John Christy - 321

How do we measure how distinguished a climate scientist is? Recently, in an LTE to this newspaper, a Professor from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, John Christy, was cited as distinguished. Indeed, at one point in his career, he earned the honor of being referred to as distinguished. Like most climate scientists, he acknowledges the planet has warmed. However, he splits with 97% of the world's climate scientists because he does not believe the earth's climate is very "sensitive" to the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, CO2. In opposition to the 97%, he thinks that if we continue to burn coal, oil, and gas, the earth will warm more, but not much.

Other climate scientists, just as or more "distinguished" than

Christy, have examined and found errors in his work.

 Who are the most respected scientists? Reuters assembled a list of the 1000 most respected climate scientists in 2021 (with updates available).

Reuters staff created a weighted system based on three criteria to compile this list. Here are the requirements.

#1. How many climate research papers had a scientist submitted to reputable science journals for vetting and publishing?

#2. If a scientist's work is respected, they get cited when their peers review it and find it meaningful. So, Reuters kept a tally of how many citations each scientist had earned.

#3. The third measure was the number of times a climate scientist's work is presented in mainstream media, Wikipedia, magazines, social media sites, etc.

The combined ratings gave Reuters a ranking system to determine the 1000 top climate scientists.

Did Professor Christy make the list?  No.  

There may have been a time when John Christy would have been a contender. He specialized in designing satellites for weather observation and was rewarded for his outstanding work.  In 1991, he was awarded NASA's Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and in 1996, he received a special award from the American Meteorological Society.

From there, in the science world, his star has fallen as he has gone on to make climate predictions from satellite data, which others, including NASA, have found to be inaccurate. The headline in the Guardian in 2017 regarding his work said, "More Errors Identified in Contrarian Climate Scientist's Temperature Estimates."

Since then, he has reciprocated by digging his heels in and then expanding his attacks against many mainstream scientists' opinions. Most of his contemporaries have disagreed with him in respectful tones. "Michael Mann, a climate researcher at Penn State University, said he likes Christy and considers him a friend but that his statements don't match up with the actual evidence about climate change. 

"John has gone on to play a contrarian role in general when it comes to the science and impacts of climate change, often downplaying the threat in a way that is not true to the actual scientific evidence," Mann said. "I wish he wouldn't do that." (Reuters ranked Michail Mann #37th in the world.)

Professor Cristy's contemporaries feel his emotional ties to Africans, to which he once ministered, have clouded his thoughts. He believes impoverished Africans can be lifted out of poverty by burning more fossil fuels.  

Here is how Katharine Hayhoe, (Ranked the 301st in the top 1000 climate scientists) sums things up. "Christy "is saying there's only one path to development, and the way we did it 300 years ago is the way you have to do it today. We just know that that's not true. It's like saying you need Model T Fords first before you can have electric cars, or you need a party line telephone first before you can have a cell phone," Hayhoe said. "Poor countries are already leapfrogging right over fossil fuels."

Tragically, projections for the future if we do not aggressively address climate change show that Africans will suffer the most from a quickly warming world.

Atmospheric scientist Kevin Trenberth, Christy's teacher/doctoral advisor, parted ways with him over his science. "He believes that any increase in the price of fossil fuels will hurt the ability of poor Africans to develop," Trenberth said in an email. "He has failed to include or comprehend that climate change hurts Africa as much or more than any other region because of drought and floods. Certainly, his heart is in the right place, with great empathy for the Africans he was with," Trenberth said, "but his brain is not." Reuters ranks Kevin Trenberth as the 13th best climate scientist in the world.

Even though the science world is at odds with Professor Christy, he is sought after by many fossil fuel-funded and right-wing communities, such as the George C Marshall, Cato, and Heartland Institutes. Particularly troubling is the fact that the Heritage Foundation often cites John Christy's inaccurate assessments. Currently, the Heritage Foundation is the foundation that crafted the anti-science, anti-democracy paper Project 2025, which they submitted to the Republican Party as a blue print to run the country.

Certainly, John Christy has contributed to advances in satellite technology, but does that mean he should be held up as an authority on climate change when so many of his contemporaries find his work flawed?

Reuters is one of the world's largest and most trusted news agencies. Founded in 1851 by Paul Julius Reuter in London, Reuters employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide.

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