Sallie Baliunas

Credentials  

• Ph.D. in Astrophysics, Harvard University (1980).
• M.A. in Astrophysics, Harvard University (1975). [1]

 Background

Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She is Adjunct Professor at Tennessee State University and past contributing editor to the World Climate Report.

Baliunas is associated with many groups skeptical of climate change including the George C. Marshall Institute, of which she is Senior Scientist and chair of the Institute's Science Advisory Board.

Baliunas has co-published numerous scientific papers with fellow climate change skeptic Willie Soon, including a controversial paper in 2003 that suggested the climate hasn't changed in the last 2000 years. Several members of the Climate Research journal resigned in protest to the flawed peer-review process allowing Baliunas's paper to be published.

She was a past "Scientific Adviser" to the Greening Earth Society, a now-defunct group originally controlled by the Western Fuels Association (WFA) and described "as a vehicle for advocacy on climate change, the environmental impact of CO2, and fossil fuel use."

She has aslo been the Enviro-Sci Host for Tech Central Station, and in 1997 Baliunas received the Petr Beckmann Award for her "devastating critique of the global warming hoax."

Stance on Climate Change

• "But is it possible that the particular temperature increase observed in the last 100 years is the result of carbon dioxide produced by human activities? The scientific evidence clearly indicates that this is not the case… measurements of atmospheric temperatures made by instruments lofted in satellites and balloons show that no warming has occurred in the atmosphere in the last 50 years. This is just the period in which humanmade carbon dioxide has been pouring into the atmosphere and according to the climate studies, the resultant atmospheric warming should be clearly evident." [5]

Key Quotes

"The science does not suggest dangerous global warming. If there is any trace at all of a greenhouse warming, it is too small to be seen in the climate record. That means that future warming due to human activities will be quite small —well under one degree C." [9]

"Fear often dominates discussion about the earth's climate. Many people have been led to believe that drastic measures are necessary to prevent the risk of negative future outcomes, such as global warming. As such, we now face a situation where politicians are misallocating resources because they are responding to manufactured problems, which are based on public anxiety rather than sound scientific evidence. Ineffective measures like the Kyoto Protocol, built on fear rather than science, will not reduce the future burden of greenhouse gases and will cause many more problems than they solve." [10]

Key Deeds

May 9, 2003

Spoke at the "Panic Attack Risk conference" organised by Spiked online and the Royal Institution, produced in association with Tech Central Station Europe.

January 31, 2003

In 2003, Baliunas co-authored a highly controversial paper with Willie Soon that reviewed previous scientific papers and came to the conclusion that the climate hasn't changed in the last 2000 years.

Thirteen of the authors Baliunas and Soon cited in the paper refuted her interpretation of their work, and several editors of Climate Research resigned in protest at a flawed peer review process that allowed the publication. According to the acknowledgments listed in the paper, it was partially funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

Among the sharp criticisms of the Climate Research paper was one from Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University. When von Storch, the journal’s editor at the time, read Mann’s critique, he said he realized that his journal should never have accepted the study: "If it would have been properly reviewed, it would have been rejected on the basis of methodological flaws." Shortly after, Von Storch and two other members of the Climate Research editorial board resigned in protest. "[T]hey submitted flawed research," Von Stroch stated at the time.

After the controversy, a more extensive version of the research was published in Energy and Environment. According to a search of WorldCat, a database of libraries, Energy and Environment is found in only 25 libraries worldwide. The journal is not included in Journal Citation Reports, which lists the impact factors for the top 6000 peer-reviewed journals. The editor of Energy and Environment, Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen has stated that "it’s only we climate skeptics who have to look for little journals and little publishers like mine to even get published.”

November 13, 2001

Spoke at a Manhattan Institute Forum on "Global Warming and Climate Change."

July, 1998

Spoke on climate change at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness held in Scottsdale, Arizona; July 1998.

September 20, 1995

Testified before the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment in an apparent attempt to weaken support for ozone protection laws.

Affiliations  

• Annapolis Center for Science Based Public Policy — Member, Science and Economic Advisory Council.

• Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow — Member, Academic and Scientific Advisory Board.

• Competitive Enterprise Institute — Report Author.

• George C. Marshall Institute — Senior Scientist and Chair of Science Advisory Board.

• Global Climate Coalition — Featured Scientist.

• Heartland Institute — Writer/contributor.

• Heritage Foundation — Writer/contributor.

• Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace — Fellow, Robert Wesson Endowment Fund. 

• Tech Central Station — Member, Science Round Table. Previous "Co-host."

Source: [2]

Other Affiliations

• The Natural Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP) — Past member, "Scientific Advisory Committee."

The NRSP has been defunct since 2008. 

• The Greening Earth Society — Past "Scientific Advisor" [7]

Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon were both listed as "Scientific Advisors" to the Greening Earth Society from December, 1998, to September, 2001. The group collapsed in 2005.

• World Climate Report — Past contributor. [11]

• Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) — Member of Advisory Board until 2008.

• American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) — Sallie Baliunas and Fred Singer reviewed an ACSH report titled "Global Climate Change and Human Health" that claimed cutting carbon emissions could be more harmful to human health than global warming.

• European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF) — "Academic Member" (1998).

• Manhattan Institute for Policy Research — "Spokesperson" (2004).

She also gave a presentation in 2001 on climate change.

• Hoover Institution — Previous Robert Wesson Endowment Fund Fellow (1993–1994).

 Publications

• Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. "Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years" (PDF), Climate Research, Vol. 23 (January 31, 2003), page 89-110. 

• Sallie Baliunas and Willie Soon. "The Trouble with Ozone," The Heartlander, June 1, 2000.

• "Ozone and Global Warming: Are the Problems Real?" (PDF), George C. Marshall Institute, December 13, 1994.“In the cases of global warming and ozone depletion, however, scientific findings do not support federal regulation.”

See a full list of Sallie Baliunas's publications at the Marshall Institute. [3]

 Resources

1. "CFACT Speaker's Bureau: Dr. Sallie Baliunas," CFACT, Archived June 10, 2004.

2. "Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science" (PDF), Union of Concerned Scientists, January 2007.

3. "Dr. Sallie Baliunas," The Marshall Institute.

4. "Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil’s Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science" (Press Release) Union of Concerned Scientists, January 3, 2007.

5. "Washington Roundtable on Science and Public Policy: Climate History and the Sun" (PDF), George C. Marshall Institute, June 5, 2001.

6. "American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) - Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group," Greenpeace.

7. "Scientific Advisors," The Greening Earth Society. Archived Feb 20, 1999.

8. "DOCTORS FOR DISASTER PREPAREDNESS NEWSLETTER," July 1997, Vol. XIV, No. 4. Archived March 9, 2007.

9. "Human Activity Is Not Cause of Global Warming" (Media Release), the George C. Marshall Institute, April 10, 1996. Accessed November 14, 2011.

10. "Leading scientist speaks out against UK climate change policy", (Media Release) PRNewswire, May 9, 2003.

11. "Contributors/Editors," World Climate Report.

12. ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Sallie Baliunas.

13. "Sallie Baliunas," Wikipedia.

14. "Sallie L. Baliunas," Sourcewatch Profile.

15. Greenpeace Investigations on Salllie Baliunas.

16. "OZONE ACTION REPORT: Ties That Blind 11: Parading Opinion as Scientific Truth," Greenpeace report.

17. "Foes of global warming theory have energy ties," Seattlepi, June 1, 2003.

18. "Tech Central Station's Jim Glassman and Sallie Baliunas Cover the UN Climate Conference" (Media Advisory), E-wire. October 25, 2001.

19. "Dr. Sallie Baliunas," Profile at the Marshall Institute. Includes a list of publications. 

20. Andrew Revkin. "Politics Reasserts Itself in the Debate Over Climate Change and Its Hazards," The New York Times, August 05, 2003. See page 3.