Climate change research
According to a search of 22,000 publications, Courtney has never published any research in the area of climate change.
Courtney and the Coal Industry
Courtney was a technical editor for CoalTrans International, which describes itself as the "web's most comprehensive resource" on the coal industry. He was also a spokesperson for the British Association of Colliery Management, a coal industry union in the United Kingdom and has written opinion papers about his concern over the loss of jobs in the coal industry as a result of the UK's movement towards renewable energy.
Courtney, TASSC, big tobacco and the "European Science and Environment Forum"
Courtney has been listed as a "founding member " of the European Science and Environment Forum, an organization that was formed in 1994 by Roger Bate , Dr John Emsley and Professor Frits Böttcher with an aim to be the European version of the tobacco industry funded front group TASSC . The European Forum touted itself as "an independent, non-profit-making alliance of scientists whose aim is to ensure that scientific debates are properly aired, and that decisions which are taken, and action that is proposed, are founded on sound scientific principles."
Like TASSC, the European Forum issued reports questioning the scientific evidence linking second-hand tobacco smoke and the risk of lung cancer.
The European Forum has also been known in the past to work closely with the George C. Marshall Institute, an Exxon-funded US think tank that has been at the forefront of the industry-funded attack on climate change science.
Courtney and the "Leipzig Declaration"
Courtney was one of the first to sign the 1995 "Leipzig Declaration," which was a project of Fred Singer's Science and Environmental Policy Project and a group called the European Academy of Environmental Affairs. The Declaration stated that: "there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide."
According to Sourcewatch, when a Danish journalist attempted to contact the 33 European scientists listed on the petition, 12 denied signing the petition and some had not even heard of the Leipzig Declaration. Of those that did admit signing the letter, one was a doctor and another was an expert in flying insects. The Declaration was then revised and Richard Courtney's name, among others, was removed.
It is interesting to note that a similar tactic was used in the Oregon Institute's petition that DeSmog reported on earlier in our research of the letter of 60 scientists to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Fred Singer and his organization and the Geroge C. Marshall Institute were also heavily involved in the Oregon Petition.
