The Global Warming Policy Foundation recently announced that Professor Fritz Vahrenholt is joining its Academic Advisory Council. Early this year prominent meteorologist Prof. Lennart Bengtsson had also announced his membership, but later resigned amid a backlash from activist warmist scientists.
The Council is composed of scientists, economists and other experts who provide the GWPF with timely scientific, economic and policy advice. It reviews and evaluates new GWPF reports and papers, explores future research projects and makes recommendations on issues related to climate research and policy. Other distinguished scientist members of the GWPF Academic Advisory Council include Robert Carter, Freeman Dyson, Christopher Essex, William Happer, Richard Lindzen, Ross McKitrick, Ian Plimer, Paul Reiter, Nir Shaviv, Henrik Svensmark, Richard Tol and others.
Professor Fritz Vahrenholt was one of the founders of the environmental movement in Germany. In the 1980s his bestseller Seveso ist überall (Seveso is everywhere) triggered a nationwide debate which led to a fundamental reorientation of the chemical industry towards sustainable development.
NTZ inquired with Prof Vahrenholt, asking why he had joined the GWPF Council:
I very much appreciate Lord Lawson who in the GWPF has surrounded himself with scientists who are not prepared to alter scientific findings to suit the political mainstream.”
On the political and academic pressures being applied on dissenters, Prof Vahrenolt wrote in his e-mail response:
The socio-political pressure on those who refuse to hop onto the bandwagon of alarmism is immense. Scientists who reject the simplistic formula of Prof. Schellnhuber (there is a linear relationship between CO2 and temperature change) must create a platform to act as a counter-weight against faulty conclusions in science and politics.”
When asked about where he sees global warming science discussion is heading.
The real climate development over the coming years will unleash the discourse over the dead-ends of climate policy.”
As Vahrenholt shows, dissenting platforms are indeed forming while the real data trends act to rapidly undermine mainstream climate science and global warming policy. It’s only a matter of time.
Dr Vahrenholt holds a PhD in chemistry and is Honorary Professor at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Hamburg. Since 1969 he has been a member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From 1976 until 1997 he served in several public positions with environmental agencies such as the Federal Environment Agency, the Hessian Ministry of Environment and as Deputy Environment Minister and Senator of the City of Hamburg. He then held top management positions in the renewable energy industry. Vahrenholt is a member of the Germany Academy of Technical Sciences and the Senate of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. His 2012 book The Neglected Sun sparked a broad public discussion in Germany about the dogmatism in climate science. He is currently the Chairman of the German Wildlife Trust.
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Congratulations to GWPF! I believe Mr. Vahrenholt is made of sterner stuff than Mr. Bengtsson.
Good for Mr. Vahrenholt – makes perfect sense for him to join GWPF. A good fit for both.
Reminds me a bit of Thilo Sarrazin (a Leftist who challenged “political correctness” in criticising some of the problems with integration of many Turkish and other Muslims in Germany — and was promptly “excommunicated” as a result — which just raised interest in his book).
Henning’s observation wrt Bengtsson probably isn’t fair. Apart from their age difference (Bengtsson is 79 to Vahrenholt’s 65), Vahrenholt never had a career as a scientist, so he wasn’t being “threatened” the way Bengtsson’s was. The ostracization he suffered was obviously quite severe (I certainly wouldn’t want to go through that). Bengtsson’s colleagues in Meteorology threatened to effectively boycott him.
In the end, this despicable treatment of Bengtsson has probably raised sympathy for the GWPF (and for skeptics of Anthropogenic Climate Change in general) with a neutral audience. Besides, I don’t think the Bengtsson saga is over.
… and time will tell whether Vahrenholt is right about the sun entering a phase which will mean colder climate on earth. I certainly hope it doesn’t cool much!
Kurt in Switzerland
P.S. Looks like a duplicate post further down.
The house of Sarrazin got color bombed by the German AntiFa. The regime uses them as their thugs on anyone they want to intimidate. Mostly they incinerate the cars of targeted people at night – a situtation about which the police can mysteriously do nothing.
So we’ll see what happens to Vahrenholt ; but I think warmism is no longer a concern for the regime – as the redistribution via subsidies keeps growing with or without the useful idiots from climate science; plus, Vahrenholt might not be stupid enough to have his house in Berlin – where the Antifa rules the streets (outside the areas of the Arab drug gangs).
Dr Varenholt’s book ‘The neglected Sun’ is not available at any sensible price…currently over £500 0n Amazon,i it s available as Kindle version at ca £10). This book is amust read for any realist studying climate issues…can he be asked why the situation with his book? …… mike