Richard Elliot Benedick is President of the Committee for The
National Institute for the Environment, an organization that seeks
government funding for a new, ostensibly independent, scientific
agency -- The National Institute for the Environment. The NIE's
key mission is to improve "the scientific basis for environmental
decision-making" by insulating science from politics. While
insulating science from the political process may be a laudable
goal, the NIE would be unlikely to achieve it, given Benedick's
dedication to a decidedly left-of-center political agenda. He
was, for example, the U.S.'s chief negotiator of the Montreal
Protocol, the international agreement banning chlorofuorocarbons
(CFCs), manufactured chemicals commonly used in refrigerators
and air conditioners that have been blamed for destroying the
ozone layer. The U.S. ultimately signed the agreement despite
the absence of firm evidence at the time that CFCs had any impact
whatsoever the ozone layer (see Benedick quote below). Further,
even if there had been evidence of ozone damage due to CFCs, such
damage would not have been sufficient to justify the total ban
of CFC production, given the tremendous costs. Recent evidence
suggests that thinning of the ozone layers has little impact on
human health as ozone does not block UV-A rays that are believed
to be responsible for malignant melanoma, a deadly form of cancer.
Benedick has also served a Special Advisor to the Secretary General
of the 1992 U.N. "Earth Summit," where the Global Climate
Change Treaty was adopted, and as Special Advisor to the Secretary
General of the International Conference on Population and Development
held in Cairo in 1994. In addition, Benedick serves as a Senior
Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund, and honorary fellow of the
population control group, Population Reference Bureau.
Mr. Benedick received his Bachelor's degree from Columbia, a Masters
in Economics from Columbia and a Doctorate in Business Administration
from Harvard. He was also an Evans Fellow in Metaphysical Poetry
at Oxford. A career diplomat, Benedick has no formal science training.
He is author of Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Saving the
Planet, Harvard University Press, 1991.
Selected Benedick Quotes
"A global climate treaty must be implemented even if there
is no scientific evidence to back the greenhouse effect."
- Richard Benedick quoted by Dixy Lee Ray in her book Trashing
the Planet (1990)
"Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the [Montreal Protocol]
treaty was its imposition of short-term economic costs to protect
human health and the environment against unproved future dangers...
dangers that rested on scientific theories, rather than on firm
data. At the time of the negotiations and signing, no measurable
evidence of [ozone] damage existed." - Richard Benedick in
his book Ozone Diplomacy (1991)
"...the world's governments acted just in time to address
the critical problem of ozone layer depletion when they enacted
the historic Montreal Protocol in 1987." - Richard Benedick
writing for the Earth Times, October 24, 1993
"Don't worry about the blandness of the final [Global Climate]
treaty, because it has hidden teeth that will develop in the right
circumstances." - Richard Benedick quoted by The New York
Times, June 14, 1992
Version Date: February 21, 1996
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