Christopher Essex

Credentials

Background

Christopher Essex is a professor of applied mathematics at Western University in London, Ontario where his research interests include “Radiation Thermodynamics, Anomalous Diffusion” and “Chaos, Dynamical Systems and Predictability.”⁷

Essex was an author of the Fraser Institute’s 2007 “Independent Summary for Policymakers,” (ISPM) a report published shortly after the Independent Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Summary for Policymakers. According to the ISPM press release:⁸ ⁹

“An independent review of the latest United Nations report on climate change shows that the scientific evidence about global warming remains uncertain and provides no basis for alarmism.

Essex also published a 2002 book titled Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming. Christopher Essex’s page at Western University displays a photo of him ice skating with the caption, “I skate on global warming.”¹⁰

Stance on Climate Change

June 2016

The International Climate Science Coalition’s (ICSC) Executive Director, Tom Harris, quotes Christopher Essex:¹¹

“Climate is one of the most challenging open problems in modern science. Some knowledgeable scientists believe that the climate problem can never be solved.”

June 2007

“There is no such thing as global temperature. And if there is no global temperature, how can there be global warming?”¹²

Key Quotes

October 9, 2017

Following EPA administrator Scott Pruitt‘s announcement that the Trump administration would be scrapping the Clean Power Plan, Essex issued the following statement via the Heartland Institute:¹³

“Scrapping clean power? Why, they must be in favor of dirtiness! But cleanliness has nothing to do with power in physics, which is simply energy per unit time. There is dirty power in play, but it does not come from physics. It comes from dirty politics: distorting language with false terms like ‘clean power’ to confuse and manipulate people. The objective is to befuddle minds into jumbling carbon dioxide together with soot and toxic gases, which are then cleansed with political virtue instead of engineering.

“Meanwhile, attention is diverted from engineering and economics, the only details that should matter when discussing such a topic. Let’s dispense with the dirty political word games.”¹⁴

March, 2015

“Scientists don’t need to be paid to oppose the ideas of climate orthodoxy, because those ideas are just so damn bad.”¹⁵

February, 2010

“The world is not going to end because of climate change, at least not in the near future.”¹⁶

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.¹⁷

Essex 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 2008.¹⁸

The letter reads:¹⁹

“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!”

February 9, 2017

Christopher Essex was a speaker at the Fourth Santa Fe Conference on Global & Regional Climate Change. According to the conference program, Essex’s speech was titled “Slow Time and Climate Theory.”²⁰ ²¹

The Fourth Santa Fe Conference was sponsored by the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Center for Earth and Space Science and co-sponsored by American Meteorological Society.²²

It was the fourth in a series of conferences with the stated purpose of bringing together researchers “with varied interpretations of current and past global and regional climate change, to present the latest research results (observations, modeling and analysis), and to provide speaking and listening opportunities to top climate experts and students.” The first conference took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2001. Both the second and the third were in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 2006 and 2011 respectively.²³

View a complete copy of Essex’s abstract here.²⁴

January 3, 2017

Writing in the far-right publication Breitbart, Christopher Essex describes modern journalism that supports the scientific consensus of man-made climate change as “100% pure fake news, top to bottom.” He compares the scientific consensus to a “a toothpaste commercial where a consensus of dentists determines what toothpaste you should use.”²⁵

After noting a number of prominent climate change deniers who passed away in 2016 including Robert Carter, Bill Gray, and Olavi Kärner, Essex concludes his article by listing ten “righteous journalists” of 2016. Essex singles out James Delingpole for his “steadfast resistance against climate alarmism,” describing him as “the role model for everyone to follow.”²⁶

June 10, 2016

Christopher Essex was a signatory to a Cornwall Alliance open letter written by Calvin Beisner and addressed to U.S. attorneys general about climate change.²⁷

The letter responds to recent investigations by U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and members of Attorneys General United for Clean Power into what ExxonMobil knew about climate change and when, started by a coalition of attorneys general in the US.²⁸ ²⁹

Calvin Beisner writes that the attorneys generals’ actions are “a dead giveaway that you’re ignorant about climate science and related climate and energy policy.”³⁰

“[U]nlike in the case of tobacco’s health risks, there are innumerable and enormous holes in the case (not for human contribution to global warming but) for manmade global warming dangerous enough to justify spending trillions of dollars reinventing the world’s energy system to mitigate it, particularly when competing use of those trillions might bring far greater benefit,” Beisner addresses the attorneys general. And you, intelligent and learned all, are ignorant of those enormous holes.”³¹

The Cornwall Alliance lists the following signatories to its open letter:³²

E. Calvin Beisner
Charles Clough
Colonel John A. Eidsmoe
Christopher Essex
Neil L. Frank
Victor Goldschmidt
Rev. Peter Jones
Madhav Khandekar
Jamieson C. Keister
Kevin Lewis
Anthony R. Lupo
Vishal Mangalwadi
Tracy Miller
Ben Phillips
Shawn Ritenour
Chris Skates
Roy W. Spencer
Timothy Terrell
James Wanliss
Anthony Watts

December 7, 2015

Christopher Essex appeared at the United Nation’s Conference on Climate Change, COP21, in Paris, France with the Heartland Institute, the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to “hold a ‘counter-conference’ … called the Day of Examining the Data.”³³

Other notable climate science deniers that were in attendance at the “counter-conference,” included: Robert Carter, Willie Soon, S . Fred Singer, James Taylor, Patrick Moore, Wolfgang Müller, James Inhofe, and Christopher Monckton.³⁴

Watch Christopher Essex’s “counter-conference” presentation with the Heartland Institute, below (Christopher Essex’s presentation begins at 2:21:05):

March 25, 2015

Christopher Essex published an article in Breitbart where he supports the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s (GWPF) decision to criticize the Royal Society’s position on climate change.³⁵

“Scientists don’t need to be paid to oppose the ideas of climate orthodoxy, because those ideas are just so damn bad,” Essex writes. “There is no justification for acting like vicious badgers toward scientists. The response of some GWPF scientists to the climate orthodoxy shows that scientists do not need to be paid to have reason to question the climate orthodoxy. Its positions are scientifically very weak, not strong, and it is the dogmatists that are responsible for that weakness. If they want to employ the credibility of science to support their agendas, they must learn to treat scientists holding contrary views in a credible manner. Such scientists have an important and respected role to play in advancing science. Dogmatists, of course, don’t easily change, so this stalemate may well continue until intelligent laymen have had enough and push them off the stage. Meanwhile, we are still here, and we are not going anywhere.”

Judith Curry congratulates Essex for “the best defense of freedom of scientific enquiry that I’ve seen emerge from the Grijalva inquisition” on her blog Climate Etc.³⁶

March 1, 2015

Essex was listed as a writer/endorser of a Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) briefing paper titled “The Small Print: What the Royal Society Left Out“ that accused the Royal Society of “presenting a misleading picture of climate science.”³⁷ ³⁸

“As an example, the Royal Society addresses the question of why Antarctic sea ice is growing,” said Prof Ross McKitrick, the chairman of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council, “but in doing so they present a recently proposed hypothesis as if it were settled science. Failing to admit when the answer to an important question is simply not known does a disservice to the public. We believe that this new paper does a much better job of presenting the whole picture to the public.”³⁹

The paper was written/endorsed by the following “experts”:⁴⁰

February 25, 2015

Christopher Essex wrote an article in the Financial Post supporting prominent climate change denier Willie Soon (who was recently named a creditor in Peabody Energy’s bankruptcy filings). Essex describes the media as “fascistic” for “silly hit pieces” on Soon:⁴¹ ⁴²

“Those that speak out must endure vexatious, eristic tactics rather than scientific reasoning in matters from publication, to funding, to jobs,” Essex writes. “For example, my friend Dr. Willie Soon is under assault from activist groups. An army of human bots has been released to get him fired from Harvard’s Center for Astrophysics. He’s shared scientist’s skepticism publicly. Betraying acute ignorance, media pound him with silly hit pieces. Some perpetrators believe they fight for science, but they could not be more antiscientific, if not fascistic.

If there’s any chance at a rational policy on climate, two things must happen. First, intelligent laymen must take back the debate, by pushing currently out-of-bounds science back onto center stage. They must stop letting ‘experts’ do their thinking for them. Second, political attacks on scientists must be stopped. Those must be pushed out of bounds. Let’s begin by saving Willie!”⁴³

December 2014

Christopher Essex is a contributor to the book Climate Change: The Facts published by the Institute of Public Affairs and featuring “22 essays on the science, politics and economics of the climate change debate.” The Institute of Public Affairs, while not revealing most of its funders, is known to have received funding from mining magnate Gina Rinehart and at least one major tobacco company.⁴⁴

The book includes essays and articles from a range of climate change skeptics, with contributors including the following:

According to Editor Alan Moran in a post at Catallaxy Files blog on Climate Change: the facts 2014, Christopher Essex “points to the complexity of the scientific analysis of the climate, which has led to exaggerated claims by pseudo-experts. He suggests a need to whittle down the numbers and listen only to those with demonstrable qualifications but does not underestimate the difficulties of determining who these are.”⁴⁵

November 5, 2014

The Heartland Institute‘s “environmental science and policy experts” published comments following the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) release of its “Synthesis Report,” completing the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).⁴⁶

Christopher Essex commented in Heartland’s press release, writing that “the probabilities cited by [IPCC] aren’t scientific; they aren’t actual probabilities. They are just the opinions of fallible human beings dressed up to look scientific.” Essex also remarked that the “ludicrous echoes,” between the IPCC and the global media, which Essex believes to have a “unique co-dependent relationship,” continue to “make the news again and again as fresh as spring flowers.”⁴⁷

March 30, 2009

Christopher Essex’s signature is displayed alongside a full-page ad funded by the CATO institute that appeared in numerous newspapers including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune in 2009.⁴⁸ ⁴⁹

The advertisement responds to President Obama’s declaration that “few challenges facing America and the world are more urgent than combating climate change. The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear” by saying that “with all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.” It goes on to describe how “there has been no net global warming for over a decade,” and how global warming is “grossly overstated.”⁵⁰

March 8-10, 2009

Christopher Essex was a speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 2009 International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC2). He spoke on “Climate Change and the Laughter of the Gods.” (Video Below).⁵¹

DeSmog researched the funding behind the conference and found that sponsor organizations had collectively received over $47 million from energy companies and right-wing foundations, with 78% of that total coming from the Scaife Family of foundations.

See Christopher Essex’s powerpoint here (.pdf).

Heartland described the conference as “a platform for scientists and policy analysts from around the world who question the theory that global warming is a crisis.” One of the main purposes of the conference was to cast doubt on the findings of the most recent IPCC report.

February 2007

Christopher Essex was on the “writing team” for the Fraser Institute’s 2007 Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM). The ISPM was published shortly after the Independent Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Summary for Policymakers. According to the ISPM press release:⁵² ⁵³

“An independent review of the latest United Nations report on climate change shows that the scientific evidence about global warming remains uncertain and provides no basis for alarmism.

The ISPM’s conclusion is that “there will remain an unavoidable element of uncertainty as to the extent that humans are contributing to future climate change, and indeed whether or not such change is a good or bad thing.”⁵⁴

Other notable authors included:

December 13, 2007

Christopher Essex is a signatory of the December 2007 open letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.

The letter describes global warming as a natural phenomenon, and expresses how carbon dioxide is a “non-polluting gas that is essential to plant photosynthesis.” The letter further claims that the IPCC reports are “inadequate as justification” for implementing climate change policy.⁵⁵

November 2006

Canada’s Conservative government appointed Christopher Essex to the 21-member Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, which oversees research grants to Canadian universities.⁵⁶

Critics were concerned his appointment would weaken support for climate research. “If you put someone in who doesn’t believe in climate change and sees no urgency to fight against human-related climate change, you then skew the entire debate,” said New Democratic Party member of Parliament Nathan Cullen. “It’s a Republican-style approach where you fund the skeptics.”⁵⁷

2002

Christopher Essex and Ross McKitrick published Taken By Storm: The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming.⁵⁸

The book won the 2002 Donner Book Prize, a $10K award “paid for in part by the Donner Canadian Foundation, which contributed $20K toward writing the book in 2002.”⁵⁹

Affiliations

The Fraser Institute — On the writing team for the Independent Summary for Policymakers (ISPM) of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.⁶⁰

Publications

According to a search of 22,000 academic journals, Essex has published over 25 original research papers in peer-reviewed journals, mainly in the area of applied mathematics.

Essex co-authored a book with Ross McKitrick in 2002 titled Taken by Storm: the troubled science, policy and politics of global warming.

Science blogger Tim Lambert examined the book, and determined that Essex’s claims were based on miscalculations.⁶¹