Claude Allègre

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Claude (Jean) Allègre (born 31 March 1937) is a French politician and geochemist.

1 Scientific work
2 Political career
3 Global Warming Opinion Recanted
4 See also
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Scientific work

Claude Allègre is officially of retirement age, but continues to perform academic work at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (Institute of Geophysics, Paris).

His important scientific work on geochemistry won him:

the Crafoord Prize for geology,
the Wollaston Medal of the Geological Society of London,
the Golden Medal of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

He is a member of:

French Academy of Sciences, elected member on 6 November 1995.
United States National Academy of Sciences (foreign associate)

In 1976, Allègre and Haroun Tazieff had an intense, public quarrel about whether inhabitants should evacuate the surroundings of the erupting volcano la Soufrière.

Allègre has accused proponents of anthropogenic, catastrophic global warming of being motivated by money, commenting that “the ecology of helpless protesting has become a very lucrative business for some people!” ^[1]

[edit] Political career

A member of the French Socialist Party, Allegre is better known to the general public for his past political responsibilities, which include serving as Minister of Education of France in the Jospin cabinet from 4 June 1997 to March 2000, when he was replaced by Jack Lang. His frequent outpourings of allegations against teaching personnel, as well as his reforms, made him increasingly unpopular in the teaching world.

[edit] Global Warming Opinion Recanted

Dr. Allègre has recanted his views on Anthropogenic global warming ""By burning fossil fuels, man increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere which, for example, has raised the global mean temperature by half a degree in the last century," As written 20 years ago in "Cles pour la geologie."

From Canadia National Post: "His break with what he now sees as environmental cant on climate change came in September, in an article entitled "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" in l' Express, the French weekly. His article cited evidence that Antarctica is gaining ice and that Kilimanjaro's retreating snow caps, among other global-warming concerns, come from natural causes. "The cause of this climate change is unknown," he states matter of factly. There is no basis for saying, as most do, that the "science is settled.""[1]