Now we know why Clinton administration officials say they have science on their side when they call global warming a threat to life as we know it. It doesn't take much, in their view, to qualify as an expert on the subject.
In July, Vice President Al Gore referred to "more than 2,600 scientists who signed a letter about disruption." Last month, Environmental Protection Agency chief Carol Browner scolded CNN
"Crossfire" host John Sununu by saying, "I am surprised that you would reject the word of 2,500 international acclaimed scientists."
But just who makes up this army of experts? That's what Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation, a free market think tank, wondered.
It turns out that Gore and Browner referring to a cautionary letter by the environmental group Ozone Action, signed by 2,611 people with quite varied backgrounds.
The CSE Foundation did some research on those backgrounds and found a few experts on weather and climate - but not many. It also found lawyers, two landscape architects, a philosopher, a dermatologist and a diplomat.
In all, the foundation found that only 182, or 11%, of the signatories were in specialties that might have some bearing on the study of climate. And most of these were in geology, oceanography, geography and physics - fields that focus mainly on other subjects.
Just a handful -15 - clearly specialized in climate, weather or other atmospheric science.
What about the other 89%? These were all over the lot, from a pair of anatomists to 73 zoologists. They may be experts in the science of something, but not of weather or climate. They have no right to pose as authorities on the question of global warming and its causes.
And even if Ozone Action could get hundreds of real atmospheric scientists to sign one of its letters, that would still leave out most of these professions. The American Meteorological Society, for instance, has about 10,000 members. The CSE Foundation counts about 1,000 climatologists worldwide.
Groups like Ozone Action are trying to stampede the nations of the world into a treaty that would roll back the Industrial Revolution. But their political agenda has a much thinner scientific facade than they would like you to think.
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