The Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI) is an organization which concerns itself with issues related to carbon dioxide and global warming. It is based in Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, USA and was founded around 2007. It describes itself as:

a nonprofit institute of research and education dedicated to sound public policy based on sound science. Free from affiliation to any corporation or political party, we support the advancement of sensible public policies for energy and the environment rooted in rational science and economics. Only through science and factual information, separating reality from rhetoric, can legislators develop beneficial policies without unintended consequence

Unintended consequence

In the social sciences, unintended consequences are outcomes that are not the outcomes intended by a purposeful action. The concept has long existed but was named and popularised in the 20th century by American sociologist Robert K. Merton...

s that might threaten the life, liberty, and prosperity of the citizenry.

Staff

The organization's Executive Director is Robert "Bob" Ferguson, who was previously executive director of an organisation called Center for Science and Public Policy. He is also a former Chief of Staff to Republican

Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

 Congressmen Jack Fields

Jack Fields

Jack Milton Fields, Jr. , is a Texas businessman and a former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from a Houston-based district....

 (1981–1997), John E. Peterson

John E. Peterson

John E. Peterson is a Republican politician from the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. From 1997 - 2009, he represented the state's mainly rural and largely Republican 5th Congressional district in the U.S. House.-Biography:...

 (1997–2002), and Rick Renzi

Rick Renzi

Richard George "Rick" Renzi is a former American politician and was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives representing . Renzi has pending Federal criminal charges against him for his involvement in a land-swap deal. On April 19, 2007, the FBI raided his family...

 (2002). The chief policy adviser is Christopher Monckton

Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley

Christopher Walter Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is a British politician, public speaker, former newspaper editor and hereditary peer. Formerly a member of the Conservative Party, Monckton has been the Head of the Policy Unit for the UK Independence Party since November 2010. He was...

, a former special adviser to Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...

. The chief science adviser to the institute was 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...

, PhD an astrophysicist and geoscientist

Geoscientist

*For the Geological Society Magazine see Geoscientist *For Geoscientist see Earth science...

, a skeptic of man made 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 proponent of the theory that climate change is caused by solar variation

Solar variation

Solar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...

. Joe D'Aleo

Joseph D'Aleo

Joseph D’Aleo is a Certified Consultant meteorologist and co-founder of The Weather Channel. He was chairman of the American Meteorological Society's Committee on Weather Analysis and Forecasting. D’Aleo was the founder and is a contributor at Icecap website...

 is the institute's Meteorology Adviser. Further science advisers, as listed in 2011, include:

• Robert M. Carter
  Robert M. Carter
  Robert M. "Bob" Carter is an adjunct research professor in the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University, Queensland, and the University of Adelaide, South Australia. He is a geologist specializing in palaeontology, stratigraphy, marine geology, and environmental science...
  
  
• Craig D. Idso
  Craig D. Idso
  Craig D. Idso is the founder and chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change.He is the brother of Keith E. Idso and son of Sherwood B. Idso....
  
  
• William Kininmonth
  William Kininmonth (meteorologist)
  William Robert Kininmonth is a retired Australian meteorologist noted for his views as an opponent of anthropogenic global warming theory and for his frequent writings on the topic of climate change.-Education:...
  
  
• David Legates
  David Legates
  David Russell Legates is a Professor of Geography at the University of Delaware. He is the former Director of the Center for Climatic Research at the same university, and a former Delaware State Climatologist....
  
  

Publications

The Science and Public Policy Institute funded a film "Apocalypse? No!" intended to show errors in the Al Gore

Al Gore

Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....

 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth

An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...

. It shows Monckton giving a presentation to the Cambridge University Union

Cambridge Union Society

The Cambridge Union Society, commonly referred to as simply "the Cambridge Union" or "the Union," is a debating society in Cambridge, England and is the largest society at the University of Cambridge. Since its founding in 1815, the Union has developed a worldwide reputation as a noted symbol of...

.

The SPPI took an interest in the Climatic Research Unit email controversy

Climatic Research Unit email controversy

The Climatic Research Unit email controversy began in November 2009 with the hacking of a server at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia...

("Climategate"). Its position is elaborated in a 45-page paper released on Dec. 7th 2009 titled "Climategate: Caught Green-Handed!: Cold facts about the hot topic of global temperature change after the Climategate scandal", which concluded that global warming is a myth.