U.S. Senate Minority Report

The contact person for information on this report is Matt Dempsey. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., or at (202) 224-9797. For access to the complete report in a PDF format go to www.epw.senate.gov/minority.

These first six paragraphs were written by a staff writer of the Heartland Institute, and are reprinted with permission of the Institute.

[Editor's Note: We need Republican politicians to join the debate, and challenge Al Gore. Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has confronted global warming hysteria, but he has largely been on his own. Given the following quotes, what justifies Republican silence?]

Over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe challenged man-made global warming claims made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former Vice President Al Gore. This new 231-page U.S. Senate Minority Report -- updated from 2007's groundbreaking report of over 400 scientists who voiced skepticism about the so-called global warming "consensus" -- features the skeptical voices, including many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN IPCC. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The chorus of skeptical scientific voices grew louder in 2008 as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses, real world data and inconvenient developments challenged the UN and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus." On a range of issues, 2008 proved to be challenging for the promoters of man-made climate fears. Promoters of anthropogenic warming fears endured the following: Global temperatures failing to warm; peer-reviewed studies predicting a continued lack of warming; a failed attempt to revive the discredited "Hockey Stick" theory; inconvenient developments and studies regarding CO2, the sun, clouds, Antarctica, the Arctic, Greenland, Mount Kilimanjaro, hurricanes, extreme storms, floods, ocean acidification, polar bears, lack of atmospheric dust, and the failure of oceans to warm and rise as predicted.

In addition, the following developments further secured 2008 as the year the "consensus" collapsed. Russian scientists "rejected the very idea that carbon dioxide may be responsible for global warming." An American Physical Society editor conceded that a "considerable presence" of scientific skeptics exists. An international team of scientists countered the UN IPCC, declaring: "Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate." India issued a report challenging global warming fears. International scientists demanded the UN IPCC "be called to account and cease its deceptive practices," and a canvass of more than 51,000 Canadian scientists revealed 68 percent disagree that global warming science is "settled."

This new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's office of the GOP Ranking Member is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition challenging significant aspects of the claims of the UN IPCC and Al Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic games, was held in Norway in August 2008, and prominently featured the voices of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears.

Even the mainstream media has begun to take notice of the expanding number of scientists serving as "consensus busters." A November 25, 2008, article in Politico noted that a "growing accumulation" of science is challenging warming fears, and added that the "science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation." Canada's Financial Post noted on October 20, 2008, "the number of climate change skeptics is growing rapidly." New York Times environmental reporter Andrew Revkin noted on March 6, 2008:

As we all know, climate science is not a numbers game (there are heaps of signed statements by folks with advanced degrees on all sides of this issue).

In 2007, Washington Post staff writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that the numbers of climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking."

Skeptical scientists are gaining recognition despite what many say is a bias against them in parts of the scientific community and are facing significant funding disadvantages. Dr. William M. Briggs, a climate statistician who serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee, explained that his colleagues described "absolute horror stories of what happened to them when they tried getting papers published that explored non-consensus views." Briggs, in a March 4, 2008, report, described the behavior as "really outrageous and unethical behavior on the parts of some editors. I was shocked." [Note: An August 2007 report detailed how proponents of man-made global warming fears enjoy a monumental funding advantage over skeptical scientists.

Highlights of Minority Report

"I am a skeptic. . . . Global warming has become a new religion." --Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

"Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly. . . . As a scientist I remain skeptical. The main basis of the claim that man's release of greenhouse gases is the cause of the warming is based almost entirely upon climate models. We all know the frailty of models concerning the air-surface system." --Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, and formerly of NASA, who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called "among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years."

"Warming fears are the worst scientific scandal in history. . . . When people come to know what the truth is they will feel deceived by science and scientists." -- UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning Ph.D. and an environmental chemist.

"The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn't listen to others. It doesn't have open minds. . . . I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions [authored] by people who are not geologists." --Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University, and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

"So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming." --Scientist Dr. Jari R. Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland, author of 200 scientific publications, and former Greenpeace member.

"Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time." --Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.

"The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results in scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity." --Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

"It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don't buy into anthropogenic global warming." --U.S. Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

"Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will." --Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

"After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet." --Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an associate editor of Monthly Weather Review.

"The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round. . . . A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 UN conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the UN declared global warming to be a scientific fact." --Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher.

"Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall GHG content in accord with the necessary balance conditions." --Prominent Hungarian Physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklos Zagoni reversed his view of man-made warming and is now a skeptic. Zagoni was once Hungary's most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.

"For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" --Geologist Dr. David Gee, the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer-reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

"Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp. . . . Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact." --Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

"The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil. . . . I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the summaries for policy makers, identifying the way in which the summaries have distorted the science." --South African Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.

"Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly [from promoting warming fears], without having their professional careers ruined." --Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

"All those urging action to curb global warming need to take off the blinders and give some thought to what we should do if we are facing global cooling instead" --Geophysicist Dr. Phil Chapman, an astronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut, who served as staff physicist at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

"Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense. . . . The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning." --Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

"CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another. . . . Every scientist knows this, but it doesn't pay to say so. . . . Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver's seat, and developing nations walking barefoot." --Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

"The [global warming] scare mongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds." --Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

"Whatever the weather, it's not being caused by global warming. If anything, the climate may be starting into a cooling period." --Atmospheric scientist Dr. Art V. Douglas is a former Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and is the author of numerous papers for peer-reviewed publications.

"But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all." --Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.

"The 'global warming scare' is being used as a political tool to increase government control over American lives, incomes, and decision making. It has no place in society's activities." --Award-Winning NASA Astronaut/Geologist and moonwalker Jack Schmitt, who flew on the Apollo 17 mission, and formerly worked for Norwegian Geological Survey, and for the U.S. Geological Survey.

"Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC. . . . The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium . . . which is why 'global warming' is now called 'climate change.'" -- Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.

"I have yet to see credible proof of carbon dioxide driving climate change, yet alone man-made CO2 driving it. The atmospheric hot-spot is missing and the ice core data refute this. When will we collectively awake from this deceptive delusion?" --Dr. G. LeBlanc Smith, a retired Principal Research Scientist with Australia's CSIRO. *

"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views." --William F. Buckley Jr.