Science & Environmental Policy Project


The Science & Environmental Policy Project is an advocacy group financed by private contributions based in Arlington, Virginia in the United States. It was founded in 1990 by atmospheric physicist S. Fred Singer. SEPP disputes the prevailing scientific views of climate change and ozone depletion. SEPP also questioned the science used to establish the dangers of secondhand smoke, arguing the risks are overstated.
SEPP's former Chairman of the Board of Directors is listed as Rockefeller University president emeritus Frederick Seitz, a former president of the National Academy of Sciences, now deceased.

SEPP's views

SEPP listed the following key issues in 2010:
On September 2, 1997, Singer said that "The possibility that global temperatures could rise because of an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a concern that needs to be monitored...But there has been no indication in the last century that we've seen anything other than natural climate fluctuations. Both greenhouse theory and computer models predict that global warming should be more rapid in the polar regions than anywhere else," he says, "but in July the Antarctic experienced the coldest weather on record."
SEPP was the author of the Leipzig Declaration, which was based on the conclusions drawn from a November 1995 conference in Leipzig, Germany, which SEPP organized with the European Academy for Environmental Affairs.

Rebuttals

SEPP's critics offer the following rebuttals to its claims:
In 2008, The Science and Environmental Policy Project completed the organization of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change as the culmination of a process that began in 2003. The NIPCC calls itself "an international coalition of scientists convened to provide an independent examination of the evidence available on the causes and consequences of climate change in the published, peer-reviewed literature – examined without bias and selectivity."
The 2008 NIPCC document titled Nature, Not Human Activity Rules the Climate: Summary for Policymakers of the Report of the Nongovernmental International Panel of Climate Change, published by The Heartland Institute, was released in February–March 2008. Singer served as General Editor and also holds the copyright.
Unnamed climate scientists from NASA, Stanford University and Princeton who were contacted by ABC News dismissed the same report as "fabricated nonsense.". In response, Singer objected to the ABC News piece, calling it "an appalling display of bias, unfairness, journalistic misbehavior, and a breakdown of ethical standards" which used "prejudicial language, distorted facts, libelous insinuations, and anonymous smears."