Twenty five years ago, on this day, April 20, 1998, the National Academy of Sciences had to hold a press conference and release a statement because climate deniers had been using its logo and type-face for one of their demented petitions…
1998 April 20 NAS statement that Oregon petition not connected to NAS https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/1998/04/statement-of-the-council-of-the-nas-regarding-global-change-petition
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 368.8ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was
Well, as per wikipedia –
The petition was organized and circulated by Arthur B. Robinson, president of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (described as “a small independent research group”) in 1998, and again in 2007.[4] Frederick Seitz, then chairman of the George C. Marshall Institute, wrote a supporting cover letter, signed as “Past President National Academy of Sciences USA, President Emeritus Rockefeller University“.[5][6][7]
More deeply – despite keeping the US from having any likelihood of ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, the deniers were not happy. They wanted to continue to fling mud, and to sow doubt and confusion. The phony petition was a part of that…
What I think we can learn from this
There are NO – nada, zilch, none – depths of intellectual and moral depravity to which goons like these would not be happy to sink.
What happened next
The Oregon petition was latched onto by the usual type of scientifically-illiterate ‘libertarian’ and ‘contrarian’ as somehow showing there was still debate about carbon dioxide build-up. Worked a treat, because thick pseudo-smart people lap this crap up.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.