Professor Stephen Richardson,
President, Institution of Chemical Engineers,

24 August 2020

Dear Professor Richardson,

Your Institution’s climate-change position statement

The Climate Intelligence Group (CLINTEL) is an international scientific society representing almost 1000 scientists and engineers in climate and related fields. As CLINTEL’s President, I am writing to you to invite the Institution of Chemical Engineers to seriously consider a redraft in toto of its “position statement on climate change”.

With all respect, the Institution’s draft statement on climate change is an unquestioning ‘me-too’ statement, political in character and lacking in scientific argument, justification or rationale. The document is unworthy of your prestigious Institution. Uniformed ‘me-too’ climate statements do not bring us closer to thermodynamic reality.

For your advice, the redrafted statement should begin by recognizing that for reasons of political expediency, social convenience and, above all, financial profit, there is a strong temptation for science and engineering societies to issue ‘me-too’ statements reflecting the imagined ‘consensus’ line on the climate change and energy transition question. But science and technology advance only by overthrowing mere ‘consensus’. In any event, on climate no such ‘consensus’ exists among the scientific community. A growing body of eminent scientists, writing in the learned journals, raise serious scientific questions about the official position on climate change. And science is not true science if it adopts official positions.”

CLINTEL invites the Institution’s members to consider scientific questions such as these –

  • How much – or how little – global warming does mankind really cause?
  • Have the benefits as well as the disbenefits of more CO2 in the air been properly accounted for?
  • Why does projected global warming exceed observationally-derived warming by more than 200%?
  • Does the cost and benefit of attempting to abate global warming exceed that of adapting to it?
  • What of the millions who die every year because they cannot afford expensive “renewable” electricity and are denied affordable, reliable alternatives?
  • Has history not shown us over and over again that adaptation to change presents a powerful evolutionary strategy?

Instead of formulating ‘me-too’ statements, should not the Institution invite its members to consider questions such as these? Surely the Institution should be a leader, not a follower? CLINTEL’s many experts on the climate question would be very happy to arrange an open scientific debate on the climate question with the Institution’s members.

I attach a reference to CLINTEL’s own position statement on climate change as well as independent scientific research, and should be happy to facilitate discussion with you and your Institution’s members. Clintel’s UK Ambassador, Lord Monckton, joins me in sending you this letter, which CLINTEL is making public.

With all good wishes,

Guus Berkhout
President, CLINTEL

Attached: Quotations about Seeking the Truth
Ref 1: CLINTEL’s World Climate Declaration
Ref 2: CLINTEL’s Scientific Manifesto