The professor who refused to sign last week’s high-profile UN climate report because it was too ‘alarmist’, has told The Mail on Sunday he has become the victim of a smear campaign.
Richard Tol claims he is fighting a sustained attack on his reputation by a key figure from a leading institution that researches the impact of global warming.
Prof Tol said: ‘This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign. It’s all about taking away my credibility as an expert.’
Prof Tol, from Sussex University, is a highly respected climate economist and one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of an important chapter in the 2,600-page report published last week by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He has been widely criticised by green campaigners after he claimed that the much shorter ‘summary for policymakers’ – hammered out in all-night sessions between scientists and government officials over a week-long meeting in Yokohama, Japan – was overly ‘alarmist’.
In his view, the summary focused on ‘scare stories’ and suggestions the world faced ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’.
He said he did not want his name associated with it because he felt ‘uncomfortable’ with the way the summary exaggerated the economic impact of global warming.
The source of the alleged smear campaign is Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
Mr Ward – neither an economist nor a climate expert – claimed on the institute’s website that he was waging ‘an ongoing struggle’ to force Prof Tol to correct ‘errors’ in his work.
Mr Ward had earlier sent an email disparaging Prof Tol’s research to several leading IPCC scientists and officials.
They included Prof Tol’s fellow co-ordinating lead author, Doug Arent, director of America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Professor Chris Field of Stanford University, the overall chairman and editor of the IPCC report.
The email claimed that Prof Tol’s ‘antics’ were ‘likely to reflect badly on the IPCC and his co-authors’. In response Professor Arent informed Mr Ward that the chapter he co-ordinated with Prof Tol was ‘double and triple checked’.
He added that after Mr Ward – one of the IPCC’s registered ‘reviewers’ – found a tiny, statistical error in an earlier draft, it was revised.
The whole Fukushima area should be shut down forever as a memorial to the people that have suffered in this disaster! I would never trust TEPCO or the Japanese Governments word that the Fukushima area is safe! When an American internet company offered both TEPCO and the Japanese Government a 100 Percent FREE shipping container filled with the Radiation Detox mineral called Zeolite, they both REFUSED the free zeolite that could have safely removed the radiation from thousands of radiated people! Now many of these people have cancer and will not grow old to enjoy their lives!
I don’t believe that there will be another nuclear power plant anytime soon because were I live which is in Iowa we don’t have one except in the country so therefor i believe that there will not be another power plant explosion.
The professor who refused to sign last week’s high-profile UN climate report because it was too ‘alarmist’, has told The Mail on Sunday he has become the victim of a smear campaign.
Richard Tol claims he is fighting a sustained attack on his reputation by a key figure from a leading institution that researches the impact of global warming.
Prof Tol said: ‘This has all the characteristics of a smear campaign. It’s all about taking away my credibility as an expert.’
Prof Tol, from Sussex University, is a highly respected climate economist and one of two ‘co-ordinating lead authors’ of an important chapter in the 2,600-page report published last week by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
He has been widely criticised by green campaigners after he claimed that the much shorter ‘summary for policymakers’ – hammered out in all-night sessions between scientists and government officials over a week-long meeting in Yokohama, Japan – was overly ‘alarmist’.
In his view, the summary focused on ‘scare stories’ and suggestions the world faced ‘the four horsemen of the apocalypse’.
He said he did not want his name associated with it because he felt ‘uncomfortable’ with the way the summary exaggerated the economic impact of global warming.
The source of the alleged smear campaign is Bob Ward, director of policy at the London School of Economics’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
Mr Ward – neither an economist nor a climate expert – claimed on the institute’s website that he was waging ‘an ongoing struggle’ to force Prof Tol to correct ‘errors’ in his work.
Mr Ward had earlier sent an email disparaging Prof Tol’s research to several leading IPCC scientists and officials.
They included Prof Tol’s fellow co-ordinating lead author, Doug Arent, director of America’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory; and Professor Chris Field of Stanford University, the overall chairman and editor of the IPCC report.
The email claimed that Prof Tol’s ‘antics’ were ‘likely to reflect badly on the IPCC and his co-authors’. In response Professor Arent informed Mr Ward that the chapter he co-ordinated with Prof Tol was ‘double and triple checked’.
He added that after Mr Ward – one of the IPCC’s registered ‘reviewers’ – found a tiny, statistical error in an earlier draft, it was revised.
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The whole Fukushima area should be shut down forever as a memorial to the people that have suffered in this disaster! I would never trust TEPCO or the Japanese Governments word that the Fukushima area is safe! When an American internet company offered both TEPCO and the Japanese Government a 100 Percent FREE shipping container filled with the Radiation Detox mineral called Zeolite, they both REFUSED the free zeolite that could have safely removed the radiation from thousands of radiated people! Now many of these people have cancer and will not grow old to enjoy their lives!
no there will not be another power plant explosion again because there is no power plantnear me so good by
I don’t believe that there will be another nuclear power plant anytime soon because were I live which is in Iowa we don’t have one except in the country so therefor i believe that there will not be another power plant explosion.