Oregon Petition

The Oregon Petition is the name commonly given to a petition opposed to the Kyoto protocol, organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) between 1999 and 2001, shortly before the United States was expected to ratify the protocol. Professor Frederick Seitz, the past President of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a cover letter endorsing the petition.

The Oregon Petition was the third, and by the far the largest, of five prominent efforts intended to show that a "scientific consensus" does not exist on the subject of global warming. The petition site asserts that total number of Independently verified signatures received is 17,800.[1] but there is no evidence of how this verification was done.

Text

The text of the petition (which was on a reply card) reads, in its entirety:[2]

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

The text of the petition is often misrepresented: for example, "scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis" [3]. The two-paragraph petition used the terms catastrophic heating and disruption , not "global warming". The article attached to the petition (see below) did mention "global warming" twenty-one times and "climate change" four times. [4]

Covering letter and attached article

The petition had a covering letter from Frederick Seitz, who identified himself as "Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.; President Emeritus, Rockefeller University", and an attached article. The six paragraph letter [5]said that the attached article was "an eight page review of information on the subject of 'global warming'".

The senior author of the article was Dr. Arthur B. Robinson, a biochemist. The second and third authors were Drs. Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Both Baliunas and Soon have ties to the George C. Marshall Institute, which has taken a skeptical position on global warming since the 1980s. The fourth and final author was Zachary W. Robinson, Arthur Robinson's 22-year-old son.

The article that accompanied the petition [6] was written in the style of a contribution to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a scientific journal. Raymond Pierrehumbert, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Chicago, supporter of ACLU rulings[7], and (now) member of RealClimate, said that it was "designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article ... is a reprint and has passed peer review." Pierrehumbert also said the article was full of "half-truths" [8] .

Among other things, the article states that

... over the past two decades, when CO2 levels have been at their highest, global average temperatures have actually cooled slightly

and says that this was based on comparison of satellite data (for 1979-1997) and balloon data from 1979-96. At the time the petition was written, this was unclear. Since then the satellite record has been revised, and shows warming. (See historical temperature record and satellite temperature measurements.)

After the petition appeared, the National Academy of Sciences said in news release that

The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal." It also said "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy.

In fact, it pointed out, its own prior published study had shown that

even given the considerable uncertainties in our knowledge of the relevant phenomena, greenhouse warming poses a potential threat sufficient to merit prompt responses. Investment in mitigation measures acts as insurance protection against the great uncertainties and the possibility of dramatic surprises.[9]

Signatories

Because of various criticisms made of the two Leipzig Declarations, the Oregon Petition Project claimed to adopt a number of measures, though none of these claims have been independently verified:

• The petitioners could submit responses only by physical mail, not electronic mail, to limit fraud. Older signatures submitted via the web were not removed, however the verification of the scientists is listed at 95% [10]. How this verification was done is not specified.
• Signatories to the petition were requested to list an academic degree; 86% did list a degree; petitioners claimed that approximately two thirds held higher degrees, but never provided evidence confirming this claim.
• Petitioners were also requested to list their academic discipline; the petition sponsors note that 2,660 Scientists were trained in physical or environmental sciences (physics, geophysics, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, or environmental science) while 25% were trained in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, or other life sciences[11].
• The Petition Project itself avoided any funding or association with the energy industries. A few of the scientists who signed the petition are affiliated with organizations funded by groups such as Exxon or the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Myron Ebell and the Cooler Heads Coalition's Patrick Michaels.

The term "scientists" is often used in describing signatories, and the petition [12] requests signatories list their degree (B.S., M.S., or Ph.D.) to and list the scientific field. The distribution of petitions was relatively uncontrolled: those receiving the petition could check a line that said "send more petition cards for me to distribute".

The Petition Project itself states:

Of the 19,700 signatures that the project has received in total so far, 17,800 have been independently verified and the other 1,900 have not yet been independently verified. Of those signers holding the degree of PhD, 95% have now been independently verified. One name that was sent in by enviro pranksters, Geri Halliwell, PhD, has been eliminated. Several names, such as Perry Mason and Robert Byrd are still on the list even though enviro press reports have ridiculed their identity with the names of famous personalities. They are actual signers. Perry Mason, for example, is a PhD Chemist. [13]

In 2005, Scientific American reported:

Scientific American took a sample of 30 of the 1,400* signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition —- one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers – a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community. [14]

At the time this Scientific American reporting was listed, this number was accurate, though has since grown to 2,660. [15]

One newspaper reporter said, in 2005:

In less than 10 minutes of casual scanning, I found duplicate names (Did two Joe R. Eaglemans and two David Tompkins sign the petition, or were some individuals counted twice?), single names without even an initial (Biolchini), corporate names (Graybeal & Sayre, Inc. How does a business sign a petition?), and an apparently phony single name (Redwine, Ph.D.). These examples underscore a major weakness of the list: there is no way to check the authenticity of the names. Names are given, but no identifying information (e.g., institutional affiliation) is provided. Why the lack of transparency? [16]

See also

• Kyoto protocol
• Leipzig Declaration

External links

• Petition Project website
• Sourcewatch on OISM and its petition
• Technocracy, Democracy, and U.S. Climate Politics: The Need for Demarcations: a paper by Myanna Lahsen (discussion of the Oregon Petition begins on page 152)