Gordon E. Swaters

Swaters regrets signing “that damn petition”

Dr. Gordon E. Swaters, a Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Alberta, says that he was told he was signing a petition asking the federal government to devote more energy to research on climate change. Instead, the letter – given prominent play in the National Post – suggested that climate change is unproved and that any effort to create policy to address the problem would be “irrational.”

“I regret signing that damn petition,” Dr. Swaters said (April 18, 2006). The accomplished mathematician said he believes that “[t]here are still a lot of mechanics and dynamics about climate change that we don’t know about and a lot of subtleties that we need to unravel.” But, “signing this petition should not be seen as an attempt to indicate that climate change is not occurring.”