International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

 Background

The International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) describes itself as "a non-partisan group of independent scientists, economists and energy and policy experts who are working to promote better understanding of climate science and policy worldwide."

ICSC was launched in 2007 by the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition when the group "received such positive feedback from around the world … that they decided they needed an international group." Their aim is "moving the debate away from implementation of costly and ineffectual 'climate control' measures."

According to their website, "ICSC also focuses on publicizing the repercussions of misguided plans to solve the 'climate crisis'. This includes, but is not be limited to, the dangerous impacts of attempts to replace conventional energy sources with wind turbines, solar power, biofuels and other ineffective and expensive energy sources."

ICSC describes its purpose as providing a "international response to what has become a very international, heavily funded climate alarmist effort around the world." ICSC has created the Australian Climate Coalition as well as the Climate Science Coalition of America whose executive director is Steve Goreham. [7]

Stance on Climate Change

ICSC lists the following as their "core principles" regarding climate science:

1. Global climate is always changing in accordance with natural causes and recent changes are not unusual.
    
2. Science is rapidly evolving away from the view that humanity's emissions of carbon dioxide and other 'greenhouse gases' are a cause of dangerous climate change.
    
3. Climate models used by the IPCC* fail to reproduce known past climates without manipulation and therefore lack the scientific integrity needed for use in climate prediction and related policy decision-making.
    
4. The UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers and the assertions of IPCC executives too often seriously mis-represent the conclusions of their own scientific reports.
   
5. Claims that ‘consensus’ exists among climate experts regarding the causes of the modest warming of the past century are contradicted by thousands of independent scientists.
   
6. Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant - it is a necessary reactant in plant photosynthesis and so is essential for life on Earth.
    
7. Research that identifies the Sun as a major driver of global climate change must be taken more seriously.

8. Global cooling has presented serious problems for human society and the environment throughout history while global warming has generally been highly beneficial.
   
9. It is not possible to reliably predict how climate will change in the future, beyond the certainty that multi-decadal warming and cooling trends, and abrupt changes, will all continue, underscoring a need for effective adaptation.
    
10. Since science and observation have failed to substantiate the human-caused climate change hypothesis, it is premature to damage national economies with carbon taxes, emissions trading or other schemes to control 'greenhouse gas' emissions.

 Funding

According to ICSC, "Since its formation in 2007, ICSC has never received financial support from corporations, foundations or governments. 99% of all donations have come from private individuals in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, United States and Canada." [1]

According to SourceWatch, despite this claim, ICSC received $45,000 from the Heartland Institute in 2007 alone. [2]

Key People

As of December, 2011:

• Tom Harris — Executive Director.
• Bob Carter — Chief Science Advisor.
• Terry Dunleavy — Strategic Advisor and Founding Chairman.
• Bryan Leyland — Energy Issues Advisor.

ICSC Science Advisory Board

• William Alexander
• J. Scott Armstrong
• Tim Ball
• David Bellamy
• Ian D. Clark
• Paul Copper
• Hans Erren
• Christopher Essex
• Lee C. Gerhard
• Vincent Gray
• Kesten C. Green
• J. Herold
• Ole Humlum
• Albert F. Jacobs
• Madhav L. Khandekar
• William Kininmonth
• R.W.J.(Rob), Kouffeld
• Hans H.J. Labohm
• Jay Lehr
• Fred Michel
• Nils-Axel Mörner
• Brian Pratt
• Peter Stilbs
• Gerrit J. van der Lingen

ICSC Consultant Science Advisers

• Chris R. de Freitas
• Willem de Lange
• Tad Murty

ICSC Policy Advisory Board

• Ferdinand Hohenlohe-Bartenstein
• Alan Gibbs
• Michael Limburg
• Owen McShane
• John McLean
• Christopher Monckton
• Julian Morris
• Rob Scagel
• Viv Forbes

ICSC Consultant Policy Advisers

• Sonja A. Boehmer-Christiansen
• David Henderson

Canadian Speakers Bureau

• Tim Ball
• Susan Crockford
• Chris Essex
• Tom Harris
• Madhav Khandekar
• Tad Murty
• Tim Patterson
• Brian Pratt
• L. Graham Smith
• Charlene Adam

 Actions

May 21 - 23, 2012

The ICSC is listed as an official Co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's Seventh International Conferenece on Climate Change (ICCC7).

March, 2009

ICSC was a sponsor of the Heartland Institute's 2009 International Conference on Climate Change.

Collectively sponsors for the conference received over $47 million from oil companies and right-wing organizations.

December 8, 2009

ICSC hosted the "Copenhagen Climate Challenge" [3] which was signed by numerous prominent climate change skeptics. [4]

See the video (hosted by CFACT) of Tom Harris presented the Climate Challenge.

March 4, 2008

ICSC promotes the "Manhattan Declaration," a document that was presented at the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

The Declaration states that "That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change" and "That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis."

It concludes "That all taxes, regulations, and other interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith." [5]

March, 2008

At the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change" hosted by the Heartland Institute, ICSC Executive Director Tom Harris gave a speech in which he discussed what he called "information sharing" and "coordinated local activism": (Archived mp3)

"[…] We need regular high-impact media coverage of the findings of leading scientists — not just one or two publications, but we need to have hundreds all over the world. We need to have a high degree of information sharing and cooperation between groups, so that when Vincent Gray for example has an article published in New Zealand, we can take the same piece and we can (say) submit it to newspapers all over North America and Europe.

"Then we have a nicely well-coordinated response, where letters to the editor and phone calls are made. "Congratulations on publishing that article!" You know, it's interesting because I've had many of my articles opposed so strongly, by environmentalists through phone calls and letters to the editor, that they just simply dry up, they just won't publish us again. So this does have feedback, I mean, these are people that run these newspapers, and they're scared, and impressed, and encouraged, depending on the feedback they get.

We have to have grassroots organizations doing exactly that kind of thing: coordinated local activism."

See a video of his speech below:

Related Organizations

• Australian Climate Science Coalition (ACSC)
• Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI)
• Climate Audit
• Friends of Science (FoS)
• New Zealand Climate Science Coalition [6]

 Resources

1. "ICSC Funding," ICSC. Accessed December 24, 2011.

2. "International Climate Science Coalition," SourceWatch Profile.

3. "UN Challenged to Provide Sound Evidence for Catastrophic Forecasts," CNW Newswire Release, December 8, 2009.

4. "Copenhagen climate Challenge Signatories," copenhagenclimatechallenge.org, December 10, 2009.

5. "THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE," International Climate Science Coalition. Accessed December 24, 2011.

6. "Meet Alan Gibbs, builder of amphibious HumVees and 'climate science' coalitions," Deep Climate, August 1, 2009.

7. Youtube Video, "ICSC-introduction-July2011." Uploaded by TomHarrisICSC on June 13, 2011.

8. ExxonSecrets Factsheet: International Climate Science Coalition, ICSC.

9. "Winning Hearts and Minds to Climate and Energy Reality: ICSC’s Strategic Plan" (PDF), International Climate Science Coalition, June 12, 2011.