Understand Climate Science Before Making Climate Policy

by Dr. William Happer and Dr. Roger Cohen
May 14, 2010

Legislation and regulation aimed at controlling greenhouse gas emissions are predicated on the belief that science definitively shows that man’s greenhouse gas emissions are causing the Earth’s temperature to rise, with serious deleterious effects. What if the cause-and-effect relationships between GHGs and temperature are greatly overstated? What if the data used to measure temperature change and its effects are of poor quality? What if we don’t adequately understand important climatic systems (such as clouds or oceans) to simulate them accurately in the computer models used to predict climatic change? What if the stated positions of key scientific societies are under assault by the member rank and file? What if the state of empirical knowledge points to only a small human effect on climate?

The answers to these questions directly impact the legislative and regulatory debates underway in the Congress and the Obama Administration.

On May 14, Dr. William Happer and Dr. Roger Cohen reviewed key features of climate science. Dr. Happer is Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics at Princeton University, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and Chairman of the Marshall Institute. Dr. Cohen is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and retired from ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company.

A video of the event is available at http://marshall.org/video/100514-climatescience.php; a summary is available here.

Dr. Cohen's slide presentation is available here.  Dr. Cohen also provided a list of relevant links, available here.

Dr. Happer's slide presentation is available here.