The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM) announced that more than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition rejecting claims of human-caused global warming. It is evident that 31,072 Americans with university degrees in science – including 9,021 PhDs, are not "a few." Moreover, from the clear and strong petition statement that they have signed, it is evident that these 31,072 American scientists are not "skeptics."

 

"E-mails started coming in every day," Dr. Robinson explained. "And they kept coming. The writers were outraged at the way Al Gore and company were abusing the science to their own ends. We decided to do the survey again."

 

Using a subset of the mailing list of American Men and Women of Science, a who’s who of Science, Robinson mailed out his solicitations through the postal service, requesting signed petitions of those who agreed that Kyoto was a danger to humanity. The response rate was extraordinary, "much, much higher than anyone expected, much higher than you’d ordinarily expect," he explained. He’s processed more than 31,000 at this point, more than 9,000 of them with PhDs, and has another 1,000 or so to go — most of them are already posted on a Web site at petitionproject.org.

Why go to this immense effort all over again, when the press might well ignore the tens of thousands of scientists who are standing up against global warming alarmism?  "I hope the general public will become aware that there is no consensus on global warming," he says, "and I hope that scientists who have been reluctant to speak up will now do so, knowing that they aren’t alone." At one level, Robinson, a PhD scientist himself, recoils at his petition. Science shouldn’t be done by poll, he explains. "The numbers shouldn’t matter. But if they want warm bodies, we have them."  Some 32,000 scientists is more than the number of environmentalists that descended on Rio in 1992. This should be enough to establish that the science is not settled on global warming.