The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is a United States public policy organization which promotes climate change denial. [1]
The mission of the nonprofit advocacy group Science and Public Policy Institute is to promote "sound public policy based on sound science." [2]
With a strong emphasis on global warming denial, SPPI was established in the middle of 2007. It heavily references works by climate change science denier Christopher Monckton, who served as editor of the organization's "Monthly CO2 Report", has published many of his works with SPPI, and who is also listed as the organization's "Chief Policy Advisor." [2]
The SPPI has analyzed the states for observed climate change and the impact or expense of climate change regulations or prevention measures, in addition to releasing original articles on subjects including climate change and mercury in the environment. SPPI has been called a "front" for the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CSCDGC), with whom it frequently co-publishes papers. [2]
The organization's executive director is Robert Ferguson, and the chief policy adviser is Christopher Monckton. Joe D'Aleo is the institute's Meteorology Adviser. Further science advisers, as listed in 2011, include:
Willie Soon was at one time the chief science advisor.
The Science and Public Policy Institute funded a film "Apocalypse? No!" intended to show errors in the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth . It shows Monckton giving a presentation to the Cambridge University Union. [3]
The SPPI took an interest in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy ("Climategate"). Its position is elaborated in a 45-page paper released in December 2009, titled Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!: Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the Climategate scandal, which concluded that global warming is a myth. [4]
The Institute is operated by The Frontiers of Freedom Foundation, Inc., [5] [6] [7] a policy organization founded in 1996 by former Senator Malcolm Wallop, Republican of Wyoming. [8] On its website SPPI does not detail the sources of its funding. In 2002, Frontiers of Freedom had a budget of $700,000, with fossil-fuel company Exxon-Mobil donating $230,000 of that sum. [1]
The Global Climate Coalition (GCC) (1989–2001) was an international lobbyist group of businesses that opposed action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and engaged in climate change denial, publicly challenging the science behind global warming. The GCC was the largest industry group active in climate policy and the most prominent industry advocate in international climate negotiations. The GCC was involved in opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, and played a role in blocking ratification by the United States. The coalition knew it could not deny the scientific consensus, but sought to sow doubt over the scientific consensus on climate change and create manufactured controversy.
Sir Robert Tony Watson CMG FRS is a British chemist who has worked on atmospheric science issues including ozone depletion, global warming and paleoclimatology since the 1980s. Most recently, he is lead author of the February 2021 U.N. report Making Peace with Nature.
The Stop Esso campaign was a campaign by Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and People and Planet aimed at boycotting the oil company ExxonMobil, on the grounds that it is damaging the environment.
The Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Tempe, Arizona. It is seen as a front group for the fossil fuel industry, and as promoting climate change denial. The Center produces a weekly online newsletter called CO2Science.
Craig D. Idso is the founder, president and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, a group which receives funding from ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy and which promotes climate change denial. He is the brother of Keith E. Idso and son of Sherwood B. Idso.
Willie Wei-Hock Soon is a Malaysian astrophysicist and aerospace engineer who was long employed as a part-time externally funded researcher at the Solar and Stellar Physics (SSP) Division of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
The George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was a nonprofit conservative think tank in the United States. It was established in 1984 with a focus on science and public policy issues and had an initial focus in defense policy. Starting in the late 1980s, the institute advocated for views in line with environmental skepticism, most notably climate change denial. The think tank received extensive financial support from the fossil fuel industry.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is a non-profit libertarian think tank founded by the political writer Fred L. Smith Jr. on March 9, 1984, in Washington, D.C., to advance principles of limited government, free enterprise, and individual liberty. CEI focuses on a number of regulatory policy issues, including business and finance, labor, technology and telecommunications, transportation, food and drug regulation, and energy and environment in which they have promoted climate change denial. Kent Lassman is the current President and CEO.
The Scientific Alliance is a UK-based organization that claims to promote open-minded debate on scientific matters and science policy, including biotechnology, genetically modified food, energy and climate change. Its stated aim is to "bring together both scientists and non-scientists committed to rational discussion and debate on the challenges facing the environment today." In the scientific literature it is regarded as "a UK-based lobby group which challenges the scientific consensus on climate change".
Myron Ebell is an American climate change denier who served as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), an American libertarian advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. He was also chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a politically conservative group formed in 1997 focused on "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic, scientific, and risk analysis". In September 2016, Ebell was appointed by then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lead his transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is the largest U.S. trade association for the oil and natural gas industry. It claims to represent nearly 600 corporations involved in production, refinement, distribution, and many other aspects of the petroleum industry.
The Heartland Institute is an American conservative and libertarian 501(c)(3) nonprofit public policy think tank known for its rejection of both the scientific consensus on climate change and the negative health impacts of smoking.
David Russell Legates is a former professor of geography at the University of Delaware. He is the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the same university and a former Delaware state climatologist. In September 2020, the Trump administration appointed him as deputy assistant secretary of commerce for observation and prediction at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British public speaker and hereditary peer. He is known for his work as a journalist, Conservative political advisor, UKIP political candidate, and for his invention of the mathematical puzzle Eternity.
Climate change denial is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of a scientific controversy where there is none. Climate change denial includes unreasonable doubts about the extent to which climate change is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, and the potential of adaptation to global warming by human actions. To a lesser extent, climate change denial can also be implicit when people accept the science but fail to reconcile it with their belief or action. Several studies have analyzed these positions as forms of denialism, pseudoscience, or propaganda.
Bob Ward has served as policy and communications director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics since 2008.
Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills was a case heard in September–October 2007 in the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, concerning the permissibility of the government providing Al Gore's climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth to English state schools as a teaching aid.
Watts Up With That? (WUWT) is a blog promoting climate change denial that was created by Anthony Watts in 2006.
From the 1980s to mid 2000s, ExxonMobil was a leader in climate change denial, opposing regulations to curtail global warming. For example, ExxonMobil was a significant influence in preventing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol by the United States. ExxonMobil funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol and seeking to undermine public opinion about the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Of the major oil corporations, ExxonMobil has been the most active in the debate surrounding climate change. According to a 2007 analysis by the Union of Concerned Scientists, the company used many of the same strategies, tactics, organizations, and personnel the tobacco industry used in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking.
The history of climate change policy and politics refers to the continuing history of political actions, policies, trends, controversies and activist efforts as they pertain to the issue of climate change. Climate change emerged as a political issue in the 1970s, when activist and formal efforts sought to address environmental crises on a global scale. International policy regarding climate change has focused on cooperation and the establishment of international guidelines to address global warming. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a largely accepted international agreement that has continuously developed to meet new challenges. Domestic policy on climate change has focused on both establishing internal measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and incorporating international guidelines into domestic law.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)the Center for Science and Public Policy, a project of the industry-funded Frontiers of Freedom (a group that has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from ExxonMobil)