Frits Cooper

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Frits Böttcher in 2007, photography by Wiebe Kiestra

Frits Böttcher (actually Carl Johan Friedrich Böttcher ; born October 17, 1915 in Rotterdam , † November 23, 2008 in The Hague ) was a Dutch scientist.

Böttcher was a founding and honorary member of the Club of Rome . Later he was best known for fighting man-made climate change as well as the greenhouse effect .

Career

Böttcher studied chemistry at the University of Leiden from 1932 to 1938 . In 1940 he submitted De diëlectische constante van vloeistoffen as a doctoral thesis. In 1947 he became professor of physical chemistry . In 1966 he was chairman of the WRR and in 1968 a founding member of the Club of Rome. Böttcher helped in 1972 with the publication of The Limits to Growth and founded in 1976 the Global Institute for the Study of Natural Resources (translated global institute for the study of natural resources ). In 1980 he finished his service in Leiden and retired, where he was made an honorary member of the Club of Rome in 1986 and in 1994 he founded the European Science and Environment Forum .

Organized climate skepticism

Böttcher appeared publicly as a so-called "climate skeptic" and denied the existence of the greenhouse effect , which he called a "myth". He published his position in various articles and opinion pieces. In 2020, the media reported on investigative research on his earnings, which appeared in the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant , among others . According to this, Böttcher received more than one million Dutch guilders (approx. 450,000 euros) from dozens of different companies in the period 1989–1998 in order to sow doubts in the public about the existence of man-made climate change . The most important companies that financed Böttcher's "Klimaskeptis" included the oil company Shell , the airline KLM , the German industrial and steel group Thyssenkrupp and the Dutch bank ING-DiBa . Some of the companies said they were unable to investigate or confirm the allegations because they were too long to do so.

Chess composition

Böttcher was also a lover of chess composition . As such, he created 20 chess studies between 1934 and 1942 and was a founding member of ARVES in 1988 .

Works (selection)

  • De diëlectrische constante van vloeistoffen . Luctor et Emergo, 1940
  • Chemical aspects of atherosclerosis , with M. Schneider. West German Publishing House, 1966
  • Aspects of the chemical and toxicological nature of the environment . Forum for Science, Economy and Politics V., 1969
  • Science and fiction of the greenhouse effect and carbon dioxide . The Global Institute for the Study of Natural Resources, 1992, ISBN 90-801436-1-8
  • CO2, climate threat or politics? , with H. Metzner. Paul Haupt, 1994, ISBN 3-258-05037-6

Individual references and sources

  1. ^ "Shell Papers": International companies funded climate change skeptics . In: Handelszeitung , February 22, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  2. ↑ Report: Corporations financed prominent climate skeptics for years . In: t-online.de , February 22, 2020. Accessed February 22, 2020.
  3. ↑ Het Nederlandse bedrijfsleven financierde negen jaar lang een klimaatscepticus . In: Follow the Money , February 22, 2020. Retrieved February 22, 2020.
  4. ^ John Roycroft : † CJF (Frits) Böttcher (17x1915-23xi2008) . In: eg 175, January 2009. pp. 49-50
personal data
SURNAME Cooper, Frits
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Böttcher, Carl Johan Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch scientist
DATE OF BIRTH October 17, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH November 23, 2008
Place of death The hague