The World Federation of Scientists is a multi-disciplinary association of scientists focused around concentrating talent to solving planetary challenges. Established in Erice, Sicily in 1973 by a group of eminent researchers led by Isidor Isaac Rabi and Antonino Zichichi, it has grown to include more than 10,000 scientists drawn from 110 countries. Notable scientists involved with the association include T. D. Lee, Laura Fermi, Eugene Wigner, Paul Dirac, and Piotr Kapitza. [1]
A professional association seeks to further a particular profession, the interests of individuals engaged in that profession and the public interest. In the United States, such an association is typically a nonprofit organization for tax purposes.
Erice is a historic town and comune in the province of Trapani in Sicily, southern Italy.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 20 regions of Italy. It is one of the five Italian autonomous regions, in Southern Italy along with surrounding minor islands, officially referred to as Regione Siciliana.
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The federation administers the Erice Prize and the Gian Carlo Wick Gold Medal Prize. [1] It notably holds annual seminars on planetary threats, discussing issues such as adaption to and mitigation of global climate change. Václav Klaus, then President of the Czech Republic, gave the keynote lecture of their August 2012 meeting, [2] his skeptical views sparking debate among the attendees.
Václav Klaus is a Czech economist and politician who served as the second President of the Czech Republic from 2003 to 2013. He also served as the second and last Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, federal subject of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic, from July 1992 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in January 1993, and as the first Prime Minister of the newly-independent Czech Republic from 1993 to 1998.
The President of the Czech Republic is the elected formal head of state of the Czech Republic and the commander-in-chief of the Military of the Czech Republic. Unlike counterparts in other Central European countries such as Austria and Hungary, who are generally considered figureheads, the Czech president has a considerable role in political affairs. Because many powers can only be exercised with the signatures of both the President and the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, responsibility over some political issues is effectively shared between the two offices.
The global warming controversy concerns the public debate over whether global warming is occurring, how much has occurred in modern times, what has caused it, what its effects will be, whether any action should be taken to curb it, and if so what that action should be. In the scientific literature, there is a strong consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades and that the trend is caused by human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases. No scientific body of national or international standing disagrees with this view, though a few organizations with members in extractive industries hold non-committal positions.
It is not related to the World Federation of Science Journalists or World Federation of Scientific Workers.
The World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) is an international federation of scientific associations. It was a Cold War-era Communist front. The group was composed of scientists who supported communism. The federation opposed nuclear tests conducted by the United States.
