The Oregon Petition is the name commonly given to a petition opposed to the Kyoto protocol, organised by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine between 1999 and 2001, shortly before the United States was expected to ratify the protocol. Professor Frederick Seitz, the past President of the National Academy of Sciences, wrote a cover letter endorsing the petition.

The Oregon Petition was the third, and by the far the largest, of five prominent efforts intended to show that a "scientific consensus" does not exist on the subject of global warming. The total number of signatures received was said to be 19,700.

The petition and covering letter were criticised as misleading.

Text

The principle text of the petition reads:

We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Criteria

Because of various criticisms made of the two Leipzig Declarations, the Oregon Petition Project adopted a number of measures to meet such criticisms:

• The petitioners could submit responses only by physical mail, not electronic mail.
• Signatories to the petition were requested to list an academic degree; 86% did list a degree, of which approximately two thirds held higher degrees.
• Petitioners were also requested to list their academic discipline; 13% were trained in physical or environmental sciences (physics, geophysics, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, or environmental science) while 25% were trained in chemistry, biochemistry, biology, or other life sciences.
• The Petition Project avoided any funding or association with the energy industries, and had no staff with any such association.
• Signatories' identities and qualifications were to be subject to independent auditing; as at 2001, just over 90% of signatories were said to have been independently verified.

Criticism

The petition and its covering letter have been criticised [1].

The text of the petition is often misrepresented as, for example, "over 17,000 scientists declare that global warming is a lie with no scientific basis" [2] whereas the petition itself only speaks of catastrophic warming. Further, the covering letter, written in the style of a contribution to PNAS, sent with the petition was strongly criticised as "designed to be deceptive by giving people the impression that the article, which is full of half-truths, is a reprint and has passed peer review,” (Raymond Pierrehumbert). The National Academy of Sciences issued a statement that the petition had nothing to do with them.

See also

• Kyoto protocol
• Leipzig Declaration

External link

• Petition Project website