Richard S. Courtney

Richard S. Courtney is a Technical Editor for CoalTrans International (journal of the international coal trading industry) who lives in Epsom, Surrey (UK). In the early 1990s Courtney was a Senior Material Scientist of the National Coal Board (also known as British Coal) and a Science and Technology spokesman of the British Association of Colliery Management. 

Academic Degree?
Courtney is often refered to without any academic degree, even if others are on the same page, like the ESEF member list of 1998 where he is not listed as 'Academic Member' but as 'Business Member'. Even in a recent publication of Richard Courtney (August 2004 ) no degree is mentioned. There are however a few exceptions on Internet where he is mentioned as 'Dr. Richard S. Courtney'    or 'Richard S. Courtney, Ph.D.'

Greenhouse skeptic
Richard Courtney was one of the speakers at the conference in Leipzig in 1995 organized by the European Academy for Environmental Affairs and the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) which resulted in the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change. In his speech he stated that he couldn't find any negative sides of the announced global warming. Courtney was amongst the first group of people who signed the declaration that begins with: "As independent scientists concerned with atmospheric and climate problems, we...". After complaints that many people who were listed as those who signed it were no scientists at all, SEPP made a new list which no longer mentions Courtney. 

He was asked by SEPP in 2000 to join a briefing called "Climate Is not Warming - Has not Warmed in 60 Years" to represent the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF). During the briefing co-sponsored by the Cooler Heads Coalition, he claimed to be an IPCC "expert reviewer" and stated a lack of measured "global" warming. On the SEPP site is written about this briefing"
 * [Courtney] demonstrated that nearly all measured increases in temperatures have occurred in regions, for example Siberia, where data are sparse and not continuous, and are therefore doubtful. He speculated that the remote stations may be less well-maintained than the regularly checked stations in the U.S. and Western Europe.

The four-member panel at the briefing consisted of Richard Courtney (United Kingdom), Harry N.A. Priem (Netherlands), S. Fred Singer (USA), and Gerd-Rainer Weber (Germany).

Current Positions
Richard Courtney is:
 * member of the European Science and Environment Forum
 * acting as a technical advisor to several U.K. MPs and mostly-U.K. MEPs
 * contributing Technical Editor of CoalTrans International
 * chairman of the Southern Branch of a Trade Union (BACM-TEAM) affiliated to the U.K.'s Trades Union Congress
 * Advisory Board, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow