John Christy - Status and Views

Status and Views

In a 2003 interview with National Public Radio about the 2003 American Geophysical Union (AGU) statement, he said he is "a strong critic of scientists who make catastrophic predictions of huge increases in global temperatures and tremendous rises in sea levels". He added, though, that "it is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into irrigated farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the air, and putting extra greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate has not changed in some way."

In a 2009 interview with Fortune Magazine about signing the 2003 American Geophysical Union (AGU) statement, he said: "As far as the AGU, I thought that was a fine statement because it did not put forth a magnitude of the warming. We just said that human effects have a warming influence, and that's certainly true. There was nothing about disaster or catastrophe. In fact, I was very upset about the latest AGU statement . It was about alarmist as you can get."

In a 2007 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, he wrote: "I'm sure the majority (but not all) of my IPCC colleagues cringe when I say this, but I see neither the developing catastrophe nor the smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for most of the warming we see."

In a 2007 ruling in a trial relating to automobile emission regulation in Vermont, U.S. District Court Chief Judge William K. Sessions wrote, "Plaintiffs’ own expert, Dr. Christy, agrees with the IPCC’s assessment that in the light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last fifty years is likely to have been due to the increase in GHG concentrations." What Christy said in his testimony was, "You know, it's a statement that has lots of qualifications in it, so it's hard to disagree with." and "You saw me pause a long time because — this was six years ago. And the question was about what I thought six years ago."

In a 2009 written testimony to the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, he wrote: "From my analysis, the actions being considered to 'stop global warming' will have an imperceptible impact on whatever the climate will do, while making energy more expensive, and thus have a negative impact on the economy as a whole. We have found that climate models and popular surface temperature data sets overstate the changes in the real atmosphere and that actual changes are not alarming."