AUSTIN — The CO2 Coalition, a group of 45 scientists committed to providing policymakers and the general public with accurate information about climate change, and Dr. Neil Frank, former director of the National Hurricane Center, sent letters to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offering to educate him and other Texas policymakers about the current state of climate science. The letters rebut the claims of a group of 27 Texas academics that Hurricane Harvey and other extreme weather events compel Texas to immediately take dramatic policy steps to address the supposed harms climate change.

” … there has been no statistically-significant increase in storms recorded during the one-degree global warming of the past century,” the CO2 Coalition letter states. Dr. Frank noted that there has been a decrease in hurricanes worldwide since 1970 and that the U.S. has seen an “unprecedented lull in major hurricanes in recent years.” The notion that storms are increasing in frequency and intensity and the planet warms is based on biased models and runs counter to what is being observed.

The CO2 Coalition also referred to their summary of research supporting their conclusion and offered to meet with Gov. Abbott and the 27 authors of the earlier letter on these issues.