Alan Carlin

Credentials

Ph.D in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.¹
B.S. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology.²

Background

Alan Carlin is an economist. He has published numerous articles relating to the economics of climate change but he is not a climate scientist.

In March 2009 he authored a critical review of the EPA’s draft report on endangerment from greenhouse gases. His article invited controversy on June, 2009, when the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) claimed that the EPA had suppressed the report.

Carlin maintains a website for his business titled Carlin Economics and Science as well as a blog of the same name where he voices his skeptical views on climate science.

Stance on Climate Change

February 12, 2010

“There is very little empirical evidence for rising GHG levels as the primary cause for global warming. Ice core data suggests that CO2 levels follow temperatures rather than the other way around. In fact, the all-important scientific tests of this hypothesis show that increases in GHG levels are not a significant cause of warming…”³

Key Quotes

October 9, 2017

Following EPA administrator Scott Pruitt‘s announcement that the Trump administration would be scrapping the Clean Power Plan, Huelskamp issued the following statement via the Heartland Institute:⁴

“I strongly welcome the decision of the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw the Obama administration’s so-called Clean Power Plan. If it had gone into effect, it would have imposed monumental costs on the American public based on a misreading of the Clean Air Act.

“While this is a good start, EPA needs to do much more to rein in the unjustifiable climate-alarmist actions of the Obama administration, as well as possible future administrations. In particular, it needs to reconsider and withdraw the ‘endangerment finding’ of 2009. This would greatly hinder EPA’s climate-alarmist agenda, by effectively revoking all of the Obama climate initiatives, past and present, including CPP. […]”

September 28, 2010

“The Obama Administration has made many efforts to support its climate religion (climatism). Since this viewpoint has no basis in the scientific method, it is not science and would seem best characterized as religion.”⁵

Key Deeds

February 4, 2018

In January 2018, more than 200 scientists endorsed an open letter calling on the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to remove climate change denier Rebekah Mercer from its board and to “end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation.” The New York Times reported that those among the AMNH letter calling for Mercer to step down were Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University.⁶

Armstrong was among a group of climate change deniers who responded with their own open letter, calling for the AMNH “not to cave in to this pressure.” The letter was signed by numerous individuals with ties to groups funded by the Mercer Family Foundation such as Will Happer of the CO2 CoalitionRichard Lindzen, a fellow at the Cato InstituteCraig Idso, the chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. There are a number of signatories affiliated with the Heartland Institute, which has received over $5.78 million from the Mercer Family Foundation since 2008.⁷

The letter reads:⁸

“The Earth has supported abundant life many times in the geological past when there were much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is quite likely that future generations will benefit from the enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with more carbon dioxide.

“Make no mistake, the agitators are not defending science from quackery — quite the contrary!”

May 21–23, 2012

Alan Carlin was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s 7th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7).

DeSmog researched the co-sponsors behind Heartland’s ICCC7 and found that they had collectively received over $67 million from ExxonMobil, the Koch Brothers and the conservative Scaife family foundations.

June 30–July 1, 2011

Alan Carlin was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s Sixth International Conference on Climate Change. His speech was titled “Obama’s Multifacated GWD Agenda and waht Might be Done to Slow it Down”: ⁹

May 16–18, 2010

Alan Carlin was a speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s Fourth International Conference on Climate Change. His speech was titled “EPA: The Administration’s High Risk but Pivotal Climate Gamble”:¹⁰

DeSmog concluded 19 of the 65 sponsors (including Heartland itself) had received a total of over $40 million in funding since 1985 from ExxonMobil, Koch Industries family foundations or Scaife foundations.¹¹

July 1, 2009

Appeared on the Glenn Beck Show where he contended that while U.N. Climate models anticipated an increase in global temperatures, actual temperatures had supposedly decreased between 2002 to 2008.¹²

June 2009

In June 2009, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and Senator James Inhofe claimed that the EPA had suppressed a report authored by Alan Carlin, that cast doubt on the existence of global warming and the need to regulate CO2 emissions.

Senator Inhofe wrote a letter to the EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and called for a congressional investigation of the so-called “suppression.”¹³

The EPA Press Secretary Adora Andy responded, saying “Claims that this individual’s opinions were not considered or studied are entirely false… . The individual in question is not a scientist and was not part of the working group dealing with this issue. Nevertheless the document he submitted was reviewed by his peers and agency scientists, and information from that report was submitted by his manager to those responsible for developing the proposed endangerment finding.” In an e-mail response, Andy also said that “There was no predetermined position on endangerment, and Dr. Carlin’s work was not suppressed.”¹⁴

Carlin’s report was also posted on the websites of the Heartland Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and several other think tanks.

In an interview, Carlin acknowledged that his report was not fully or cleanly sourced, ¹⁵blaming a short deadline. He also admitted that there had been no restriction on his contact with the media. There has also been a question whether sections of Carlin’s report were lifted from other sources without proper attribution.¹⁶

Internal e-mails related to the alleged suppression of Carlin’s report were released under the Freedom of Information Act.¹⁷