World Climate Report, a newsletter edited by Patrick Michaels, was produced by the Greening Earth Society, a non-profit organization created by the Western Fuels Association.
Early editions were paper based; it was then transferred to a web-only format, having ceased publication as a physically based report with Volume 8 in 2002. It existed until 2019 in blog form at www.worldclimatereport.com, although the website itself was not updated after late 2012.
World Climate Report presented a dismissive view of anthropogenic-driven mass global climate change, or as it calls it, 'Global Warming Alarmism'. However, it did not reject other well-established and widely accepted scientific concepts such as global climate change itself or the greenhouse effect,[1][2] in general attempting to engender itself as giving a well balanced and scientific view of the sources (though often at a contrary expense of its perceived adversaries: the aforementioned alleged 'Global Warming Alarmists').[3]
WCR says of itself:
- World Climate Report, a concise, hard-hitting and scientifically correct response to the global change reports which gain attention in the literature and popular press. As the nation's leading publication in this realm, World Climate Report is exhaustively researched, impeccably referenced, and always timely. This popular biweekly newsletter points out the weaknesses and outright fallacies in the science that is being touted as "proof" of disastrous warming. It's the perfect antidote against those who argue for proposed changes to the Rio Climate Treaty, such as the Kyoto Protocol, which are aimed at limiting carbon emissions from the United States ... World Climate Report has become the definitive and unimpeachable source for what nature now calls the “mainstream skeptic” point of view. [1].
In addition to Patrick Michaels (chief editor), the staff is listed as Robert C. Balling, Jr (contributing editor), Robert Davis (contributing editor), and Paul Knappenberger (Administrator).
References
edit- ^ World Climate Report (April 13, 2007). "Methane Matters". World Climate Report. Retrieved 2007-05-03.
There is no doubt that fossil fuel burning around the world is causing an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration, and CO2 remains the number one anthropo-generated greenhouse gas." [and] "[M]ethane is far more powerful as a greenhouse gas than CO2 – the same mass of methane would warm the earth 23 times more than the same mass of CO2.
- ^ World Climate Report (May 10, 2005). "Global Warming: Something New Under the Sun?". World Climate Report. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
Before you kill the greenhouse effect, please note that we think this is a lot of hooey. But if you accept these results, that's where you have to go." [and] "That's our take, because it's the only one that seems internally consistent. But, if somehow we are wrong (a rare event), then greenhouse warming is over, as the sensitivity of the earth's temperature to carbon dioxide has been grossly overestimated. Believe us, we'd like to hope the latter is correct, but we have to call things in the most logical fashion.
- ^ Michaels, Patrick (February 6, 2007). "New Climate for Global Energy Policy". Cato Institute Opinion & Commentary. Retrieved 2007-05-03.
In summary, what's not new in today's IPCC report – that humans are warming the planet – will be treated as big news, while what is new – that sea levels are not likely to rise as much as previously predicted – will be ignored, at least by everyone except the extremist fringe.
- WCR cited by the Space Science and Engineering Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison: In the News: a monthly newsletter, "Data and Imagery," April 2007.
- Frontiers of Freedom's Center for Science and Public Policy produced a document entitled "Recent Research in Climate Change Issues" in 2005, compiled from numerous WCR articles.