Michael Limburg

Credentials

• Dipl. Ing. (Engineering degree). [1]

Background

Michael Limburg is the Vice President and Deputy Press-speaker for the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). In his position he regularly attends EIKE‘s International Conferences on Climate and Energy, and regularly speaks with the media.

Stance on Climate Change

“At best, this conference [the climate conference in Copenhagen] will decide nothing. For there is no climate problem. Even if it actually […] is a warming caused by humans – which I doubt – [it] is not bad at all. A warmer climate is better for humanity [than] a colder [one]. We know from our own history: In warm periods there was abundance [while] in cold phases [people] starved […]” [2]

Key Quotes

“Eventually all these costs [for renewable energy] add up and in the end they get passed along to the consumer. Under the bottom line, consumers have to pay more and more, and for a lower and lower quality supply.” [3]

Key Deeds

November 23–24, 2018

Limburg was listed on the program for the 12th conference of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), also billed as the Heartland Institute‘s 13th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC13). According to a translation of the agenda, he spoke on “How credible are time series of historical climate data?” on November 24. [24]

March 2018

Limburg was one of several climate change deniers listed in “friend of the court” briefs offered as part of a case in which San Francisco and Oakland are suing fossil fuel companies over the costs their cities face due to climate change. [17]

As of March 19, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said he had received two of the briefs. One group included Soon, Christopher Monckton, David Legates, William M. Briggs, and Michael Limburg among others submitted by Heartland Institute’s Peter J. Ferrara. The other group included Richard Lindzen, Will Happer, and Steven Koonin. Koonin has advocated for a “red team, blue team” approach to debating climate science. [17]

“And why, he asked, did they wait so long to present their documents, limiting the time for others to respond to them?” ICN added.  [17]

InsideClimateNews noted that the judge requested that the groups of climate change deniers each file a statement by the end of the day on Tuesday declaring who paid for their research, whether they received support from anyone “on either side of the climate debate,” and whether any of them were “affiliated in any way (directly or indirectly)” with parties to the litigation. [22]

In response to the request, Limburg wrote: [23]

“I am elected by the members of the Europäisches Institut für Klima und Energie, which is scientifically skeptical on the climate-change question, which pays me no salary but occasionally meets expenses. I have received occasional fees and expenses to give speeches on climate change. I have received no funding for the research project on climate sensitivity, in which I have participated for the past year.”

The case is one of several in which cities have filed lawsuits against fossil fuel companies regarding knowledge about climate change, and damages related to to their products due to the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. [21]

Authors also included William M. Briggs, a statistician; Michael Limburg, vice president of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) that has co-hosted climate change denial events with the Heartland Institute; Dietrich Jeschke from  the University of Applied Sciences in Flensburg, Germany; and James Morrison, whose only listing is as an undergraduate in Environmental Scienes at the University of West Anglia. “It’s unusual to list an undergraduate student as a scientific expert, particularly in a brief related specifically to a tutorial on the scientific evidence underpinning a case,” Climate Liability News noted. [18]

ICN described the case—which included a “climate tutorial”—as an “an unusual arrangement, seemingly borrowed from patent litigation, where judges commonly hear initial testimony from both sides on pertinent scientific details,” would take place in a mock classroom and included a set of basic preliminary questions about climate to start the discussion. [19], [20]

Lindzen’s group summarized their message as follows:

“To summarize this overview, the historical and geological record suggests recent changes in the climate over the past century are within the bounds of natural variability. Human influences on the climate (largely the accumulation of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion) are a physically small (1%) effect on a complex, chaotic, multicomponent and multiscale system. Unfortunately, the data and our understanding are insufficient to usefully quantify the climate’s response to human influences. However, even as human influences have quadrupled since 1950, severe weather phenomena and sea level rise show no significant trends attributable to them. Projections of future climate and weather events rely on models demonstrably unfit for the purpose. As a result, rising levels of CO2 do not obviously pose an immediate, let alone imminent, threat to the earth’s climate.”  [17]

The other group, including Monckton and Soon, had their brief submitted by a Heartland Institute lawyer:

“There is no agreement among climatologists as to the relative contributions of Man and Nature” to observed planetary warming, they claimed. As for the consensus view, it “says nothing about whether anthropogenic global warming was, is or will be catastrophic.”  [17]

February 4, 2018

In January 2018, more than 200 scientists endorsed an open letter calling on the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) to remove climate change denier Rebekah Mercer from its board and to “end ties to anti-science propagandists and funders of climate science misinformation.” The New York Times reported that those among the AMNH letter calling for Mercer to step down were Michael E. Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and Katharine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. [14]

Limburg  was among a group of climate change deniers who responded with their own open letter, calling for the AMNH “not to cave in to this pressure.” The letter was signed by numerous individuals with ties to groups funded by the Mercer Family Foundation such as Will Happer of the CO2 CoalitionRichard Lindzen, a fellow at the Cato InstituteCraig Idso, the chairman of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. There are a number of signatories affiliated with the Heartland Institute, which has received over $5.78 million from the Mercer Family Foundation since 2008. [15]

The letter reads: [16]

“The Earth has supported abundant life many times in the geological past when there were much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It is quite likely that future generations will benefit from the enrichment of Earth’s atmosphere with more carbon dioxide.

“Make no mistake, the agitators are not defending science from quackery — quite the contrary!”

August 2016

Michael Limburg is listed as a “Founding Member” of group named Climate Exit (Clexit) led by climate change denier Christopher Monckton. According to Clexit’s founding statement (PDF), “The world must abandon this suicidal Global Warming crusade. Man does not and cannot control the climate.” [10], [11]

Desmog reports on how the group grew in the wake of the UK‘s decision to leave the EU. A key member of Clexit’s “60 well-informed science, business and economic leaders” is Hugh Morgan, a former board member of the Reserve Bank of Australia and former CEO of Western Mining Corporation with close ties to Australia’s Liberal party. [12], [13]

According to Clexit’s founding statement: 

“If the Paris climate accord is ratified, or enforced locally by compliant governments, it will strangle the leading economies of the world with pointless carbon taxes and costly climate and energy policies, all with no sound basis in evidence or science […]” [11]

November 30–December 1, 2012

Michael Limburg was a speaker (PDF) at the Eighth International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8)/Fifth International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5) sponsored by both the Heartland Institute and the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE). Limburg presented on a panel with James Taylor of the Heartland Institute to discuss the supposed “(Un)-Intended Consequences of Today’s Environmental Policies.” [4]

December 3, 2010

Limburg was a speaker at EIKE‘s 3rd International Energy and Climate Conference in Berlin. His speech was titled “’Saving the Climate & Energy Concept – Does it Fit?” [5]

December 4, 2009

Limburg attended and spoke at the Second International Climate Conference in Berlin – a joint effort of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), The Liberal Institute of the Foundation for Freedom, the Institute for  Enterprise (IUF), and the Confederation of Freedom Science. In an interview for the conference, Limburg describes man-made climate change as “a big lie.” [6]

March 2–4, 2008

Limburg was an endorser of Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change, a document presented at the Heartland Institute‘s 2008 International Conference on Climate Change. The document disputes the greenhouse ffect of CO2 and states “That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.” [7]

Affiliations

• European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) — Vice President and Deputy Press-speaker. [1]
• International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC) — Member, Policy Advisory Board. [8]
• Committe for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) Europe — Member, Board of Advisors. [9]
• Climate Exit (Clexit) — ”Founding Member.” [10]
• Alternative für Deutschland — Candidate for Bundestag (Germany), 2017. [25]

Publications

Limburg has written books promoting climate change skepticism. For example, Climate hysteria – what is it? published by TVR Medienverlag Jena in 2009. According to a search of Google Scholar, Limburg has only published one article in a “peer reviewed” journal related to climate/energy. His article is titled “Energy is the Key: Renewable Energy Problems in Germany: ‘Renewable’ Energies are not a Solution Rather They Increase Foreign Dependency.” His article was published in the controversial journal Energy and Environment, which has been criticized for publishing sub-par articles and for catering to climate change skeptics.

Resources

1. “Imprint,” EIKE. Accessed November, 26, 2012.
2. “Climate lie: Interview with Michael Limburg II Nothing But The Truth,” Unzensiertinformiert.de, December 1, 2009.
3. “Germany’s Green Energy Supply Transformation Has Already Failed!”, EIKE, January 25, 2012.
4. “8th International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC-8): V International Conference on Climate and Energy (ICCE-5). Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich, November 30 – December 1, 2012” (PDF) retrieved from eike-klima-energy.eu on November 24, 2012.
5. “3rd International Energy and Climate Conference (IECC),” Berlin Manhattan Institute.
6. “‘Climate change – a big lie’ – Michael Limburg (Eike) on climate change,” Unzensiertinformiert.de, December 21, 2009.
7. “ENDORSERS OF THE DECLARATION PRESENT AT THE CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK CITY,” ICSC. Accessed November 26, 2012.
8. “WHO WE ARE,” International Climate Science Coalition. Accessed November 26, 2012.
9. “CFACT Europe Board of Advisors,” CFACT. Accessed November 26, 2012.
10. “The Clexit Committee comprises” (PDF), Clexit.net. Archived.pdf on file at Desmog.
11. “After Brexit, Clexit” (PDF), Clexit.net. Archived .pdf on file at Desmog.
12. Graham Readfearn. “After Brexit, Climate Science Denialists Form New Group to Call for a Clexit,” Desmog, August 3, 2016.
13. “Hugh Morgan AO,” Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Archived February 22, 2002. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/1ObOB
14. Robin Pogrebin and Somini Sengupta. “A Science Denier at the Natural History Museum? Scientists Rebel,” The New York Times, January 25, 2018. Archived February 13, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/tAIv4
15. Graham Readfearn. “Climate Science Deniers Defend New York’s American Museum of Natural History From Calls to Drop Trustee Rebekah Mercer,” DeSmog, February 6, 2018.
16. mnh18-feb4-petitionletter (PDF – Untitled). Retrieved from Watts Up With That.
17. John H. Cushman Jr. “Climate Contrarians Try to Slip Their Views into U.S. Court’s Science Tutorial,” InsideClimate News, March 20, 2018. Archived March 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/9SVL6
18. Amy Westervelt. “Climate Denial Arguments Make Their Way to Federal Judge’s Science Tutorial,” Climate Liability News, March 20, 2018. Archived March 20, 2018. Archive.is URL:  https://archive.is/je7pf
19. John H. Cushman Jr. “8 Answers to the Judge’s Climate Change Questions in Cities vs. Fossil Fuels Case,” InsideClimate News, March 20, 2018. Archived March 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/9BYaQ
20. “SOME QUESTIONS FOR THE TUTORIAL” (PDF), United States District Court, March 6, 2018.
21. David Hasemyer. “Climate Legal Paradox: Judges Issue Dueling Rulings for Cities Suing Fossil Fuel Companies,” InsideClimate News, March 20, 2018. Archived March 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/6WXtQ
22. John H. Cushman Jr. “Climate Contrarians Try to Slip Their Views into U.S. Court’s Science Tutorial,” InsideClimate News, March 20, 2018. Archived March 20, 2018. Archive.is URL: https://archive.is/9SVL6
23. “RESPONSES OF THE NINE PROPOSED AMICI CURIAE 23 LISTED BELOW TO THE QUESTIONS ABOUT THEIR 24 PARTICIPATIONPOSED BY THE COURT ON MARCH 19, 2018,” United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. Filed March 20, 2018. Retrieved from DocumentCloud.
24. “Program – 12th International Climate and Energy Conference” EIKE. Translated via Google Translate. Archived November 23, 2018. Archive.fo URL: https://archive.fo/NndcT
25. “Ing. Michael Limburg,” Alternative für Deutschland. Accessed May 16, 2019. Archived May 16, 2019. Archive.is URL: http://archive.is/ZWMzG

Other Resources