A French doctor of medicine (University of Paris) who became a venereal disease specialist among the soldiers in Vietnam and later in Africa. On his return to civilian life he moved into pharmacuetical public relations with SEDIMO (Nathan Group), and then Sterling-Winthrop while still editing a promotional magazine called "Projections Quarterly".

S Fred Singer became associated with him at some time after the formation of the Science & Environmental Policy Project (SEPP), and chose him to run a one-day European conference on handling hazardous waste which was being set up for the asbestos (and later the tobacco) industry. This conference was held at the Heidelberg Cancer Research Center in mid-1992.

At that meeting of about 20 selected scientists, Singer and Salomon presented the participants with a carefully-drafted motherhood statement in the form of a petition to politicians demanding that they listen to the advice of scientists before determining policies which effect the environment, health and the regualtion of untrammelled commerce,

This had almost universal appeal to scientists and it was dutifully signed by the gullible participants (and many other scientists later) and became known as the Heidelberg Appeal.

The term "Appeal" refers to the fact that it was presented to delegates and the media at the Rio Earth Summit in a way which suggested it was the concerted opinion of a large group of scientists determined to counter the claims being made by activists and the IPCC that the world's climate was changing.

It was, of course, nothing of the sort. But, in this case, the context of its presentation to the media determined the message -- and so thousands of Rio journalists, looking for a controversial story, suddenly discovered something better to write about than the boring consensus being forged within the conference.

They reported that the 'Appeal' was in support of 'sound climate science' and a rejection of Rio's 'junk science' claims of global warming and ozone depletion.

The deception lay not in the wording of the document so much as in the context of its presentation, and the media swallowed it whole. Newspapers around the world regurgitated the Singer and Salomon's implications as proof of a large body of climate-deniers ... of scientists who rejected the claims of the IPCC's atmospheric and ecological scientists that climate change was already becoming a problem.

So the clever deployment of this document set the public and political acceptance of climate-change back by about half a decade.

Salomon's International Center for Scientific Ecology was created to capitalise on the Heidelberg Appeal's success at promoting the 'junk-science' idea at Rio. After Rio, the tobacco and asbestos scientific lobbyists handed over the operation of the ICSE to a wider consortium of energy, chemical and pharmacuetical organisations, and they ran two major conferences (one in Paris, and another in Washington DC) promoting these ideas.

Salomon himself seems to have migrated to the USA to become a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of SEPP.

(Someone might like to follow up, and find out what he is up to today?)

[Some of these hot-links should work}

• International Center for a Scientific Ecology
• Heidelberg Appeal
• Candace Crandall
• S Fred Singer
• Science and Environmental Policy Project
• Global Climate Coalition
• Frederick Seitz
• William O'Keefe
• The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
• Thomas Borelli