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 An American organisation is defending its decision to publish names
of scientists in association with an article supporting the theory that
most of the recent global warming is natural and not manmade.
Joseph
Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, said today that a list of
500 scientists on its website had published work which contradicted
some of the tenets of "global warming alarmism".
Many of the scientists, including five in New Zealand, have reacted angrily to being included on the list as they say their research does not support that argument.
But Mr Bast took issue with comments made by New Zealand scientist Dr Jim Salinger, who was included on the list.
Dr
Salinger had told the Herald he objected to the implication that his
research supported the theory that global warming, which he believed
was real, was not manmade but a result of natural cycles.
Mr Bast said Dr Salinger's comment that global warming was real was an empty cliché.
"That list, plus a new list of 700 names whose research has found
evidence of a natural 1,500 cycles in global climate, remain on
Heartland's website because both lists are accurate."
Mr Bast
said the lists were composed by Dennis Avery, a senior fellow with the
Hudson Institute, and S. Fred Singer, professor emeritus at the
University of Virginia.
He said Dr Salinger may have been misled
by DeSmogBlog which he called a US "leftist attack group" running a
"vicious smear campaign".
Mr Bast said DeSmogBlog had initiated
the controversy and could have misled Dr Salinger into thinking he was
identified as co-author with Avery or Singer of an article expressing
skepticism about man-made global warming.
"He was not. He is
merely listed in a bibliography of co-authors of scholarly articles
that confirm key facts and theories that undermine the notion that the
modern warming is entirely man-made or will be catastrophic."
Mr
Bast said the article accompanying the list stated that not all the
scientists were sceptical of anthropogenic global warming.
"The presence of alarmists in the list was, in fact, a major point of compiling the list."
Mr
Bast also took issue with Greenpeace's description of the Heartland
Institute as a US-based neo-conservative think-tank which had emerged
over the past year as the ringleader of global warming denial, and was
partly funded by Exxon Mobil.
He said the Heartland Institute was not a neo-conservative organisation, and did not deny that global warming was occurring.
It
had not received any funding from ExxonMobil since 2006, and had never
received more than five per cent of its annual budget from ExxonMobil
or any other corporation.
"In 2007 it received 95 per cent of its
income from non-energy company sources. It has policies in place that
protect its research and publications from any improper influence by
donors."
In a press statement released earlier this week Mr Bast
said the Heartland Institute had changed the headline that "its public
relations department had chosen" for some of the documents related to
the lists.
It changed "500 Scientists with Documented Doubts of
Man-Made Global Warming Scares" to "500 Scientists Whose Research
Contradicts Man-Made Global Warming Scares".
Aside from those
headlines, none of the articles and news releases produced by The
Heartland Institute or the Hudson Institute (the original source of the
lists) claimed that all of the scientists who appear in the lists
currently doubt that the modern warming is man-made, he said.
The
Hudson Institute's news release had said not all of these researchers
would describe themselves as global warming sceptics but the evidence
in their studies was there for all to see.
"We plan to make no further changes to the articles or to the lists."
Find article at: www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=21978 Source
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