a>

<a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=139">Peabody Energy</a>

Source: <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=15#src6">Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change Site (2006)</a>

<h3>SOURCES</h3>

<a id="src" name="src"> </a><a id="src0" name="src0"> </a>Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow CFACT Website 5/03

Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow CFACT

<a href="http://www.cfact.org">http://www.cfact.org</a>

<a id="src1" name="src1"> </a>Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change website 4/04

<a href="http://www.co2science.org/center.htm">http://www.co2science.org/center.htm</a>

<a id="src2" name="src2"> </a>"Enhanced or Impaired? Human Health in a CO2-Enriched Warmer World" 11/03

Report by Sherwood, Craig, and Keith Idso of the Center for the Study of CO2 and Global Change

<a href="http://www.co2science.org/reports/health/toc.htm">http://www.co2science.org/reports/health/toc.htm</a>

<a id="src3" name="src3"> </a>Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change website

Craig D. Idso's biography

<a href="http://www.co2science.org/about/chairman.htm">http://www.co2science.org/about/chairman.htm</a>

<a id="src4" name="src4"> </a>George Marshall Institute website 5/06

<a href="http://www.marshall.org">http://www.marshall.org</a>

<a id="src5" name="src5"> </a>Fredrick Palmer, Senate Testimony (2006)

<a href="http://www.gcrio.org/OnLnDoc/pdf/pdf/palmer000921.pdf">http://www.gcrio.org/OnLnDoc/pdf/pdf/palmer000921.pdf</a>

<a id="src6" name="src6"> </a>Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change Site (2006)

<a href="http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/about/president.jsp">http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/about/president.jsp</a>

<a id="src7" name="src7"> </a>Heartland 2010 Climate Conference Speaker List

More than 70 speakers will make keynote presentations or participate in panel discussions at the Fourth International Conference on Climate Change, May 16-18, 2010 in Chicago.

<a href="http://www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/speakers.html">http://www.heartland.org/events/2010Chicago/speakers.html</a>

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nexus:

The "900+ papers" list is supposed to be proof that a large number of different scientists reject the scientific consensus on climate change. Climate sceptics do like big numbers: ' <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&sqi=2&ved=0CDIQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-481613%2FGlobal-warming-Its-natural-say-experts.html&rct=j&q=more%20than%20500%20scientists%20climate&ei=jBCoTdiFA9CbhQe0wLjGCQ&usg=">More than 500 scientists</a> dispute global warming' was the story a few years ago. In December it was ' <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/a/9035/SPECIAL-REPORT-More-Than-1000-International-Scientists-Dissent-Over-ManMade-Global-Warming-Claims--Challenge-UN-IPCC--Gore">more Than 1000</a> International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims'.

Once you crunch the numbers, however, you find a good proportion of this new list is made up of a small network of individuals who co-author papers and share funding ties to the oil industry. There are numerous other names on the list with links to oil-industry funded climate sceptic think-tanks, including more from the International Policy Network (IPN) and the Marshall Institute.

Compiling these lists is dramatically different to the process of producing IPCC reports, which reference thousands of scientific papers. The reports are thoroughly reviewed to make sure that the scientific work included is relevant and diverse.

Sceptic organisations have been successful in dumping large lists into the public domain to suggest that there is significant scientific divergence from the consensus. This is partly due to the fact it is time consuming analysing such lists.

Luckily, there are now free tools online which help you interrogate this kind of data. The screen-scraping website <a href="http://www.needlebase.com/">NeedleBase</a> can turn the long list of papers into a single database, while the free data-processing tool <a href="http://code.google.com/p/google-refine/">Google Refine</a> allows for a rapid analysis.

This is the process used here. Because the screen-scraping process is a little rough around the edges the citation numbers may vary slightly. But they give a clear picture of the structure of the list, which in this instance has been very revealing. Should you wish to examine it, you can download the raw data <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/media/49741/popular_technology_list.csv">here</a>.

Using this method we could quickly see the ten most referenced authors. We found that nine of the ten have direct links to ExxonMobil. Eight are affiliated to Exxon-funded organisations, while every paper written by Dr Bruce Kimball was co-authored with Sherwood Idso.

The top ten include <a href="http://www.marshall.org/experts.php?id=44">Willie Soon, a senior scientist</a> at the <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/willie-soon">Exxon funded</a> George C Marshall institute, and John R Christy, also a <a href="http://www.marshall.org/experts.php?id=146">Marshall Institute expert</a>.

Ross McKitrick is <a href="http://www.fraserinstitute.org/about-us/who-we-are/staff/senior-fellows.aspx">a senior fellow</a> at the <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=107">Exxon funded</a> Fraser institute and on the <a href="http://www.thegwpf.org/component/content/article/51-gwpf-news/642-global-warming-policy-foundation-announces-new-advance-.html">academic advisory board</a> of the Global Warming Policy Foundation - funders unknown.

Dr Indur M Goklany is <a href="http://www.policynetwork.net/individual/indur-m-goklany">affiliated</a> with the <a href="http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108">Exxon Funded</a> thinktank the International Policy Network (US). <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html">Sallie L Baliunas</a> is listed by the Union of Concerned Scientists as being affiliated with nine different organisations who have all received funding from ExxonMobil, including the George C Marshall Institute.

Richard Lindzen, a climate scientist and prominent sceptic who notably has a degree of credibility in the scientific community, <a href="http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/CV.pdf">is a member</a> of the 'Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy', which has also received Exxon funding.

The final name in the top 10 contributors - David H Douglass - has written several <a href="http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/15727/Global_Warming_Computer_Models_Seriously_Flawed_Studies_Show.html">papers with Singer, Christie and Michaels</a> - six of the fifteen papers he authored on the list were written with Michaels, Singer or Christie.

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By Josh Harkinson mojo?

No. 8: Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (A.K.A. The Idso Family) Meet the 12 loudest members of the chorus claiming that global warming is a joke and that CO2 emissions are actually good for you.

The Idso clan is the von Trapp family of climate change denial. In 1980, paterfamilias Sherwood Idso, a self-described "bio-climatologist," published a paper in Science concluding that doubling the world's carbon dioxide concentration wouldn't change the planet's temperature all that much. In years that followed, Idso and his colleagues at Arizona State University's Office of Climatology received more than $1 million in research funding from oil, coal, and utility interests. In 1990, he coauthored a paper funded by a coal mining company, titled "Greenhouse Cooling."

In 1998, Idso's son Craig founded the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change and began publishing CO2 Science, an online digest of climate change skepticism. He subsequently earned his PhD in geography from ASU under the tutelage of climate skeptic Robert Balling, then the director of its climatology program. In the early 2000s, Idso was director of environmental science at Peabody Energy, the world's largest privately owned coal company. After Peabody laid him off, he began aggressively fundraising for the center, whose budget increased from just north of $30,000 in 2004 to more than $1 million last year. Since 2006, the center has mounted a spirited defense of carbon dioxide using everything from ancient tree-ring data to elementary-school science experiments. "[S]cience tells us that putting more CO2 in the air would actually be good for the planet," its website says. "Therefore, in invoking the precautionary principle one last time, our advice to policy makers who may be tempted to embrace Kyoto-type programs is simply this: Don't mess with success!"

Like his dad, Craig Idso has become a preeminent "scientific" climate change naysayer. In lieu of his father, who refuses to travel in airplanes, in June the younger Idso jetted off to the Heartland Institute's climate change conference. There he released "Climate Change Reconsidered," a 20-page report that suggested that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists had tweaked their findings in hopes of being invited to conferences involving "hotel accommodations at exotic locations." More recently, the Idsos have marketed the report as a timely expose of "Climategate Culture."

In 1998, Keith Idso, vice president of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and a school teacher, did an experiment with his fifth-grade science class. The lesson, which demonstrates that plants need CO2 to thrive, has been taught in other classrooms across Arizona. Sherwood Idso has praised his son's experiment for showing that cutting carbon emissions would reduce "the future benefits we could have in terms of agricultural productivity." In 1999, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives appointed Keith Idso to serve on the state's Advisory Council on Environmental Education.

Sherwood Idso says the coal and oil interests that have supported the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide have been backing off. Fundraising is "so poor that I'm not earning anything," he says. "Everything has to go to my son [Craig] to help him maintain himself and the five kids that he has now, and so we're just scraping by." But the center's 2008 tax filing shows that it entered 2009 with $445,000 in cash on hand. Last year, it paid Sherwood Idso $50,000, Craig Idso $79,000, and Craig Idso's wife, M. Anne Idso, $52,000. The center also made a $58,000 "scientific research" grant to a group called CO2 Science. Tax records reveal that CO2 Science's $75,000 budget that year mostly went toward paying Craig Idso a $45,000 salary, bringing his and his wife's total take from the family business to $182,000.

===

4/15

Energy and Environment

This conservative group is tired of being accused of climate denial — and is fighting back

By Tom Hamburger, Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney April 5

Facing a loss of high-profile corporate sponsors, a conservative state-level policy group — the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — threatened action in recent weeks against activist groups that accuse it of denying climate change.

Attorneys for ALEC sent letters to Common Cause and the League of Conservation Voters asking them to immediately “cease making false statements” and “remove all false or misleading material” suggesting that ALEC does not believe in global warming.

The activist groups refused the request, saying ALEC’s advocacy of legislation on climate issues and its public discussion of the topic support their claims.

The legal demands from ALEC follow an exodus of some of its best known corporate members, including Google, British Petroleum, Facebook, Yahoo and Northrop Grumman. Activist groups had pressured these corporate sponsors in recent years to abandon their support for organizations that they believe oppose action to stem climate change. Google publicly connected its decision to stop funding ALEC to the climate change issue.

The legal spat is an escalation of the conflict and suggests ALEC is feeling the heat of the activist groups’ efforts. It also suggests a new risk to organizations that rely on the donations from companies that do not want to be associated with organizations accused of denying that human activity is warming the atmosphere at an alarming rate.

The dispute comes at a time when conservative states and lawmakers and some energy sectors — especially coal interests — are also amping up their battle against the Obama administration’s push to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, a move that will shift the nation toward more use of natural gas and renewable energy.

In a separate example that echoes ALEC’s plight, Southern Co., the country’s fourth-largest electric utility, recently decided to quietly drop its funding for controversial scientist Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a solar physicist at the the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory who has challenged the consensus view that links recent climate change to man-made greenhouse gases. Some of Soon’s research came under question following revelations that he did not disclose that this work was paid for by fossil-fuel interests, including Southern, which operates coal-fired utility plants.

The company had been underwriting Soon’s research through a grant to the Smithsonian-affiliated laboratory where the scientists works, but the company has decided to end the relationship later this year, a spokesman confirmed. Soon declined a request to comment.

Lobbyists for the industry say they no longer focus on questioning scientific consensus.

“The science issue just isn’t as salient as it once was,” said Scott Segal, who represents energy interests at Bracewell & Giuliani. Debate over climate science was “all the rage” in the past, he said. “But today, the key issue is whether proposed regulations cost too much, weaken reliability or are illegal.”

ALEC officials insist that their nonprofit state-level policy organization does not deny climate change and that they have been overhauling their organization to be more transparent and more welcoming to divergent views. ALEC’s attorneys cite the organization’s model legislation, distributed to state lawmakers, acknowledging that “human activity has and will continue to alter the atmosphere of the planet,” which “may lead to demonstrable changes in climate.”

Environmental groups, however, have been increasingly worried about the role played by ALEC, which is made up of several thousand mostly GOP state legislators and financed by several hundred corporate and foundation members. The group has a successful track record of designing and passing state level legislation on issues such as gun rights, criminal justice and voting rights.

In a letter last week, attorneys for Common Cause cited the model legislation as evidence that its complaints about ALEC are “entirely consistent with how ALEC has discussed, characterized, and approached the issue of climate change.”

In 2013, ALEC offered the “model legislation,” still available on its Web site, to state legislators saying that the science was uncertain about the role of human activity in changing the atmosphere. The model resolution noted that “such activity may lead to deleterious, neutral or possibly beneficial climatic changes. Further, a great deal of scientific uncertainty surrounds the nature of these prospective changes, and the cost of regulation to inhibit such changes may lead to great economic dislocation.”

“We don’t think ALEC or organizations like it are done attacking progress on climate change,” said Kert Davies, a longtime environmental activist who now leads a small non-profit called the Climate Investigations Center, which has distributed documents showing that industry funding has flowed to scientists who publicly dispute climate change. “It is hard to imagine these organizations turning a corner and suddenly being open to an honest discussion of real environmental policy.”

Along with Common Cause, the League of Conservation Voters has repeatedly criticized ALEC for pushing legislation to undercut renewable energy, such as solar and wind power. A 2014 campaign sought the defeat of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a former ALEC board member who said during a debate last year that they he does not believe climate change “is a fact.”

Common Cause and LCV officials said the legal demands from ALEC would not alter their position.

“We don’t appreciate the attempt to silence LCV just because we disagree with ALEC’s positions,” said David Willett, LCV’s senior vice president for communications. “Usually if someone wants to get serious about tackling climate change, they ask about working with us, they don’t threaten to sue us.”

In addition to the model legislation, environmental groups point to ALEC’s national meetings. At ALEC’s December meeting in Washington, for example, two speakers led a seminar emphasizing the ways in which carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere provide benefits to the environment and the economy over time. One of the speakers, Craig Idso, said he does not deny climate change but disagrees with the dire consensus view of international scientists convened by the United Nations.

“We all think carbon dioxide has an impact on climate, it’s a question of how much of an impact,” said Idso, former director of environmental science at Peabody Energy, the coal company. He currently chairs a small climate science think tank.

ALEC officials don’t dispute that skeptical presentations have occurred at meetings in the past, sometimes under sponsorship from energy interests. But they insist that ALEC, under new leadership, welcomes debate, including new members who support renewable energy, a carbon tax and other measures to curb global warming.

ALEC’s efforts comes at the same time as a number of major corporations — including some in the fossil-fuels industry — are seeking to avoid taking positions on climate change that are at odds with mainstream science.

ALEC came in to the public eye following the shooting a few years ago of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin. The organization backed model gun rights bills similar to the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law first passed in Florida.

Since then, corporate funders have been pressured to leave as Common Cause and other organizations complained it is little more than a lobbying shop for corporate interests, a charge ALEC has long denied.

Last year, ALEC refashioned itself, naming a new chief executive, Lisa B. Nelson, and announcing it would drop gun rights and other controversial social issues from its portfolio to concentrate on issues of economic liberty.

Nelson and her team also vowed to make the secretive organization more transparent.

“There is a new ALEC now that is interested in dialogue and discussion. It is a big sandbox, and there is room for a lot of ideas,” says Bill Meierling, ALEC’s vice president for public affairs. But, he said. ALEC won’t tolerate guilt by association. That is why lawyers at the Washington firm representing ALEC — Webster, Chamberlain & Bean — sent letters demanding immediate retraction of statements suggesting ALEC denied climate change.

More in Energy & Environment:

The science of why you really should listen to experts

How to get Californians to use less water — without forcing them to

The surprising psychology behind why some people become environmentalists

Tom Hamburger covers the intersection of money and politics for The Washington Post.

Joby Warrick joined the Post’s national staff in 1996. He has covered national security, intelligence and the Middle East, and currently writes about the environment.

Chris Mooney reports on science and the environment.

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