The European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF), now defunct, called itself "an independent, non-profit-making alliance of scientists whose aim is to ensure that scientific debates are properly aired, and that decisions which are taken, and action that is proposed, are founded on sound scientific principles." Typically this manifested itself in questioning the science upon which environmental safety regulations are based.

The Forum was linked, via shared staff (Julian Morris and Roger Bate) and a shared web server, to the International Policy Network

International Policy Network

The International Policy Network is a global think tank headquartered in the City of London. It defines itself as a non-partisan, non-profit organization, but has also been described as a "corporate-funded campaigning group"...

 and the Sustainable Development Network. The most prominent academic members were US scientists known for skepticism on global warming

Global warming

Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...

 and the relationship between Chloro Fluoro Carbon or CFCs and the ozone depletion

Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...

.

In 1996, Roger Bate approached R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for a grant of £50,000 to fund a book on risk, containing a chapter on passive smoking

Passive smoking

Passive smoking is the inhalation of smoke, called secondhand smoke or environmental tobacco smoke , from tobacco products used by others. It occurs when tobacco smoke permeates any environment, causing its inhalation by people within that environment. Exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke causes...

 http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/cgi/getdoc?tid=wov90d00&fmt=gif&ref=results&title=ENVIRONMENTAL%20RISK.&bates=515952606/2609, but the grant request was denied and the money was never received. In 1997, the ESEF published What Risk? Science, Politics and Public Health, edited by Roger Bate which included a chapter on passive smoking.

In 1998 the Academic Members of ESEF included Bruce Ames

Bruce Ames

Bruce Nathan Ames is an American biochemist. He is a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute...

, Sallie Baliunas

Sallie Baliunas

Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...

, Robert Balling

Robert Balling

Robert C. Balling, Jr. is a professor of geography at Arizona State University, and the former director of its Office of Climatology. His research interests include climatology, global climate change, and geographic information systems...

, Jack Barrett, C.J.F. Böttcher, Peter Dietze, Tor Ragnar Gerholm, Gerhard Gerlich, Sherwood Idso, Helmut Metzner

Helmut Metzner

Helmut Metzner was an eminent plant physiologist, Professor of Biochemical Plant Physiology at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, the founder of the European Academy of Environmental Affairs and a co-founder of the Weikersheim Think Tank.- Life and Works :Metzner studied biology, physics and...

, Patrick J. Michaels, William Mitchell, Harry N.A. Priem, Michel Salomon, S. Fred Singer, Willie Soon

Willie Soon

Willie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has testified before Congress on the issue of climate change He is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation...

, Wolfgang Thüne, and Gerd-Rainer Weber, while Richard S. Courtney and Michael Gough were Business Members.

Funding

According to Bate, the "vast majority" of the organizations' funding came from:

• May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust
• Marit and Hans Rausing Foundation

External links

• www.sourcewatch.org Sourcewatch page on ESEF.

Global warming skeptics
Ozone hole skeptics