David Evans (Australian skeptic)

Dr. David Evans was described in a brief bio note in an opinion column in The Australian disputing global warming as a former "consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005". This article has been refuted online.

History & Background
A biographical note on Evans states that he "attended the University of Sydney for five years from 1979 where he did science and engineering, and then spent a further five years at Stanford University at Palo Alto in California, doing a PhD in electrical engineering ... After taking out his doctorate he worked for a year in Silicon Valley and then returned to Australia to write a book on the research he had done for his PhD. He had planned to spend a year or two writing, but during his writing he discovered "lots more interesting stuff and mainly did my own research until 1999". In the meantime, to support himself, he traded on the stock market and did some programming odd jobs."

According to his biographical note, Evans rhetorically describes himself as a "Rocket Scientist". (While Evans use of the term was rhetorical, one article on a website for the conspiracy-minded took it literally and headed an article about Evans claims "Top Rocket Scientist: No Evidence CO2 Causes Global Warming". While Evans has a PhD in electrical engineering, there is no evidence that he was ever employed as a rocket scientist. Evans explained this was a misunderstanding: "In US academic and industry parlance, 'rocket scientist' means anyone who has completed a PhD in one of the hard sciences at one of the top US institutions."

Evans wrote an article posted on the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute -- an Alabama-based free market think tank -- that in the late 1990's "lots of jobs depended on the idea that carbon emissions caused global warming. Many of them were bureaucratic, but there were a lot of science jobs created too. I was on that gravy train, making a high wage in a science job that would not have existed if we didn't believe carbon emissions caused global warming. And so were lots of people around me; there were international conferences full of such people. We had political support, the ear of government, big budgets. We felt fairly important and useful (I did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet!"

Related SourceWatch Articles

 * Global warming skeptics

Articles and Presentations by Evans

 * David Evans, My Life With the AGO and Other Reflections, Presentation to The Lavoisier Group 2007 Workshop 'Rehabilitating Carbon Dioxide', Melbourne, 29-30 June 2007. (Pdf)
 * David Evans, "No smoking hot spot", The Australian, July 18, 2008.
 * David Evans, "I Was On the Global Warming Gravy Train", Ludwig Von Mises Institute, May 28, 2007
 * David Evans, "Carbon Dioxide Not Responsible for 20th Century Warming", Presentation to the Heartland Institute's International Conference on Climate Change, March 9, 2009. (PowerPoint)

Other Articles

 * Tim Lambert, "The Australian's War on Science XV", Deltoid (blog), July 18, 2008.
 * Paul Joseph Watson, Top Rocket Scientist: No evidence CO2 causes warming, Infowars.com, accessed July 22, 2008
 * DeSmogBlog, Who is 'Rocket Scientist' David Evans?, DeSmogBlog.com, July 22, 2008
 * A Brief Biography of David Evans (Lavoisier Grp bio)