Robert Balling

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Robert C. Balling Jr. (born December 16, 1952 in Uniontown , Pennsylvania ) is an American geographer and professor at Arizona State University . He is known to the general public for his denial of the scientific consensus on man-made global warming and his participation in various climate denial organizations . In 2007 he was numbered among the dozen or so American scientists who most actively and clearly contradict the state of research on climate change .

resume

Balling studied geography and completed this course in 1974, initially with a bachelor's degree and a year later with a master's degree . In 1979 he received his PhD in the subject from the University of Oklahoma . From 1979 to 1984 he was an Assistant Professor in Geography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and later Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Arizona State University. From 1989 to 1998 he was Associate Professor at Arizona State University and director of the Climatology Office there. In 1998 he was appointed full professor in the same position, which he remained until 2004. He was then appointed professor at the School of Geographical Sciences, which is also part of Arizona State University.

Climate denial

Balling denies the scientific consensus on man-made global warming and takes the view, which contradicts scientific research, that global warming would have more positive consequences. Since the 1990s, he has been an expert on front groups and think tanks financed by energy companies that are fighting climate change, and has received six-figure research grants from companies in the fossil fuel sector for his research.

In the 1990s, Balling appeared alongside Sherwood Idso and Patrick J. Michaels as one of three key advisors to the Information Council on the Environment , a climate denial organization set up by the coal industry and, in particular, the Western Fuels Association , whose main goal was to make scientists appear apparent neutral speakers to reinterpret global warming from fact to mere theory. For them, he appeared on radio and television programs, among other things, where he claimed that no one knew whether global warming was a real problem and prepared the ground for the later contradicting scientific assertion that warming was actually not negative but have positive effects. He also worked with the Greening Earth Society , another front group formed by the Western Fuels Association whose core message was precisely that claim. In addition, he appeared several times as a witness at hearings for Western Fuels and other participating energy companies and associations, which, among other things, discussed whether the damage to the environment and health during energy generation (so-called external costs ) should be taken into account and what Western Fuels categorically refused.

He has been in contact with various companies in the fossil fuel industry and received more than $ 400,000 in research grants from them in the 1990s. Funds came from ExxonMobil , the British Coal Corporation , Cyprus Minerals and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as the German coal association . Balling has also been shown to have links with at least 5 ExxonMobil-funded climate denial organizations, including the Cato Institute , the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and the Heritage Foundation . He also worked with the Global Climate Coalition , another industry-funded lobby group, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute .

Together with other prominent climate deniers such as Hugh Ellsaesser, David Legates, Richard Lindzen , Patrick Michaels and Frederick Seitz , he is one of the signatories of the Leipzig Declaration . Together with Michaels, he also published two books on the subject of global warming, which were published by the Cato Institute, a think tank that is part of the Koch brothers' network and that denies human-induced global warming. In 1992 he had a book published by the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy . This organization is funded by the fossil fuel industry, among others, and received $ 355,000 from oil company ExxonMobil between 1998 and 2005.

Books

  • Robert C. Balling: The Heated Debate: greenhouse predictions versus climate reality . Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy 1992, ISBN 0-936488-47-6 .
  • Robert C. Balling, Martin AJ Williams: Interactions of Desertification & Climate . Oxford University Press 1995, ISBN 0-340-63217-8 .
  • Patrick J. Michaels , Robert C. Balling: The Satanic Gases: Clearing the air about global warming . Cato Institute 2000, ISBN 978-1882577910 .
  • Patrick J. Michaels, Robert C. Balling: Climate of extremes: global warming science they don't want you to know . Cato Institute 2009, ISBN 978-1935308171 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aaron McCright: Dealing with climate change contrarians. In: Susanne C. Moser, Lisa Dilling (Ed.) Creating a Climate for Change. Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change. Cambridge University Press, 2007, 200–212, p. 200 and especially footnote 2.
  2. ↑ Naomi Oreskes : My facts are better than your facts , in: Peter Howlett, Mary S. Morgan (Eds.), How Well Do Facts Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge . Cambridge University Press 2011, 136–166, especially p. 142 and 154f.
  3. ↑ Robert C. Balling Jr. . Dossier at Desmog. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b Maxwell T. Boykoff, Fight Semantic drift ?! Mass Media Coverage of Anthropogenic Climate Change , in: Michael K. Goodman, Maxwell T. Boykoff, Kyle T. Evered (Eds.) Contentious Geographies: Environmental Knowledge, Meaning, Scale . Ashgate Publishing 2008, 39-58, p. 48.
  5. ↑ a b Union of Concerned Scientists : Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air. How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco's Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science . January 2007, accessed July 14, 2019.
  6. ^ Peter J. Jacques et al .: The organization of denial: Conservative think tanks and environmental skepticism . In: Environmental Politics . tape 17 , no. 3 , 2008, p. 349-385 , doi : 10.1080 / 09644010802055576 .
personal data
SURNAME Balling, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balling, Robert C. junior
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American geographer
DATE OF BIRTH December 16, 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Uniontown , Pennsylvania