Links to source documents
News: 2010-06-21 a peer-reviewed paper drawing on my lists has just been
published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
For links to the sources used in the paper, see below under completed listings in the sections for "mainstream position" and "skeptical position"
News: Dan Moutal discusses my list of recent affirmative statements on climate by scientists (eight statements since Dec. 2009, with over 5000 signatures combined) in episode one of his new climate podcast 'Irregular Climate' - discussion of these begins around 9 minutes in (but do listen to the whole show!) Thanks for the coverage, Dan!
Learned Societies
I've tagged names in my list who are Fellows of a relevant learned society or elected members of a national academy, including:
These honours are granted to only a fraction of active scholars and researchers in a field, reflecting lifetime achievement and contribution to science. On Wikipedia, these are some of the distinctions that would pass the "prof test", qualifying the individual as "notable" in WP terms.
Position Statements
I've listed signers of activist and skeptic statements by assigning a unique short tag for each such document, and entering the tag in the first column of my tables. I'm updating my script to make each such tag into a link to the source document. This page provides a central listing of these source documents for reference.
Mainstream position
These are the sources for names that I've flagged as climate "activists."
Each of these documents makes a strong and clear statement that climate
change is happening, human activity is a major contributor to it, and
that prompt action is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Most of
these are public declarations, petitions, or open letters.
The IPCC assessments are not really in the same category as these;
however, the IPCC Assessment Reports clearly also embody just such a
strong call to action. While contrarians like to argue that any given
IPCC author may not agree with everything in every section of the reports,
the IPCC is a consensus-based body and all language incorporated in their
reports gets closely scrutinized multiple times, with all objections
addressed and debated to reach consensus on the wording. I claim it
is only reasonable to place IPCC authors in the "mainstream" and to
recognize that the IPCC reports incorporate a strong call for action
on greenhouse gas reductions.
Completed listings
Signers of the following activist documents are included in their entirely in my current web listings. The first three were issued since the data was collected for the PNAS paper and so are not included in that analysis.
The following were included as "CE" in Anderegg, Prall et al. 2010: AR4 wg1, Bali07, CMOS06, CMOS08, and noSW07.
- CMOS08: June, 2008 letter from Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society members, 130 signers: Text of CMOS 2008 letter
- Bali07: Dec., 2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists, 212 signers: The Bali Climate Declaration
- NoSw07: April, 2007 letter protesting inaccuracies in UK Channel 4 tele-film The Great Global Warming Swindle, 37 signers: letter of complaint to Channel 4 against TGGWS
- AR4 wg1: 2007 IPCC AR4 working group 1 list of 619 contributing authors, listed in Annex 2 of the report, pp. 955-968: AR4 wg1 annexes
- CMOS06: April, 2006 letter from Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society members, 120 signers: CMOS 2006 letter
Lists partially recorded
The following activist statements have much longer lists of signatories, making it impractical for me to incorporate all signers names in my lists with publication and citation stats. Although these statements fit our criteria for "CE", none of these lists were used as selection criteria in the PNAS paper because the lists were too long for me to have had time to get citation stats on all the signers. On my web listings, I've noted some of the signers whose names I already had.
Instead, I have run comparisons of the signers names with those names I've already collected in other ways, and I've flagged those individuals who signed any these documents as I'm able. This is still relevant for my purposes here: anyone who signed one of these statements counts as a self-declared climate 'activist'; I simply haven't been able to add in stats for all the several thousand names that endorsed these statements.
For reference, I've created an alphabetical list of unique names of
signers of climate action statements since December 2009 (subsequent to the controversy arising from posting of the stolen UEA/CRU emails).
This list, made up of signers of NAS10, FR10, NL10, OLFS10, UCS10, UKsc09, CSW09 and WWFC09, runs to over 5000 unique names.
- NAS10: May, 2010 statement from 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences defending the integrity of climate science, and condemning "McCarthy-like tactics" against climate scientists.
Discussed at DeSmogBlog and
at ClimateProgress.
- FR10: May, 2010 statement from over 600 scientists in France rebutting outrageous attacks on climate science by Claude Allegre.
- NL10: May, 2010 statement from scientists in the Netherlands; 50 initial signers; now 196 Dutch and 96 foreign signers [May 2010].
- OLFS10: March, 2010
Open Letter from U.S. Scientists on the IPCC, 320 signers
(list)
- UCS10 March, 2010 US Scientists and Economists' Call to Action organised by the Union of Concerned Scientists. This builds on their similar 2008 statement, with over 2000 signatories.
- UKsc09: Dec. 2009 Statement from the UK science community signed by 1700 U.K. scientists, from 67 universities and 55 other institutions, re-affirming the integrity of climate science and data sources, in response to the University of East Anglia email break-in, which begins:
We, members of the UK science community, have the utmost confidence in the observational evidence for global warming and the scientific basis for concluding that it is due primarily to human activities. The evidence and the science are deep and extensive. They come from decades of painstaking and meticulous research, by many thousands of scientists across the world who adhere to the highest levels of professional integrity. That research has been subject to peer review and publication, providing traceability of the evidence and support for the scientific method.
This is perhaps the strongest and certainly the broadest response from scientists to the UEA email controversy.
- WWFC09: A Dec., 2009 open letter organized by the World Wildlife Fund--Canada to Canada's Parliament calling for action on climate, endorsed by 848 Canadian scientists. I've tagged over 60 already in my list.
- Monaco09: The Monaco Declaration on Ocean Acidification from 155 scientists in 26 countries.
UNESCO announcement -
news report -
ocean-acification.net website
I've entered all 155 names, with stats on 31. There is not a lot of overlap between this oceanographic ecology set and the main body of climate researchers that I've been focusing on. This could be looked at as an area of "impacts" reseach (the scope of Working Group 2 - which includes lots more ecologists on the IPCC, as well.)
- UCS08: A 2008 open letter organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists calling for action on climate, endorsed by 1700 U.S. scientists and economists. Their document breaks out signers by state, and given academic affiliation. As of 2010-01-17 I've tagged 165 list members as signers of UCS08 (I don't plan to try to wade through all the remaining 1450 signers.) This is another forceful statement that the U.S. must act now to combat greenhouse emissions, and that steep cuts are feasible.
- CCSP08: 2008 National Assessment Report on climate science by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program. The format of this is more like an IPCC AR than a petition or declaration. The assessment has multiple chapters, each with multiple authors. Authors may not really be endorsing everything written by others in different sections. Inclusion can be viewed as an indication of high standing in U.S. climate science.
- CCSP04 2004 National Assessment Report - as above for CCSP08.
- SCS03 2003
open letter from US climate scientists to Congress, calling for action on cutting greenhouse emissions; 1011 signers, of which I've noted 90 in my lists up to now [May 2010]. This is one I might do well to tackle further in the future, as the signers were drawn from the ranks of U.S. climate scientists, including many high-ranking names (already 10 of the top 100 by number of climate papers in my current list are flagged as signers of SCS03, even though I've done only very brief and partial comparison of the list of signers of this statement.)
Additional sources not listed
This statement is from the heads of eighteen scientific organizations, endorsing the validity of global warming science. The signers are not themselves climate scientists and my list does not treat organizations, only individuals:
- Acad09: October 2009 letter to US Congress from the heads of eighteen scientific organizations restating the urgent need for action to cut greenhouse emissions.
Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions are based on multiple independent lines of evidence, and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science. ... If we are to avoid the most severe impacts of climate change, emissions of greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced
Skeptical position
I've covered fifteen skeptic letters and statements ranging from 1992 to the present, plust the skeptics profiled in the film "The Great Global Warming Swidle." My list currently has every name of signers of each of these 15 documents, totaling 498 individuals. I assert that this yields a broadly inclusive list that captures the great majority of those contrarians presenting themselves as qualified experts or specialists in climate science or related disciplines.
EPA10 and CCC09 were issued after the data for the PNAS paper was compiled:
All the following were included as "UE" in Anderegg, Prall et al. 2010 except NZCSC, as it is not a statement per se.
- APS09: 2009 letter to the American Physical Society, 61 signers:
old link, broken @2010-10
Skeptics letter to the APS (Google cache)
- NIPCC092009 Heartland Institute document, Climate Change Reconsidered: 2009 Report of the Nongovernmental Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC), Craig Idso and S. Fred Singer, eds.; 36 contributors listed:
NIPCC 2009 full report - front matter listing contributors
- Cato09: 2009 Cato Institute newspaper ad campaign letter; 115 signers:
Text of 2009 Cato climate ad
- MHND2008 'Manhattan Declaration' - list of 206 signers identified as qualified experts (endorsements from non-experts, listed separately, are not treated here; I think it is reasonable to assume they have few to no peer-reviewed publications on climate)
Manhattan Declaration
- NIPCC08: 2008 SEPP/Heartland Institute document Nature, Not Human Activity, Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change, ed. S. Fred Singer, 24 listed contributors:
NIPCC 2008 S.P.M.
[mimicking the name of the IPCC and its SPMs; however the document purportedly 'summarized' here was not issued until the follow year - see NIPCC09 above.]
- UN07: 2007 letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, 100 signers:
climate skeptics letter to Ban Ki-Moon
- ISPM07: 2007 "Independent Summary for Policymakers" questioning the IPCC AR4, organized by the Fraser Institute in Canada: list of 10 authors
- TGGWS: 2007 Martin Durkin film The Great Global Warming Swindle - list of 17 interviewees;
old link, broken @2010-10
transcript of TGGWS film
- CA06: 2006 open letter to Canadian PM Stephen Harper, 61 signers:
2006 skeptics letter to Cdn. PM Harper
- CA03: 2003 open letter to Canadian PM Paul Martin, 46 signers:
2003 skeptics letter to Cdn. PM Martin
- CA02: 2002 letter to Canadian PM Jean Chretien, 30 signers:
2002 skeptics letter to Cdn. PM Chretien (NRSP site no longer working; letter archived here.)
Here is my cached copy of the list of signers, with their affiliations, as given in the letter.
- NZCSC: The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, a skeptics group
NSCSC members (Not included in PNAS paper)
- LZ95: 1995 Leipzig Declaration, 80 signers all listed (additional 25 TV weather reporters not counted):
Leipzig Declaration
- SEPP92: 1992 SEPP Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming, 47 signers (all listed):
SEPP 1992 statement on greenhouse warming
Not covered: The Oregon Petition
The one quite large and widely discussed skeptic petition I have not attempted to treat here is the Oregon Petition organized by Frederick Seitz through the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, starting in 1997.
That document now claims some 31,486 U.S. sicentist signers, 9,029 with PhDs; however, the posted listing does not give institional affiliation, making it extremely difficult to verify signers' identities and publication record (if any). More on this below. Critiques of the Oregon Petition
- YouTube video Climate Change - Meet the Scientists talks through how to tell who is a qualified expert and who is editorializing far from their area of expertise; includes a segment on how this applies to the Oregon Petition
- Sampling test taking the first two names for each letter of the alphabet and checking their identity and publication record, by Chris Colose, found barely any published scientists.
- Another sampling test by Scientific American
- 2005 critique by Paul Shelley in the Hawaii Reporter found evidence of sloppiness such as frequent duplicates, single names, the name of a business.
31,478...13,245... 152 OISM "scientists" can't be wrong by Brian Angliss at Scholarsandrogues.com
- What if the Oregon Petition names were real? by Greenfyre; includes a long list of links to other rebuttals.
- Ignore the Petition Project critique by Canadian blogger at ClimateSight.org
- Petition is Easily-Debunked Propaganda by Kevin Grandia at Huffington Post.
- Is there a scientific consensus on global warming? at Skepticalscience.com rebuts the claims of the Petition Project, citing subsequent surveys of scientists.
- Critical post at Realclimate.org including reader comment thread of 138 replies.
- Sourcewatch.org critique of the Oregon Petition
- e-Skeptic newsletter article from Dr. Michael Shermer's Skeptics Society.
- Oneclimate.net critique
- Critique on logicalscience.com
- The Denial Industry Sept. 2006 article in UK's The Guardian, by George Monbiot, drawing links between petition organizers and tobacco lobbyists.
- Tim Lambert's 2004 critique on his Deltoid blog, including comment thread with 63 responses.
- 1998 commentary in Nature about the petition (subscription required)
1998 commentary in Nature about the petition (subscription required)
My own observations on OISM
Even a brief perusal reveals the list maintainers are not effectively limiting endorsers to qualified experts (the list includes dentists, veterinarians, medical doctors, and a few fictional characters -- since deleted after widespread ridicule).
The page setting out qualifications of signers gives only their count of names by field, without listing which names were counted in any given field. The section for Atmosphere claims 39 signers listed their field as climatology and 112 as atmospheric science.
Taking a sampling approach, I found it difficult to find any signers who could be identified as having published any peer-reviewed work in any way pertinent to climate science. A different approach might be to take known climate scientists (or skeptics) already in my list, and search to see if they also signed the Oregon Petition. I may try this some day, but the expected outcome would simply be that many already identified skeptics also signed the Oregon Petition - adding little information. More useful would be to have a list of which signers are (self-)identified as climatologists, atomspheric scientists or hydrologists.
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