For Immediate Release
Washington, D.C., December 8, 2015—The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation today announced that over 350 scientists, policy experts, ethicists, and religious leaders, plus laymen, have signed An Open Letter on Climate Change to the People, their Local Representatives, the State Legislatures and Governors, the Congress, and the President of the United States of America.
The letter, which challenges “consensus” on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) exclusively represented at the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 21st Conference of the Parties currently underway in Paris, concludes:
Climate change is overwhelmingly natural and cyclical; human contribution to it is slight and not dangerous; attempts to reduce human contribution by reducing CO2 emissions would cause more harm than good; and expanded use of fossil fuels is necessary to provide the abundant, affordable, reliable energy indispensable to lifting and keeping societies out of poverty. Although CO2 emissions warm the earth slightly, they do not warm it dangerously, and the benefits of fossil fuel use, especially in enabling whole societies to rise, and remain, out of poverty, far outweigh whatever risks might accompany their small contribution to global warming.
“Climate change and its causes and effects are a tremendously complex phenomenon requiring advanced studies in mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, oceanography, meteorology, and even astrophysics,” said Cornwall Alliance Founder and National Spokesman Dr. E. Calvin Beisner in announcing the Open Letter.
“And if we are to adopt wise policies related to it,” he added, “we need insights not only from the natural sciences but also from social sciences like economics, politics, philosophy, and ethics, and from theology and religion. That’s why we sought input and endorsements from scholars with very diverse expertise.”
The nearly 400 signers so far are academically and religiously diverse. Natural scientists make up 194 (including 21 climate scientists, 67 engineers, and 18 physicists), social scientists 97 (including 10 philosophers, 10 lawyers, and 10 economists) and theologians and pastors 54. Signers include 174 evangelical Protestants, 70 Roman Catholics, 64 mainline Protestants, and 82 others.
World-renowned scientists signing include
- climate scientists: Neil L. Frank (former Director, National Hurricane Center), William M. Gray (Emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University), Madhav Khandekar (retired research scientist with Environment Canada), David R. Legates (Professor of Climatology, University of Delaware), and Roy W. Spencer (award-winning NASA research scientist in charge of satellite measurement of global temperatures, Principal Research Scientist in Climatology at the University of Alabama); and
- physicists: Freeman Dyson and William Happer, both long-time professors of physics at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies, and Michael Asten, Professor of Geophysics at Monash University; and
- engineers: former NASA Apollo, Skylab, and Space Shuttle engineer and now chairman of The Right Climate Stuff Research Team of former NASA scientists Harold H. Doiron, nuclear engineer and Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering Ronald Carson, and environmental engineer C. Joseph Touhill.
Major theologians and religious leaders include Dr. Wayne Grudem, Research Professor of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary; Dr. Richard Land, President of Southern Evangelical Seminary and former President of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; and Dr. David F. Wells, Distinguished Research Professor, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Signers expressed a variety of reasons for their action.
“Global warming is a naturally occurring event and arbitrary carbon emission reductions will only harm the poor and likely harm the environment as well,” Paul Hoffman, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks, said when he signed. “The models that project warming are not reliable.”
Dr. Tracy Miller, Associate Professor of Economics at Grove City College, said, “Government policy to regulate CO2 reduces freedom and economic opportunity, especially for the poor.”
“The truth about our impact on climate and the environment needs to be recognized in order to support sound public policies,” said Donna Fitzpatrick Bethell, former Under Secretary, U.S. Department of Energy.
Rev. Dr. Joe Boot, a philosopher and head of The Ezra Institute in Canada, said, “Because of the critical nature of the threat to freedom and human well-being that climate change alarmism represents. Modern climate change alarmism is a utopian movement that in the name of sustainability and social justice seeks to halt history.”
Along with the Open Letter, for which it seeks mostly scholars as signers, the Cornwall Alliance has initiated a petition for anyone to sign, Forget ‘Climate Change’, Energy Empowers the Poor https://www.cornwallalliance.org/energyempowersthepoor. In early promotion it has gained nearly 2,500 signatures.
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Media contact: Megan Toombs, Communications & Outreach Coordinator, Megan@CornwallAlliance.org, 423-500-3009
