C.J.F. Böttcher

Prof. Dr. Carl Johan Friedrich Böttcher (also known as 'Frits Böttcher') was born in 1915. He started his study at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands) in 1932 and became in 1947 at the age of 32 a physical chemistry professor at the same university. He was also a member of the Dutch 'Scientific Council for Government Policy' ( WRR). Next to physical chemistry Böttcher also studied futurology and graphology.

Club of Rome
Frits Böttcher is one of the founders of the 'Club of Rome' of which he is since 1986 a honorary member. A few years after the foundation in 1968 of the 'Club of Rome' a network of National Associations grew spontaneously.
 * The first one came into being in the Netherlands as a result of an overwhelming public response to early drafts of Limits to Growth leaked to the Dutch press and presented on television; the book ultimately sold 900,000 copies in a country with a population of 13 million. Frits Boettcher, the head of the Dutch delegation to the OECD Committee on Science and Technology, tried to persuade the Club to build on this response and set up "The Club of Rome Association for the Netherlands" in late 1971.

After a long inactivity it was decided in 1988 to dissolve the 'Club of Rome Association for the Netherlands'. The 'Erasmus Liga', a similar organization in the Netherlands which was founded in August 1972 and since 1989 a member of the 'National Association for the Club of Rome', still exists. However, they let their domain (erasmusliga.nl) expire and Google has of that site only some cached pages of February 2004 and older.

Greenhouse effect
Frits Böttcher is in his country a well known skeptic about the greenhouse effect. Böttcher stated during a discussion on televion about the greenhouse effect that there was no carbon dioxide problem. Another member of that discussion asked him after the broadcast was over, "You do know that's incorrect, don't you?" to which Böttcher replied "Yes, but I am against nuclear power energy." 

Global Institute
After Frits Böttcher became in 1980 Professor Emeritus of physical chemistry, he changed his focus to the Global Institute for the Study of Natural Resources which he founded in 1976 and of which he is president and chairman of the board. This organization is not as global as the name suggests. It looks all members of the board are Dutch. According to a Dutch newspaper article published on November 26, 1997, this institute received funding from Shell, Bovag (association of car dealers and garages) and RAI (car producers and importers). Frits Böttcher was also a part-time research coordinator at the Royal Dutch Shell Group. 

European Science and Environment Forum
Frits Böttcher founded in 1994 together with Roger Bate and John Emsley the European Science and Environment Forum (ESEF). ESEF's claim that their only income was through the sales of their publications and that they didn't accept outside funding in order to maintain ESEF's independence and impartiality turned out to be a incorrect. In 1996, Roger Bate approached R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company for a grant of £50,000 to fund a book on risk, containing a chapter on passive smoking. One year later, the ESEF published ''What Risk? Science, Politics and Public Health'', edited by Roger Bate (ISBN 0750638109) which included a chapter on passive smoking.

Science and Environmental Policy Project
Frits Böttcher is a member of the Board of Science Advisors of Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). Like most other members of that board he also signed the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change. That declaration was the result of a conference in Leipzig in 1995 organized by the European Academy for Environmental Affairs and SEPP where Frits Böttcher was one of the speakers. 

Science and Society Forum
In October 1997 'The Global Institute' and the foundation Heidelberg Appeal Nederland (HAN) founded the 'Science and Society Forum' (SSF). Also the SSF looks no longer active.

Books

 * C.J.F. Bottcher, "Theory of electric polarisation," Elsevier, 1952
 * Carl Johan Friedrich Böttcher, M. Schneider, "Chemische Aspekte der Atherosklerose", Westdeutscher Verlag, 1966
 * Carl Johan Friedrich Böttcher, "Aspekte der chemischen und toxikologischen Beschaffenheit der Umwelt", Forum für Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik e.V., 1969
 * C.J.F. Böttcher, O.C. van Belle, P. Bordewijk, Arie Rip, "Theory of Electric Polarization: Dielectrics in Static Fields Vol 1", Elsevier, June 1973, ISBN 0444410198
 * C.J.F. Böttcher, P. Bordewijk, "Theory of Electric Polarization: Dielectrics in Time-dependent Fields Vol 2", Elsevier, April 1978, ISBN 0444415793
 * C.J.F. Böttcher, "Science and Fiction of the Greenhouse Effect and Carbon Dioxide", Global Institute for the Study of Natural Resources, 1992
 * Frits Böttcher, Helmut Metzner, "CO2, Klimabedrohung oder Politik?", Paul Haupt, 1994, ISBN 3258050376

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

 * Heidelberg Appeal

Related Links

 * "Een geboren dwarsligger," Milieudefensie, July 1996 (Dutch page)
 * "Eine neue Sünde der Menschheit entdecken," MUT, April 2, 1999 (German page)
 * "The Global Institute for the Study of Natural Resources," Science and Society Forum, 2001?
 * Hans H.J. Labohm, "Climate change: unravelling a dogma," Energy & Environment, January 14, 2002