December 14, 2020, Arlington VA – The CO2 Coalition, a research center made up of 60 leading climate scientists, energy engineers, and economists, is changing its leadership as the Biden administration prepares to take office. The Coalition informs the general public and policy-makers about the positive impact of fossil fuels and their carbon dioxide emissions on the environment, the economy, and public health, and the negative impact of mandates for expensive and unreliable wind and solar power.

Executive director Caleb Stewart Rossiter and chair Patrick Moore have completed two-year terms and will be replaced in January by Gregory Wrightstone and Will Happer. Dr. Rossiter is a former professor of climate statistics and mathematical modeling; Dr. Moore was a founder of Greenpeace and one of the first scientists to earn a Ph.D. in the field of ecology. Both testified before Congress in 2019, contesting UN claims of future climate catastrophe based on computer models. They cited, instead, current UN climate data showing no increases in rates of extreme weather, sea-level rise, or extinctions of species. 

Incoming executive director Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist, the author of a best-selling book exposing climate alarm, Inconvenient Facts and an Expert Reviewer for the U. N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. New chair Will Happer, one of America’s leading physicists, served as President Trump’s top climate adviser on the National Security Council. Dr. Happer is an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton and is the inventor of the sodium guide star that is widely used in astronomy. He also led the Department of Energy’s research office under President George H. W. Bush. Dr. Happer recently published a White Paper debunking the methane scare. He and his coauthor, W.A. van Wijngaarden, a distinguished laser scientist at York University in Canada, showed why methane emissions have only one-tenth of the warming potential of the already minimal forcing from carbon dioxide emissions. 

Dr. Rossiter and Dr. Moore, the outgoing executive director and chair, issued this statement:

“We are proud of the CO2 Coalition’s record of bringing science and economics to bear in the fight against energy policies that damage grid reliability and raise prices. Science shows that there is no climate crisis being driven by emissions of CO2, a mild warming gas and powerful plant food. As one of our members, Rupert Darwall, reveals in his history of environmental scares, today’s call for deindustrialization based on a climate crisis is identical to many earlier calls for deindustrialization based on fears that were eventually disproven. Under the leadership of Gregory and Will, the Coalition will continue to inform the American people about the threat to the environment and the economy posed by the Green New Deal.”