When first circulated to U.S. scientists a decade ago, the petition was accompanied by a letter from a former National Academy of Science President (the late) Dr. Fred Seitz (co-founder and then  Chairman Emeritus of the George Marshall Institute - see above) and an article formatted to look like be a peer-reviewed publication from the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Science although it was never submitted to that journal, and was not peer-reviewed.  The Seitz letter furthered the deception by describing the article as "an eight page review of information on the subject of 'global warming.'  Following queries regarding this article, a NAS Press release responded: "The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy." The NAS further noted that 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."
        The article itself,  titled "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," was authored by Arthur B. Robinson, Sallie L. Baliunas, Willie Soon, and Zachary W. Robinson.  The first and last authors are both members of OISM (Arthur being the Director and Zachary being Arthur's son) while Sallie Baliunas (see below) and Willie Soon (see below) were (and still are) astrophysicists at Harvard University however, in the article they identified themselves with the George C. Marshall Institute (see above) rather than Harvard - probably as an accurate reflection of the relative merits of the science versus the political opinion contained in that article.  This article is very difficult to find now since on every link it has been replaced with a 2007 article published in the Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons Association bearing the same title but authored by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah E. Robinson, and Willie Soon (Noah being another of Arthur's sons). The original 1997 article was published in 1998 in the Medical Sentinel (later becoming the Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons).  Meanwhile, another article - very similar in many respects and bearing exactly the same title - was published in Climate Research in 1999.  The later 2007 article is little more than a warmed-over version of these earlier articles.
            The publications of the early and later versions of this paper are interesting and illustrative in themselves.  As is the case with the Journal of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the name to which Medical Sentinel changed, MS was also the journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and was produced at OISM edited by staff member Dr. Jane Orient. AAPS is "widely credited for their effective work toward preventing socialized medicine in the Unites States;" the organization considers that socialized medicine is "evil" and "immoral".  Medical Sentinel was "committed to publishing scholarly articles in defense of the practice of private medicine" and the pursuit of liberty, free markets and integrity in medical research..." Presumably JAAPS follows the same principles.
            Signatories to the petition were and are able to submit via the Internet, with the result that vetting of names and credentials is not easy - if, indeed, it was seriously attempted.  By June of 2000 the claim was that 19,000 scientists had signed, although Robinson acknowledged that far fewer than this number were physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, or meteorologists, "and of those the greatest number are physicists."  Many names are suspected of being forgeries and many others are names of individuals from TV programs, movies, and fiction.   Currently, the petition (OISM claims) contains over 31,000 signatories, but the same caveats apply.  Additionally, a number of early signatories have requested their names be removed. Of course, it should also be remembered, that the bulk of these signatories were added before the latest (2007) IPCC report was released and thus were added at a time when the scientific consensus was less well developed. It was the latest (2007) IPCC report (AR4) which contained the most compelling assessment.         
            While Medical Sentinel and JAAPS claim to be peer-reviewed journals, given its focus, the AAPS membership base, and the association with OISM it is not clear from where any expertise sufficient to peer review a manuscript dealing with climate change might come.  The frequency with which articles published in these journals have been authored by the editor and other OISM staff raises suspicions about the integrity of the 'double blind' peer-review process JAAPS claims to employ.  

            Science and Public Policy Institute     

            Science and Environmental Policy Project
            According to its SEPP: The Science & Environmental Policy Project was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer (see below) on the premise that sound, credible science must form the basis for health and environmental decisions that affect millions of people and cost tens of billions of dollars every year.  According to Sourcewatch: it began as a research effort for a book Dr. Singer was writing on global warming.  According to the Greenpeace Factsheet SEPP has received $20,000 from ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2006.

Funding sources for these organizations?
        These are all non-profit entities, meaning they do not pay taxes; contributors evade taxes on the contributions that promote their continued existence.
        According to the Greenpeace Factsheet, between1998 and 2006 Exxon/Mobil contributed over $3.5 million to those organizations listed here that are philosophically opposed to the IPCC climate change conclusions and recommendations.  In fact, over the period 1998-2008, Exxon/Mobil has  contributed over $23 million to skeptic organizations.  Meanwhile, Exxon/Mobil had first quarter earning for 2008 of $10.89 billion, which factors at the rate of $5 million and hour.  As Upton Sinclair wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

Notable Individuals Supporting the IPCC Conclusions:

Senator (and GOP Presidential candidate) John McCain: "Today I'd like to focus on just one of those challenges, and among environmental dangers it is surely the most serious of all. Whether we call it "climate change" or "global warming," in the end we're all left with the same set of facts. The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington. Good stewardship, prudence, and simple common sense demand that we to act meet the challenge, and act quickly."

Some Leading Individuals Rejecting the IPCC Conclusions:

Dr. Sallie Baliunas is an Astrophysicist (not a climate scientist) associated with Harvard University and is Senior Scientist with The George Marshall Institute (see above).  Baliunas has long rejected the notion that there is a connection between between CO₂ rise and climate change.  In a 2001 essay with Willie Soon (see below) she claimed that satellite and balloon data showed that no warming had occurred in the atmosphere in the last 50 years. This claim, however, was incorrect, as satellite data show.  Later, Baliunas acknowledged the warming reported in the data, but resorted to the fall-back position that this was not related to human activity.  (For comments on a Baliunas and Soon publication see Chris de Freitas below.)
            Although articles to which Baliunas has contributed suggests that solar activity is the cause for the warming of earth's climate, in 2008 Sallie Baliunas (Associate of the Harvard Observatory) seems to have reversed herself.  At a 2008 Boston symposium on the causes of climate change (global warming) where human activity was cited as the most likely culprit, Baliunas responded to her own question: "Did the sun cause what we see on the ground?” by concurring with the symposium theme, and answering: “It doesn’t seem so.”  Apparently Baliunas is changing her mind.

Dr. Michael Crichton has a medical degree though apparently has never practiced.  He has no credentials in climate science, though has undertaken post-doctoral study at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences in California. In a speech entitled 'Aliens Cause Global Warming' Crichton stated "Historically, the claim of [scientific] consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels" and "the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus."  Crichton, a science fiction writer with seemingly few, if any, credentials in science, is very wrong.  In science, consensus arises from the peer-reviewed scientific literature.  When an idea has been studied by many scientists, and all results point in one direction, consensus has been achieved.  Indeed, the very notion of what constitute the theories and laws that define our understanding of how the universe operates, are exactly consensus.  It is our acceptance of this consensus that allows us to fly humans to the moon and other planets, to cure disease, and to enjoy the technological advances that have accrued of the centuries.  Denying the concept of scientific consensus is absurd and futile.  Science fiction ideas in his novel State of Fear are often cited by skeptics as though they have some credibility, though they do not. However, these ideas are based on outdated data.

           Dr. John Christy, a Professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama (Huntsville), was a lead author of the 2001 IPCC report.  In the early 1990s Christy published data indicating that upper tropospheric (at 10 – 15 km) temperatures were decreasing when conventional climate change theory predicted they should be increasing.  This probably had an impact on the Baliunas position noted above.

However, Christy’s data have since been corrected – not once, but many times – as understanding of techniques improves.  In 2006, Christy co-authored a research paper that stated “current upper air climate records give reliable indications of directions of change (e.g. warming of the troposphere, cooling of the stratosphere [above the troposphere to 50 km]).”  Subsequently, Christy apparently rejected his more recent view and returned to the earlier view based on incorrect data. Then, later he stated that he agrees with the view that human activities are a cause for climate change but criticizes those making catastrophic predictions of huge increases in temperature or tremendous rises in sea levels.  Though he is often lauded as a skeptic, where Christy currently stands seems unclear.

             Christy is co-author of the American Geophysical Union statement on climate change: "The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system--including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons--are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century."

          Dr. Chris de Freitas, a climatologist and Associate Professor at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, thinks that carbon dioxide emissions may not be the source of recent global warming.  Formerly an editor of Climate Research, de Freitas received a manuscript from and approved publication of a review article critical of the climate change consensus by two noted skeptics, the astrophysicists Sallie Baliunas (see above) and Willie Soon (see below). According to DeSmogBlog.com, following 2003 publication of the paper 'Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1,000 years', 13 of the authors cited in the paper refuted the Baliunas and Soon interpretation.  In addition, according to one of the resigned editors, Clare Goodess: [the] paper includes funding acknowledgements to NOAA, NASA and the US Air Force, as well as to the American Petroleum Institute (see above). Yet NOAA flatly deny having ever funded the authors for such work, while the other two bodies admit to funding them, but for work on solar variability – not proxy climate records, the topic that has caused such a storm.'  Goodess also noted that half the journal editorial board resigned in protest. Subsequently, publisher Otton Kinne of Inter-Research, appointed Hans von Storch as editor-in-chief and acknowledged that peer-review had failed to prevent a seriously flawed manuscript from being published; this changed the peer review process to require that all manuscripts be submitted directly to the editor-in-chief rather than to one of the other editors.  However, as a result of disagreement with the editors Storch resigned before assuming the post.  Not surprisingly, a press release by one of the authors initiated interest from the Bush White House, which tried to get the EPA to include reference to it in an annual report.  When EPA staff refused the White House request, all mention of climate change was removed from the EPA report.  Equally unsurprisingly, Oklahoma Republican Senator James Inhofe (see below) called a Senate Hearing to debate the paper.  In contravention of accepted scientific protocol, where papers only appear once in one journal, a more extensive version of the same paper was later published in Energy and Environment, another journal with questionable peer-review procedures (see Stephen McIntyre below). 

            Sherwood, Craig, and Keith Idso  (See Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change above).  These individuals were co-authors with Willie Soon (see below) and Sallie Baliunas (see above) of a paper appearing in the marginal social science journal Energy and Environment (see Stephen McIntyre below) that purported to challenge evidence regarding the warming of the last decades of the 20th century - but see Realclimate for reference to the extensive rebuttals appearing in the peer-reviewed literature to this paper.

Senator James Inhofe R. Oklahoma is notable for having described climate change as a hoax and citing the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine petition (see above) as evidence.  Inhofe, who reportedly often cites the Bible as as the source for his positions on political issues, also has compared the United States Environmental Protection Agency to the Gestapo, and has alleged that The Weather Channel is behind the global warming hoax as a ruse to attract viewers.  In relation to the reported prisoner abuse at Abhu Graib in Iraq, Inhofe was not outraged at the abuse but "outraged by the outrage." Inhofe has no credentials in climate science.

             Dr. Richard Lindzen, a Professor of Meteorology at MIT and member of the National Academy of Science  (NAS), has received considerable funding from the energy industry proponents of skepticism (defining conflict of interest) yet has not published any evidence supporting his skepticism. To substantiate claims of lack of consensus Lindzen has pointed to an unpublished manuscript by Benny Peiser that actually lists only one contrary – but unpublished paper.  Interestingly, Peiser himself has subsequently acknowledged that “the overwhelming majority of climatologists agrees that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact.”

            It is interesting to note that, in 2001, Lindzen co-authored a National Academy of Science review of the IPCC analysis which concluded “Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising.  The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities.” That NAS report endorsed the IPCC conclusion that the greatest climate forcing gas is carbon dioxide.  This Lindzen paper also concluded that the IPCC report represented “an admirable summary of research activities in climate science….”  While Lindzen accepts that global warming is happening, contrary to the conclusion reported immediately above, he also rejects the argument that it is caused by human activities. It is curious that Lindzen would now – even as the evidence strengthens – deny IPCC conclusions. As a result of his activities, such as his associations with various institutes listed above, consulting, and traveling to testify, and although he has denied it,  Lindzen has received considerable funding from oil and coal corporations.  It is worth noting that Lindzen also argues that claims of the health risks of smoking and passive smoke inhalation are overstated. 

Stephen McIntyre, has degrees and expertise in mathematics, philosophy, politics, and economics has no advanced degree and none in climate science - yet he is a critic of the generally accepted temperature record of the last 1,000 years, the work of climate scientists Michael Mann, and the quality of the data produced by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.  His major expertise is in hard rock mineral exploration, in which he has worked for some 30 years.   He published, along with Ross McKitrick (see below) and article in Energy and Environment that criticized the analysis of climate scientists Dr. Michael Mann, though this critique has been well refuted.

            Energy and Environment, is a social science journal found in only a handful of libraries worldwide and is not listed in Journal Citation Reports which lists the impact of the top 7,500 scientific journals.  Former editor-in-chief of Climate Research  Hans van Storch (see Chris De Freitas above) pointed out that "[this journal is] attractive for skeptic papers. They know they can come through and that interested people make sure the paper enters the political realm.” Its editor Sonja Boehmer Christiansen is a reader in geography at the University of Hull (U.K.) who describes her doctoral work as covering international relations, but says she consults others before publishing any studies in her journal and indicated: “My science is A-level chemistry, physics, one year of geography at university, and a bit of math.” She adds that her husband has a Ph.D. in physics.“  Boehmer-Christiansen also stated: “I’m definitely a political scientist,” and "It’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little journals and little publishers like mine to even get published.”  While ignored in the scientific arena, articles appearing in this journal are quoted often by skeptics and the politicians that have chosen to adopt the skeptic line.

Dr. Ross McKitrick is an economist at the University of Guelph in Ontario who published a paper with Stephen McIntyre (see above) in the questionably relevant and minor social science journal Energy and Environment (see Stephen McIntyre above) that criticized a 1998 paper by Mann, Bradley and Hughes published in the preeminent and peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature. The MBH paper discussed analyses and concluded that there existed remarkable global warming during the late 20th century.  Following introduction of the McIntyre and McKitrick paper into the political arena, the U.S. National Academy of Science was asked to evaluate it.  That evaluation concurred with the Mann, Bradley, and Hughes conclusions not the McIntyre and McKitrick criticism.  The M&M paper - which was rejected by Nature following peer review, has been evaluated by RealClimate but see also the Info-Pollution page.  Additionally, in its evaluation of the Mann et al paper and the McIntyre/McKitrick critique, the National Academy of Science concurred with Mann: "A panel convened by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) endorsed, with a few reservations the work of Mann and others. One of the panel's reservations was that "...a statistical method used in the 1999 study was not the best and that some uncertainties in the work 'have been underestimated,'..." However, from a climate perspective, the panel concluded "Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium." Meanwhile Jay Guyllidge Ph.D., Senior Fellow of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change remarked to the Senate Committee:"
1. The scientific evidence of significant human influence on climate is strong and would in no way be weakened if there were no Mann hockey stick.
2. The scientific debate over the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) has been gradually evolving for at least 20 years. The results of the Mann hockey stick simply reflect the gradual development of thought on the issue over time.
3. The impact of the McIntyre and McKitrick critique on the original Mann paper, after being scrutinized by the National Academy of Science, the Wegman panel and a number of meticulous individual research groups, is essentially nil with regard to the conclusions of the Mann paper and the 2001 IPCC assessment."

            Dr. Patrick Michaels, a part-time researcher at the University of Virginia and former university climatologist for the state and staff member with two right wing institutes: the George C Marshall (see above) and CATO Institutes (see above) while editing the World Climate Report produced by the Greening Earth Society (see above), acknowledges the basic science behind climate change, but rejects the climate change models as fatally flawed, and naïvely thinks global warming might be beneficial.  He seems not to have published on the topic in the scientific literature at least this century although he has published opinions frequently for right wing political organizations. 

Dr. Arthur Robinson , Dr. Noah E. Robinson , Zachary Robinson are the primary staff of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (see above) which, despite a lack of expertise in any related field, developed, circulated and publicized with the George Marshall Institute (see above) a petition drive initiated in 1998 and continued through 2007 that purported to demonstrate that there was no scientific consensus regarding the IPCC conclusions on climate change and global temperatures during the last 1,000 years.

Dr. S. Fred Singer, an environmental scientist (atmospheric physics) and Professor Emeritus from George Mason University and (1989) founder of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (see above), is a solid skeptic who questions the connection between second-hand tobacco smoke and cancer, CFCs (chlorofluoracarbons) and atmospheric ozone depletion, and human activity and climate change.  Singer has a long record of associating with right wing organizations and receiving funding from energy corporations.  SEPP has also been funded by Rev Sun Myung Moon and the right wing Unification Church which owns the Washington Times. Though he has frequently produced mass-media publications on climate change, there appears no record of peer-reviewed scientific publications – at least none this century.  

Dr. Willie Wie-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Division of Harvard University and has a long and senior association with the George Marshall Institute (see above) and the Science and Public Policy Institute (see above). With Sallie Baliunas (see above) and others (see Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine above) he has published articles in such questionable journals as Climate Research, Energy and Environment and the Journal of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons and a book questioning the IPCC conclusions regarding global temperature patterns of the last 1,000 years. (see Chris de Freitas above)  This work was funded by the American Petroleum Institute (see above).

             Dr. Roy Spencer is a principal research scientists at the University of Alabama (Huntsville (see also John Christy above).  According to Wikipedia, he supports intelligent design, and is skeptical of the role of humans in influencing global warming. He is also a member of both the Heartland Institute (see above) and the George Marshall Institute (see above).  He has published frequently with John Christy, but it is not clear whether he has accepted the American Geophysical Union acknowledgement of the consensus penned by Christy (see John Christy above).

            In the peer-reviewed relevant scientific literature acknowledgement of the legitimacy of the IPCC conclusions is overwhelming.  Recognizing the negative impact of this pattern on public perception of their minority views, the skeptics have resorted to publishing in a handful of minor (and often totally irrelevant) journals that either boast editors who are committed to publishing the skeptic view or have questionable peer-review procedures allowing skeptics to achieve publication without appropriate scientific evaluation of their ideas and conclusions.  The handful of individuals, few of whom have credentials in a relevant field, persist in their skepticism but the actual subject of their skepticism varies.  the skeptics seem unable to agree on what they think.  Some argue there is no global warming, others claim that it is occurring but humans are not responsible, and yet others claim that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be beneficial. Once published, their questionable articles are immediately circulated through the skeptic community and touted to receptive politicians and political commentators as indicating genuine scientific dispute with the overwhelming consensus.  Besides the repeated cross-references to the questionable and refuted articles of one another, they repeatedly cite web sites and blogs to justify arguments.