Sunday, August 9, 2009

German scientists letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel

To the attention of the Honorable Madam Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

When one studies history, one learns that the development of societies is often determined by a zeitgeist, which at times had detrimental or even horrific results for humanity. History tells us time and again that political leaders often have made poor decisions because they followed the advice of advisors who were incompetent or ideologues and failed to recognize it in time. Moreover evolution also shows that natural development took a wide variety of paths with most of them leading to dead ends. No era is immune from repeating the mistakes of the past.

Politicians often launch their careers using a topic that allows them to stand out. Earlier as Minister of the Environment you legitimately did this as well by assigning a high priority to climate change. But in doing so you committed an error that has since led to much damage, something that should have never happened, especially given the fact you are a physicist. You confirmed that climate change is caused by human activity and have made it a primary objective to implement expensive strategies to reduce the so-called greenhouse gas CO2. You have done so without first having a real discussion to check whether early temperature measurements and a host of other climate related facts even justify it.

A real comprehensive study, whose value would have been absolutely essential, would have shown, even before the IPCC was founded, that humans have had no measurable effect on global warming through CO2 emissions. Instead the temperature fluctuations have been within normal ranges and are due to natural cycles. Indeed the atmosphere has not warmed since 1998 – more than 10 years, and the global temperature has even dropped significantly since 2003.

Not one of the many extremely expensive climate models predicted this. According to the IPCC, it was supposed to have gotten steadily warmer, but just the opposite has occurred.

More importantly, there's a growing body of evidence showing anthropogenic CO2 plays no measurable role. Indeed CO2's capability to absorb radiation is already exhausted by today's atmospheric concentrations. If CO2 did indeed have an effect and all fossil fuels were burned, then additional warming over the long term would in fact remain limited to only a few tenths of a degree.

The IPCC had to have been aware of this fact, but completely ignored it during its studies of 160 years of temperature measurements and 150 years of determined CO2 levels. As a result the IPCC has lost its scientific credibility. The main points on this subject are included in the accompanying addendum.

In the meantime, the belief of climate change, and that it is manmade, has become a pseudo-religion. Its proponents, without thought, pillory independent and fact-based analysts and experts, many of whom are the best and brightest of the international scientific community. Fortunately in the internet it is possible to find numerous scientific works that show in detail there is no anthropogenic CO2 caused climate change. If it was not for the internet, climate realists would hardly be able to make their voices heard. Rarely do their critical views get published.

The German media has sadly taken a leading position in refusing to publicize views that are critical of anthropogenic global warming. For example, at the second International Climate Realist Conference on Climate in New York last March, approximately 800 leading scientists attended, some of whom are among the world's best climatologists or specialists in related fields. While the US media and only the Wiener Zeitung (Vienna daily) covered the event, here in Germany the press, public television and radio shut it out. It is indeed unfortunate how our media have developed - under earlier dictatorships the media were told what was not worth reporting. But today they know it without getting instructions.

Do you not believe, Madam Chancellor, that science entails more than just confirming a hypothesis, but also involves testing to see if the opposite better explains reality? We strongly urge you to reconsider your position on this subject and to convene an impartial panel for the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one that is free of ideology, and where controversial arguments can be openly debated. We the undersigned would very much like to offer support in this regard.

Respectfully yours,

Prof. Dr.rer.nat. Friedrich-Karl Ewert EIKE

Diplom-Geologe

Universität. - GH - Paderborn, Abt. Höxter (ret.)

#

Dr. Holger Thuß

EIKE President

European Institute for Climate and Energy

www.eike-klima-energie.eu

Signed by

Signed by


Scientists

1 Prof. Dr.Ing. Hans-Günter Appel

2 Prof. Dr. hab. Dorota Appenzeller Professor of Econometrics and Applied Mathematics, Vice Dean University Poznan, Poland

3 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Bachmann Former Director of the Institute for Vibration Engineering, FH Düsseldorf

4 Prof. Dr. Hans Karl Barth Managing Director World Habitat Society GmbH - Environmental Services

5 Dipl. Biologist Ernst Georg Beck

6 Dr. rer.nat. Horst Borchert Physicist

7 Dipl. Biol. Helgo Bran Former BW parliamentarian Green Party

8 Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Gerhard Buse Bio-chemist

9 Dr.Ing Ivo Busko German Center for Aviation and Aeronautics e.V.

10 Dr.Ing Gottfried Class Nuclear Safety, Thermo-hydraulics

11 Dr.Ing Urban Cleve Nuclear physicist, thermodynamics energy specialist

12 Dr.-Ing Rudolf-Adolf Dietrich Energy expert

13 Dipl.-Ing. Peter Dietze IPCC Expert Reviewer TAR

14 Dr. rer. nat Siegfried Dittrich Physical chemist

15 Dr. Theo Eichten Physicist

16 Ferroni Ferruccio Zurich President NIPCC-SUISSE

17 Dr. sc.agr. Albrecht Glatzle Agricultural biologist, Director científico INTTAS, Paraguay

18 Dr. rer. nat. Klaus-Jürgen Goldmann Geologist

19 Dr. rer. nat. Josef Große-Wördem Physical chemist

20 Dipl. Geologist Heinisch Heinisch

21 Dr. rer.nat. Horst Herman Chemist

22 Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Hinz Former University of Münster Institute for Physical Chemistry

23 Dipl. Geologist Andreas Hoemann Geologist

24 Dipl. Geologist Siegfried Holler

25 Dr. rer.nat. Heinz Hug Chemiker

26 Dr. rer. nat. Bernd Hüttner Theoretical Physicist

27 Prof. Dr. Werner Kirstein Institute for Geography University Leipzig

28 Dipl. Meteorologe Klaus Knüpffer METEO SERVICE weather research GmbH

29 Dr. rer. hort. Werner Köster

30 Dr. rer.nat. Albert Krause Chemist

31 Drs. Hans Labohm IPCC AR4 Expert Reviewer Dipl. Business / science journalist

32 Dr. Rainer Link Physicist

33 Dipl. Physicist Alfred Loew

34 Prof. Dr. Physicist Horst-Joachim Lüdecke University for Engineering and business of Saarland

35 Prof. Dr. Horst Malberg University professor em. Meteorology and Climatology / Former Director of the Institute for Meteorology of the University of Berlin

36 Dr. rer.nat Wolfgang Monninger Geologist

37 Dipl. Meteorologist Dieter Niketta

38 Prof. Dr. Klemens Oekentorp Former director of the Geological-

Paleolontology Museum of the Westphalia Wilhelms-University Münster

39 Dr. Helmut Pöltelt Energy expert

40 Dipl. Meteorologist Klaus-Eckart Puls Meteorologist

41 Prof. Dr. Klaas Rathke Polytechnic OWL Dept. Höxter

42 rof. Dr.-Ing. Sc. D. Helmut Reihlen Director of the DIN German Institute for

Standards and Norms i.R.

43 Prof. Dr. Oliver Reiser University of Regensburg

44 Dipl. Physicist Wolfgang Riede Physicists ETH

45 Dipl.- Mineralogist Sabine Sauerberg Geoscientist

46 Prof. Jochen Schnetger Chemist

47 Prof. Dr. Sigurd Schulien University instructor

48 Dr. rer.nat. Franz Stadtbäumer Geologist

49 Dr. rer.nat. Gerhard Stehlik Physical chemist

50 Dipl. Ing. (BA) Norman Stoer System administrator

51 Dr. rer.nat.habil Lothar Suntheim Chemist

52 Dipl.-Ing. Heinz Thieme Technical assessor

53 Dr. phil. Dipl. Wolfgang Thüne Mainz Ministry of Environment Meteorologist

54 Dr. rer. oec. Ing. Dietmar Ufer Energy economist, Institute for Energy

Leipzig

55 Prof. Dr. Detlef von Hofe Former managing director of the DVS

56 Dipl Geographist Heiko Wiese Meteorologist

57 Dr.rer.nat. Erich Wiesner Euro Geologist

58 Dr.rer.nat. Ullrich Wöstmann Geologist

59 Prof. em. Dr. Heinz Zöttl Soil Sciences

60 Dr.rer.nat. Zucketto Chemist

61 Dr. rer.nat. Ludwig Laus Geologist

+ 6 others

And 189 concerned active citizens, many with distinguished professional titles