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In this press release from The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), there is a claim that 500 prominent climate scientists and professionals has submitted a declaration that there is no “climate emergency”.

As the latest U.N. climate summit begins in New York, a new, high-level global network of 500 prominent climate scientists and professionals has submitted a declaration that there is no “climate emergency”.

I see the official letter but I don't see any signatures of scientists. Who has the list of scientists and does the list even exist?

DenisS
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Grasper
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    This sounds very like the "500 'scientists'" who say that the Earth is only 6000 years old. – DJClayworth Oct 23 '19 at 16:35
  • @DJClayworth, really? That's interesting. Where can I read about it? – Grasper Oct 23 '19 at 17:08
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    it's interesting how they phrase it, "climate scientists and professionals" implies that there are 500 people who study the climate and aren't alarmed. However, "climate scientists AND professionals" allows them to link the one or two actual climate scientists that claim that with the much larger list of economists, programmers, doctors, engineers, authors, etc – DenisS Oct 23 '19 at 17:27
  • @DenisS but neither of those two phrasing are from the declaration itself, which says "more than 500 knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields". The OP claim is not from the group organizing the declaration, https://clintel.nl/prominent-scientists-warn-un-secretary-general-guterres/ – DavePhD Oct 23 '19 at 17:34
  • @DavePhD it's in the article linked by the user, which people are more likely to read than the actual paper itself. The paper in your answer states "500 scientists and professionals" but the article states "500 prominent climate scientists and professionals". The article linked by OP adds the word "climate" to the phrasing where it wasn't there in the paper. – DenisS Oct 23 '19 at 17:37
  • @DenisS I understand. This is the actual group that organized the declaration https://clintel.nl/prominent-scientists-warn-un-secretary-general-guterres/ They just say "500 prominent scientists and professionals" on their site, without the word "climate". – DavePhD Oct 23 '19 at 17:40
  • @DavePhD right, I saw that from your answer (already upvoted as well :)) but the article takes some very creative liberties with phrasing to make the headline much more sensational. "2 climate scientists and 498 professionals disagree with climate change" is more boring than "500 climate scientists and professionals disagree with climate change" – DenisS Oct 23 '19 at 17:43
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    @DenisS Actually, I take back some of what I said, because I found this: https://clintel.nl/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/ecd-press-briefing.pdf directly on the clintel website. – DavePhD Oct 23 '19 at 17:51
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    @DavePhD there we go, they lifted it directly from the Clintel people. Doesn't make it any more correct as a statement, but now the fault for the misleading headline falls directly on the Clintel group. – DenisS Oct 23 '19 at 18:39
  • What I've read about the GWPF suggests that it's a highly dubious organisation, with a mysterious source of funding (They've rejected FOI requests regarding their funding and have shifted their lobbying into a non-charity Global Warming Policy Forum to avoid the scrutiny that charities re supposed to be subject to). Have they provided an actual list of actual names with actual contact details so the list can actually be verified? – GordonM Oct 24 '19 at 14:19
  • If 1% of 1% of all humans can be considered a "scientist", that's 700k. How notable would it be that 0.0007% of "scientists" signed a declaration? – Acccumulation Oct 24 '19 at 20:59
  • @Acccumulation 500 is 0.07% of 700k, not 0.0007%. Still a small fraction though. – DavePhD Oct 24 '19 at 23:21

2 Answers2

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The list of 500 is available in this document.

The list is grouped by country and starts with:

SCIENTISTS AND PROFESSIONALS FROM BELGIUM

  1. Rob Lemeire, Publicist on Environmental and Climate Issues, ECD Ambassador
  2. Eric Blondeel, retired Civil Engineer.
  3. Emiel van Broekhoven, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University of Antwerp
  4. Christophe de Brouwer, MD, Honorary Professor of Environmental and Industrial Toxicology, Former President of the School of Public Health at the Université Libre de Bruxelles
  5. Christian Dierick, Lead Expert, Energy Technology Solutions
  6. Ferdinand Engelbeen, Former chemical process automation engineer, Akzo Nobel Chemicals
  7. Samuel Furfari, Professor of Energy Geopolitics at the Free University of Brussels
  8. Georges Geuskens, Emertitus Professor of Chemistry, Free University of Brussels and Expert Publicist on Climate Science
  9. Drieu Godefridi, PhD in Law, author of several books
  10. Jan Jacobs, Science Journalist Specializing in Climate and Energy Transition
  11. Raymond Koch, Retired Research director at Lab. Plasma Physics, RMA Brussels and Fellow Lecturer at UMons.
  12. Henri A. Masson, Emeritus Professor Dynamic System Analysis and Data Mining, University of Antwerp
  13. Ferdinand Meeus, Retired Research Scientist, IPCC expert Reviewer AR6
  14. Jean Meeus, Retired Meteorologist, Brussels Airport, Author of the Best Seller Astronomical Algorithms
  15. Ernest Mund, Honorary Research Director, FNRS, Nuclear Engineering
  16. Bart Ooghe, Geologist & Geophysicist, Independent Scientist
  17. Jozef Verhulst, Author
  18. Jean van Vliet, Retired Specialist in Space Weather
  19. Appo van der Wiel, Senior Development Engineer

The most are from Italy: 113.

The letter uses the phrasing "more than 500 knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields". Not all are "scientists" as per the title that the OP wrote. As seen above, one person is simply listed as being an "author" and another is listed as "PhD in Law, author of several books".

DavePhD
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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/100402/discussion-on-answer-by-davephd-did-500-scientists-sign-a-declaration-saying-th). – Oddthinking Oct 29 '19 at 03:31
  • And has anybody checked that these are real people? Could some/many/all of them be just made up names and titles? It's easy to find 500 nutjobs to sign anything, even easier to make them up. – user8356 Nov 22 '19 at 14:17
  • As I was curious I started to go through the CVs of the so called 500 scientists and stopped after about 5 or six. One, perhaps even the so called embassador of UK has Duke as the most relevant title. Another published papers on children and maths, another one basically was an engineer confining earthslides. A chemist deal with computation of hydrogenoid systems.... And so forth. – Alchimista Feb 26 '20 at 11:17
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Yes the letter has been signed by 500 people but very few of them are actual climate scientists or in related fields (environmental science, ecology, etc).

Many of them have links to oil companies and/or climate denying groups.

Many of the claims in the letter are wrong and have been debunked.

Here is what actual scientists think about the letter and the claims it makes: https://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/letter-signed-by-500-scientists-relies-on-inaccurate-claims-about-climate-science/

ventsyv
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    You may want to add some quotes from the link you provided for posterity sake and to back your points up about the 500 people who signed. There are some good quotes in that link that would effectively back your answer up much better. Otherwise this is a good answer. – DenisS Oct 24 '19 at 20:47